Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Tuesday, 28 August 2012 21:30

RNC Disenfranchises Paul Delegates; Rigs Rules to Nominate Romney

Written by Joe Wolverton, II

Drowning out shouting Ron Paul supporters is not an easy thing to do. Republican delegates voting for Mitt Romney found this out Tuesday as Paul’s contingent chanted “Point of Order” and “Let Him Speak” as they witnessed the rewriting of the GOP rules, clearing the way for the unchallenged coronation of the now-official Republican nominee for president — Mitt Romney.

The RNC’s rule change effectively disenfranchised Republicans supporting anyone other than the Establishment’s man and left 10 of Maine’s 24 delegates locked out of the process, preventing them from casting votes for Ron Paul.

Railroaded and rejected, the unseated Maine delegates walked out of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, leaving the convention in the hands of the predetermined winner and his proxies.

“It’s a disgusting, disgusting display of a hostile takeover from the top down,” said Maine delegate Ashley Ryan, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. “It’s an embarrassment,” she’s quoted as saying.

Maine wasn’t alone in expressing its displeasure and disgust at the RNC’s pro-Romney rule manipulation.

Wayne Terhune, chairman of the Nevada delegation, reported that his state joined at least four others in submitting to the secretary of the convention, Kim Reynolds, valid and timely documents nominating Ron Paul.

“We are excited to get Dr. Paul nominated,” Terhune said.

“Congressman Paul’s message of limited, Constitutional government, sound foreign policy, and personal liberty needs to be heard on this convention floor.”

Minnesota delegate Gary Heyer confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that his state joined Nevada, Minnesota, Iowa, Oregon, Alaska, and the Virgin Islands in submitting the forms to Reynolds.

The Los Angeles Times also reported:
Gary Heyer, a delegate from Minnesota, confirmed that his state was among those submitting papers showing a majority of delegates favoring Paul. Their goal, he said, is simply “to get him into nomination, so everybody here has a choice. If they vote for Romney and he's democratically elected, then he's democratically elected. We just want a choice.”

Disregarding the nominating rule and the Ron Paul delegates’ adherence thereto, when the roll call was read only the votes for Mitt Romney were announced. The nomination of Ron Paul was ignored in open and hostile violation of the RNC’s rules governing the presidential nomination process. No explanation. No chance for appeal. No recourse.

According to RNC Rule 40(b) in effect until Tuesday’s revisions:

Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a plurality of the delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination.

Ron Paul unquestionably qualified for nomination under this rule, but he was denied placement on the ballot — and an opportunity to address the convention on behalf of his nomination — in what amounts to a total takeover of the Republican Party by the RNC and Mitt Romney.

Additional rule changes all but guaranteed that in the future the RNC will not allow itself to be embarrassed by “grassroots” candidates.

Not only did the RNC rob Ron Paul of delegates he won fairly at the Maine state convention, it prevented any who follow in his footsteps from winning any delegates in the first place.
According to the revised Rule 16, every state must amend its nominating process to ensure that their delegations are bound to vote in accordance with the winner of the popular vote as cast at state caucuses or primaries.

Another newly adopted rule — Rule 12 — empowers the RNC to bend the rules to suit their needs at any time without having changes approved at the quadrennial convention. This unprecedented revision places the control of the GOP in the hands of the Establishment candidate without suffering the inconvenience of listening to dissenting voices.

Prior to the roll call that would formally confirm the nomination of Mitt Romney for president, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus announced the results of the voice vote on the accepting of state delegation credentials as Paul supporters chanted “Seat them now! Seat them now!”

A Reason magazine blog reports that “boos rained down on the floor,” but the wheels were in motion and nothing would slow their roll toward Romney’s nomination.

Having successfully rammed the unseating of the Maine delegation down the throats of party members, House Speaker John Boehner than called for a voice vote on the revised RNC rules that will govern the party’s nomination process in 2016.

Despite what many report as an equal volume of “ayes” and “nays,” the parliamentarian announced the acceptance of the rules. Fait accompli.

Dailypaul.com reported that the final delegate vote count was 2,061 for Mitt Romney; 190 for Ron Paul; nine for Rick Santorum; one for Buddy Roehmer; one for Jon Hunstman; one for Michele Bachmann; and 18 abstentions.

At least one delegate from each of the following states voted for Ron Paul: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The Virgin Islands cast one vote for Dr. Paul, as well.

Although the events at the Republican convention were reminiscent of the electoral practices of the Soviet Union, circa 1980, where premiers were routinely re-elected by 99.9 percent of voters, Ron Paul told Fox New’s Neil Cavuto that “we knew what to expect.”

At his “We are the Future” rally held at the Sun Dome on Sunday, Paul expressed the same opinion of the party’s predetermined presidential nomination.

“They’ve learned how to bend rules, break rules, and now they want to re-write the rules!” the icon of the liberty movement told the nearly 10,000 devotees gathered to hear him speak.

Finally, regarding the Romney-Ryan nomination, Ron Paul reaffirmed that he has “not endorsed the ticket,” adding “I endorse the principles I’ve been talking about for a long time.”

Sadly, in the wake of the RNC’s disregard and dismantling of party rules and disenfranchising of duly elected delegates, there seems to be little room in the Republican Party for Dr. Paul, his principles, or the millions of Americans who cherish them.

^{Photo: AP Images}

^{RNC Disenfranchises Paul Delegates; Rigs Rules to Nominate Romney}

Tuesday, 28 August 2012 16:35

Boehner: No One Reads GOP Platform

Written by Michael Tennant

Amid all the cheers and jeers for the 2012 Republican Party platform, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) let slip the truth about that document: He hasn’t read it, and he doesn’t know anyone who’s ever read it or any other platform.

At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast August 27, Human Events’ John Gizzi asked Boehner about his comfort level with the recently drafted GOP platform.

“The Republican platform is circulating about in different copies, online, in print,” said Gizzi. “Based on the reports you’ve seen, is this a good document to run on fully, and in particular, the parts about auditing the Federal Reserve, number one, and the review of government agencies as to their efficiency without calling for shutting them down. Are those things you feel that Republican House members can run on comfortably?”

Boehner’s response: “Well, I have not seen the platform, but from every indication that I’ve heard I don’t see any major changes in this platform from what we have had in the past. And if it were up to me I would have the platform on one sheet of paper. Have you ever met anybody who read the party platform? I’ve not met ever anybody.”

This, to use Michael Kinsley’s definition of the word, is a gaffe: when a politician inadvertently speaks the truth. For all the haggling over the details of the Republican platform — CNSNews.com writes that “some activists work for months just to win the right to attend the convention” and influence the platform — the fact is that no one of any consequence in the party reads, much less adheres to, the party’s statement of principles. It exists to convince the grassroots that the party leadership is listening to their concerns and intends to use them as a guide for formulating policy. In practice, however, it is largely ignored.

For example, every GOP platform since 1980 has called for the passage of a human life amendment to the Constitution and the restriction of taxpayer funding of abortion. Yet no such amendment has ever come close to passing Congress in the last 32 years; and Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, continues to receive generous federal subsidies, including $2.5 billion during the presidency of “pro-life” Republican George W. Bush, six years of which coincided with GOP control of one or both houses of Congress.

As early as 1996, Republicans urged the “elimination of the Departments of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Education, and Energy, and the elimination, defunding or privatization of agencies” such as “the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Legal Services Corporation.” Again, despite GOP majorities in Congress and eight years of the Bush administration, every one of those departments and agencies remains in existence — and with a larger budget.

This is not to say that elected officials never do what their platforms say they will do. The 2000 Republican platform called for passage of the American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act, and Bush and his fellow Republicans in Congress made it a reality three years later, helping to set the stage for the housing crisis — one instance in which ignoring the platform would have been a good idea.

Nevertheless, Republican voters ought not be deluded into thinking that the high-flown statements of principle in the platform will have any real bearing on the policies of a Romney administration or a Republican Congress. Nods to auditing the Fed and considering a gold-based currency are clearly intended to attract disaffected Ron Paul supporters, whose concerns will most likely be discarded the moment the polls close on Election Day. (Witness the chicanery by party elites to prevent Paul delegates even from being seated at the convention and to head off any future challenges to the party establishment.) The platform, in short, is for show. As Boehner said, no one in Washington ever reads it, let alone uses it as a guide to policy.

