RP COALITION RAILROADED AT OKLAHOMA STATE CONVENTION- mods please pin this one
Posted May 4th, 2008 by whosafraidofronpaul
output
Ron Paul supporters rock the boat at Oklahoma GOP Convention
Holly Shelves
May 3, 2008
The Oklahoma Republican Party held its state convention in Tulsa today, to elect delegates to the national convention, presidential electors and committee members to the Republican National Committee.
It was immediately clear that a coalition of Ron Paul supporters and John McCain opponents had a slight majority when the folks running the show wouldn’t allow a “roll-call vote” (basically a head-count) to settle a very close vote for who would be convention chairman of the day. It was by no means clear who won the yea-or-nay vote, and calls for a roll-call vote were denied. They would never explain why, and I regret that they were allowed to get away with that. This convention may have gone very differently otherwise.
There seemed to be quite a bit of stalling on the part of the convention leadership, and at about noon there was a motion to break for lunch (incidentally, this motion was made by a particularly vile Republican I know from past experience).
An hour and a half later, the convention reconvened with about 500 more delegates in attendance than before we left for lunch. I suspect that there was a large group of scared McCainiacs (there wasn’t much of a reason to be too scared, since Oklahoma delegates have no choice but to support McCain) who were busily calling everyone they could think of to come counter the Paul supporters. It’s interesting that so many delegates registered during this time, since registration had ended three hours earlier, and some people were turned away for showing up too late. I nearly didn’t get in myself. I was waiting in line to check in, when an official-looking guy stood in front of me and said they were cutting the line off there because it was getting too late. It was 9:00 am at this time. There were about twenty or thirty people behind me who probably went home, but two nice people allowed my convention-buddy and I to cut in front of them further down the line.
So it’s 1:30 pm, we’re back from lunch, and there are 50% more delegates. A heated and rowdy debate (there was rowdiness on both sides to be sure) ensued over whether the Executive Committee’s hand-picked slate of delegates ought to be voted for over the Ron Paul coalition’s alternate slate. We delegates voted by way of secret ballots, and the Executive Committee’s slate won by—you guessed it—about 500 votes.
Many of the delegates on the winning slate did not even attend their Executive Committee interviews, and many had not been in the process as delegates until this point. As far as I could tell, it was nepotism that guided the committee’s selections.
Ron Paul supporters did have one victory: the candidate they backed for National Committeeman won the majority of the delegates’ votes.
Read more at http://www.coupbymemo.com...
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It's Monday, and OK GOP
It's Monday, and OK GOP establishment still complaining about this weekend's convention, even though they won..
I'm waiting for you folks to
I'm waiting for you folks to realize the current party structure is rotten to the core and that they will do anything to exclude us. We need to create a new movement....like maybe the Sons and Daughters of Liberty.
what we need to do
is join the libertarian party and quit wasting our time trying to persuade idiots..
Time to Destroy John McCain
Stand by for "John McCain, A Real ..." PowerPoint Show, coming to an email address near you.
can't wait
to see it
Time to Destroy John McCain
Stand by for "John McCain, A Real ..." PowerPoint Show, coming to an email address near you.
Same story in Maine...
I was a delegate from Penobscot County.
The Maine GOP "leadership" (I use this term loosely) allowed limited discussion (and in many cases none at all) on everything that was voted on at the state convention. Delegate candidates were not given any time to speak, platform amendments were voted on without any discussion of the merits for/against the changes, even a candidate for the US House had his microphone cut off mid-speech. The party elite distributed a list of APPROVED delegate names that they expected "all good Republicans" to vote for. There was a huge McCain graphic at the top of the sheet. You must understand that this is a place where McCain received maybe 20%-25% support during our caucuses (Romney got 50% and Dr. Paul the rest). No effort was made to include RP supporters on this list (even though many lifelong party activists here support RP). A fancy "hollywood style" McCain Video was shown during the convention but an effort to allow a RP video was denied. They eventually agreed to show a RP video during the lunch recess on the second day (yes during lunch when nobody was in the convention hall). Even this video appeared to have been edited for content by the party elite.
Platform amendments based upon conservative principals and the language of the Constitution were voted down. Then, after the proposals were defeated, the very delegates responsible for this gave standing ovations to commentator Cal Thomas when he spoke of THE EXACT SAME THINGS during his speech to the convention body.
Republicans of all stripes left the convention with a bad taste in their mouths. "Those in charge" made no effort to solicit input from the grassroots level...they did not even pretend. There are many young activist here in Maine (who supported RP, Romney, Huck, Thompson and others) who are disgusted by the manner in which the party conducted business over the weekend. We are all committed to rebuilding the party from the ground up, and doing so in a manner that is consistent with the ideals that this party and this country were founded on.
To sum up my experience at the convention, I would have to say I felt like I was at a meeting of a powerful labor union. The labor boss told everyone exactly how to vote and what to do and say. And, even though most people there knew in their hearts that it wasn't the right thing to do, they did it anyway...
This was only possible because they had scared the average delegate with fanciful stories about "dangerous and disruptive ron paul infiltrators whose only goal is to ruin the party and cause chaos" and never allowed any of us (1/3 of all delegates) the opportunity to stand up and say to our fellow delegates "hey neighbor, look at me. i'm just like you. i don't wear a tin foil hat and i won't bite. all i want is fair representation at the convention for some good republicans who happen to support sound fiscal policy and the protection of individual liberties".
Oh well...the Maine GOP leadership is old and dying. We'll rebuild it into a respectable organization.
sounds like
you had it worse in maine
bump
bump
let's break the GOP
lets start filling civil suits against the GOP, if we don't win, we'll make the State GOP's fork out a lot of money. lets take a page out of their play book
Amen
to that.
What can we do to stop this from happening? whenever we make any progress, we are shutdown... whenever we speak up about it, we're "disrupting the process and destroying the GOP"...
I can't take it any longer. I almost feel like it's time the GOP had a taste of the bloody revolution that Jefferson was so adamant about.
Who can we get on our side? is there a fair elections bureau or some third party observers we can recruit to ensure the conventions are run fairly?
If this is happening at the state level, you can guarantee that it will happen in Minnesota in September.
Good work on the Committeeman nomination
We have to keep putting more Ron Paul republicans in power.
Does Your GOP Have A Judicial Committee?
Judicial committees usually consist of people chosen for their fairness in upholding the rules since factions never know when they'll be needed.
You should check and see whether you can file a complaint ASAP as there may be time limits. The votes of the late-comers ought to be invalidated.
IMissLiberty
i don't know
I don't think there's any way to find out for sure how the late-comers voted-- it was all done by secret ballot.
I do think a complaint may be in order about being denied a rollcall vote for convention chair.
Just the same
if they were cutting off registration at 9AM, people who came in after lunch to register shouldn't be allowed in. You can't have one rule in the morning, only to change it in your favor after lunch.
that's
exactly what happened.
You most certainly can
in today's GOP.. blah.
Seems like you don't actually need rules at all, unless they are something you can use AGAINST RP supporters.