Comment: Romney Campaign Fires Another IED At Maine’s National Delegation

by Michelle Anderson on Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 5:06pm

The latest battle in what the press has termed “Civil War” within the Republican Party in Maine was begun over the weekend when the Romney Campaign offered what is being termed “absolutely unacceptable” and “diametrically opposed to the very concepts this country was founded on” by delegates who espouse the concepts of liberty.

The Civil War began when Peter Cianchette, the Chairman of the Mitt Romney’s Maine Campaign, and Jan Staples, the former state GOP committeewoman who was voted out at the Maine State Convention, filed a challenge with the RNC, claiming that the duly elected National Delegates and alternates should not be seated, with the exception of the Governor, the only elected delegate who was not a Ron Paul delegate.

The latest IED was exploded when the Romney Campaign proposed the following compromise:

1. A majority of the National Delegates must waive their right to vote their conscience and sign a statement cementing that waiver. The Romney Campaign mandates that they must agree in writing that if Ron Paul is not on the ballot, the delegates will vote for Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention.

2. The Delegation Chair, who was legally and duly elected by the National Delegates, would not be allowed to speak to the press or announce the votes for Maine at the national convention. Instead, they must allow Governor Paul LePage or Maine GOP Chair Charlie Webster to handle all media on behalf of the delegation.

3. The delegates must waive their First Amendment rights, pledging to say nothing negative about Mitt Romney or anything positive about Barack Obama, especially -- but not only -- to the media.

4. If these conditions are met, the duly elected GOP National Delegates would be allowed to be seated at the Convention, and to sit in their legally assigned committees “without barrier.”

5. Further, if the Delegation waives their rights to conscience and speech, “the contest brought by Jan Staples and Peter Cianchette will be withdrawn.”

The delegation, after meeting Monday evening, voted unanimously to decline the offer, opting instead to keep the rights which God gave them and which the Constitution of the United States protects for them."

Interestingly, Monday was the 67th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima.