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Title: GOP Intimidation of Ron Paul Delegates
Source:
LRC
URL Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/107597.html
Published: Mar 13, 2012
Author: Ryan W. McMaken
Post Date: 2012-03-13 12:19:56 by Hondo68
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Keywords: GOP central committees, employ intimidation tactics, keep Obama in power
Views: 2329
Comments: 4
In some places, such as Maine and Minnesota, Ron Paul is likely to outperform the straw polls in terms of proportion of delegates won. As Lew Rockwell has noted, here and here, Ron Paul activists are sometimes able to take control of the local machines. Sometimes, however, the opposite apparently happens. As The Washington Times reported on March 10th, Paul actually underperformed his vote tally in Wyoming with local caucuses over the weekend. If you've ever been a Ron Paul delegate, you know that the GOP central committees will employ every trick in the book to avoid having to seat Ron Paul delegates. They will freely ignore their own bylaws, apply rules in such a manner as to only exclude Paul delegates, and will liberally employ intimidation tactics through verbal abuse, and even physical manhandling of delegates. In the end, if everything else fails, they'll attempt to get you to switch your vote by begging you to be a "team player" and by claiming that Romney is electable and that your dissent will keep Obama in power. They did it in 2008, and some Ron Paul delegates switched their vote to the "electable" John McCain at the national convention, as I noted here. I described my own delegate experience in 2008 here. Trust me, they'll do everything they can to intimidate, harass or just plain exclude you. Be ready for it. The video shows what is probably a fairly typical experience for many delegates:
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
(Edited)
Probably not. I went to my precinct caucus in Washington State. There were: 2 strong Romney supporters 2 strong Paul supports 2 strong Santorum supporters 1 person who said he liked Paul but supported Romney because he could win 1 person who said the she liked Santorum but supported Romney because he could win My precinct had 2 delegates to the county convention. The county conventions will vote for people who go to the state conventions. The state convention will vote for people to go to the U.S. convention. The Romney/Paul and Romney/Santorum people are going to the county convention for my precinct. The two Paul supporters (including me) are the alternates, in case one or both cannot attend. Most caucus states have this bottom up process. No one is committed to voting for anyone. The problem here is that the news media is too stupid to report things accurately. Romney won this state, Paul came is second in that state... No!!! That is not the way it works on the ground. The presidential preference polls taken in caucus states are non-binding. They are not votes. They are preferences.
Can I do some simple math to illustrate? In my precinct's preference poll, Romney got 4 votes (50%), while Paul and Santorum each got 2 votes (25%). BUT, we only had two delegates going to the county convention. The 4 Romney voters voted for Romney delegates -- so, Romney got 100% of the delegates to the county convention.
That sounds so familiar. Now where have I heard that before?
Maybe they decided that they'd better not try any intimidation with you there, IOW your presence helped to kept them honest? Since your precinct went for Mitt, no intimidation was needed anyway from the GOP elite's standpoint. It's far from over, and you may get to experience some attempts at intimidation, if you're called in as an alternate. It ain't over until the fat lady sings.
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
Iran’s main drive for acquiring atomic weapons is not for use against Israel but as a deterrent against U.S. intervention -- Major General Zeevi Farkash, head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate
#2. To: hondo68 (#0)
Iran’s main drive for acquiring atomic weapons is not for use against Israel but as a deterrent against U.S. intervention -- Major General Zeevi Farkash, head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate
#3. To: hondo68 (#0)
claiming that Romney is electable and that your dissent will keep Obama in power
#4. To: jwpegler (#2)
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
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