One more thing: Boehner, as mentioned above, suggested that the platform ought to consist of a single page. “I was on this kick about, oh, I don’t know, at least 8 or 12 year ago,” he told Gizzi. If the platform were just one page long, he argued, Americans “might be willing to read it.” But as CNSNews.com points out, “the 48-page ‘A Pledge to America’ that [Boehner] and other House Republican leaders released before the 2010 election, included an introduction that all by itself was two pages long.”

The house speaker, it seems, pays about as much attention to his own pronouncements as he does to the party platform.

Boehner: No One Reads GOP Platform

Romney & RNC betrayal of principles reverberates through blogosphere

Submitted by Kathleen Gee on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 12:11
Ron Paul 2012

Conservative and Tea Party blogs are on fire about the past 48 hours' worth of betrayals by the RNC and the Romneycare campaign.

A few of them have started to point out that they now understand what all those "Paulbots" felt like during the primaries.

Now is the time to build coalitions!

From Goodbye, GOP! « The Liberty Zone (warning, NSFW language)

The noxious slimebags pushed through their little power play, with GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn Goebbels declaring that “this has been a great exercise in grass-roots” and that GOP stands for “Great Opportunity Party.”

Opportunity to do what, exactly?

Cheat, and push through a candidate that stands for exactly nothing?

Impose their chosen boy on the rest of the country, giving us yet another shit sandwich and chuckling that the idiot populace will continue to reward them with their votes, merely because they have an “R” behind their name, regardless of the fact that he is a substandard candidate?

Silence conservative opposition?

Silence pro-liberty opposition?

Do they think this will win them the love of the electorate?

Whom am I kidding? Most Americans don’t get it, and don’t want to get it. It’s much easier to just vote straight party ticket and pretend they’re oh-so-civic minded.

You know what? At least Obama supporters, delusional and ignorant though they may be, stand for something. Granted, it’s a Marxist, redistributionary something. But they stand on their principles, warped and evil though they may be.

Republicans merely roll over and scream at the tops of their lungs about their lofty ideals.

But in the end, they’re still the party of stupid.
I can only hope that more and more people realize what frauds you are, GOP. And here’s hoping they shun you for it.

When the country crumbles into shambles around us, the Democrats won’t be responsible.

YOU WILL!

Go to hell!

Romney & RNC betrayal of principles reverberates through blogosphere | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Revolution

Four illegally unseated Maine delegates update us all on what REALLY went down in Tampa yesterday

Submitted by SteveMartin on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 10:02Daily Paul Liberty Forum

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=...

They begin joining us a few minutes into the show this morning.

Enjoy...

For the Republic and Its Creator,
Steve Martin
Host, The Aroostook Watchmen Radio Show
Over The Constitutional Radio Network

780 AM in Monticello, 1700 AM in Lewiston, 88.1 FM in Westbrook, 88.1 FM in Orono, 96.5 FM in Brewer, 96.5 FM in Bangor, Maine.
mepatriot@juno.com
207-532-3635
AroostookWatchmen.com

Four illegally unseated Maine delegates update us all on what REALLY went down in Tampa yesterday | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Revolution

Rumor: Delegates to Walk-out on Romney Thus. night

Submitted by Yvonne Kelly on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 11:58
Daily Paul Liberty Forum

Anybody got anything on this?

Interesting Rumor « LewRockwell.com Blog

Rumor: Delegates to Walk-out on Romney Thus. night | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Revolution

GOP Commits Suicide By Nominating Romney and Ignoring Ron Paul

Submitted by CatalinaLovesRonPaul on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 08:25
Daily Paul Liberty Forum



GOP Commits Suicide By Nominating Romney and Ignoring Ron Paul | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Revolution

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

Rumor: Delegates to Walk-out on Romney Thus. night

Submitted by Yvonne Kelly on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 11:58
Daily Paul Liberty Forum

Anybody got anything on this?

Interesting Rumor « LewRockwell.com Blog

Rumor: Delegates to Walk-out on Romney Thus. night | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Revolution

this was posted about yesterday and I posted something as well further on down the pages from yesterday...can't find anything else so far but it could happen the whole convention after what transpired yesterday with "boner and peidpot" and I's had it thingy!!!!

August 28, 2012, 2:15 p.m.
TAMPA, Fla. — Ron Paul supporters at the Republican National Convention erupted in fury Tuesday over decisions that weakened their delegate count and other rule changes that will make it harder for non-establishment candidates in future elections.


