Iowa's First District Ignores Rules & Censors Ron Paul Speaker

Dubuque, IA -
Twelve counties make up Iowa's 1st Congressional District. Ron Paul supporters and good conservative Republicans turned out with dozens of signs throughout the entrance to the Great River Center and Hall. In the interest of generating a dialog that will bring the Republicans back to their true conservative roots, I prepared three different flyers and distributed 600 of them on all the chairs.

1) Comprehensive Economic Revitalization Plan
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/Prosperity/
(a document that actually cites what a candidate will do with associated legislation to create economic prosperity -- not one shred of information about McCain or what he will do to help our economy to be found anywhere)

2) My editorial from Dec in the River Cities Reader
http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=vi...

3) The FEC's Letter to John McCain seeking clarification on leveraging a private loan with the promise of Matching Campaign funds.
http://www.fec.gov/press/press2008/FECtoMcCain.PDF
(more links available here: http://www.fec.gov/press/press2008/20080221mccain.shtml)

Originally told no, Michael Elliott pressed on and established a table for Ron Paul information with signage right at the entrance to the lobby and credentials area.
Robust friendly dialogs broke out for over an hour amongst various county volunteers, all collegial and open minded. Lots of recognition for Dr. Paul's integrity true conservative voting record and consistent views. Not one person exclaimed or extolled a single statement about John McCain that I spoke to, prior to the opening ceremony.

At 10 a.m., Iowa's First Congressional District got started under a cloud of hypocrisy and censorship. Bill Dix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dix), chair for the convention disallowed Thomas Rutherford to speak on behalf of presidential candidate Ron Paul citing, "He is not a candidate, John McCain is our candidate." When Mr. Dix thought Mr. Rutherford, a military veteran, was actually going to speak on behalf of John McCain, he allowed Rutherford to take the mic. As soon as he began speaking about Ron Paul, he ruled him out of order and would not let him speak. I objected to the consideration of the question, which forced a vote for or against Dix's ruling of Rutherford out of order.

Rule IV of the Convention, which states:
IV. Convention Speakers
Federal and statewide elected officials and candidates, or their official representatives, may be recognized and allowed three minutes to speak.

Three opposed to the ruling and three in favor of the ruling were allowed to speak.
Those who voted to censor Rutherford from speaking, kept stating like lemmings that "John McCain has our nomination" to the din of delegates yelling out, "Not yet he isn't."
The convention wasted 15 minutes on a rule of order while they could have listened to Rutherford for 3 minutes. "Let him talk," folks yelled out.
Dix would have none of it. The vote was called and passed upon a raise of the hands by 2/3. Dix reiterated that Ron Paul is not a candidate.

The convention moved onto the committee reports, missing any chance for any inspiration or substantive perspective. The sargeant at arms came by to check my credentials.

Lesson learned, if you don't have 2/3 support in the room and if you have a chair at your convention who has blinders on like Bill Dix, your best bet is to quietly get your Ron Paul supporters elected to the rules, credentials committees and national delegates.

One bright spot in the proceedings so far is that the published rules were approved, of which rule VII states: "No county shall be allowed to vote unit rule."
Referring to the GOP's rules linked here:
http://www.gop.com/About/Rules31-41.htm
RULE NO. 38
Unit Rule: No delegate or alternate delegate shall be bound by any attempt of any state or congressional district to impose the unit rule.
Which in laymen's terms means, no delegate shall be bound to vote for a candidate based on preference voting, but shall be able to vote as they wish.

Never give up. Never surrender.