Country Weekly Forums :: View topic - Ron Paul supporters walk out of GOP convention

this with video at the link

WGME 13 - News - Ron Paul delegates from Maine walk out of Republican National Convention


Ron Paul delegates from Maine walk out of Republican National Convention Members of Maine`s delegation, along with the 10 Ron Paul delegates who
lost their seats at the convention, staged a protest at the Republican
National Convention short time ago on the convention floor, and that
quickly spread.

While former New Hampshire governor John Sununu

August 29, 2012

HOT: Ron Paul Left Tampa Yesterday

Posted by Lew Rockwell on August 29, 2012 10:49 AM

Ron, Carol, and one of their granddaughters left the GOP snake pit yesterday afternoon, but the State was not yet through with them.

At the little airport in Clearwater, 8 TSA agents descended on them and ordered them not to board their private plane.

First, the pilots, the airplane, and the passengers would have to be screened in great detail, because Romney might be nearby.

After a long examination of the pilots and their credentials, the agents said they had to check the plane for explosives.

One of the pilots noted that the plane, full of aviation fuel, was already a bomb.

Then Carol Paul, who has a pacemaker, refused to be screened, and an aide started taking video of the whole rotten process.

At that point, the TSA backed down and let them through, to Texas and freedom.

HOT: Ron Paul Left Tampa Yesterday « LewRockwell.com Blog

"RIGGED" The Perfect Mitt Romney Graphic For Tampa

Submitted by PollMan on Fri, 08/24/2012 - 23:07
Art

This would make the perfect graphic in protest of what has happened the last 2 days.

Please spread in emails/facebook.

An ABSOLUTE MUST for T-Shirts or Signs/Banners for the sign wave.


http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn...

"RIGGED" The Perfect Mitt Romney Graphic For Tampa | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Revolution

Romney's "RNC Power Grab": What Really Happened


By Dean Clancy on August 29, 2012




The noes clearly had it, but the party bosses gaveled the dissenters down anyway.

Yesterday, the Republican National Committee in Tampa adopted some rules changes that shift power from the state parties and the grassroots to the RNC and the GOP presidential nominee. Former Governor John Sununu of New Hampshire touted the new rules as providing “a strong governing framework” for the party over the next four years. But in fact the the new rules should be very troubling and disappointing to conservative grassroots activists, because they move the national Republican Party away from being a decentralized, bottom-up party toward becoming a centralized, top-down party.
The Romney rules effectively disenfranchise grassroots delegates, and will thus tend to weaken and splinter the party over time. They specifically represent a blow to the Tea Party and the Ron Paul movement, and force grassroots conservatives of all stripes to contemplate their future within the GOP.
Party sage and long-time RNC member (and conservative activist) Morton Blackwell led a last-minute effort to stop the changes -- an effort the FreedomWorks For America strongly supported, together with Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Phyllis Schlafly and RNC for Life also got involved, while Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh helped sound the alarm.
But the Romney camp and RNC insiders won the day, successfully imposing their will with the help of their control of the gavels and superior knowledge of the process, and perhaps some dirty tricks. The conservative “rebels” won the moral victory, however, taking their fight to the Rules Committee and the full Convention floor and arguably winning the voice vote there to stop the rules, only to be gaveled down by Speaker John Boehner.

Yesterday’s fight offers a sobering glimpse of what life will be like for conservatives in a Romney Administration. It proves once again that sometimes we have to beat the Republicans before we can beat the Democrats.
In Terms of Substance
Last Friday, August 24th, longtime GOP lawyer and Romney advisor Ben Ginsberg surprised Rules Committee members by proposing three basic changes clearly intended to head off a conservative challenge to President Romney and/or tamp down the Tea Party and Ron Paul movements in 2016.
The proposed changes would do two main things:
1. Amend existing Rule 12 to hand national party officials, for the first time, the power to change the party's rules between national conventions, which take place every fourth year. Three-fourths of RNC members must approve a proposed change for it to take effect. This is unprecedented. It would enable top GOP officials to circumvent rules adopted by state and grassroots leaders at the National Convention. One can imagine how it might be used to shape and control the delegate-selection process to the advantage of insiders and special interests.
2. Amend existing Rule 15 to allow the presumptive presidential nominee to “disavow” duly elected delegates and force state parties to hold new elections to replace any delegate or alternate deemed unacceptable by the presumptive presidential nominee. One can imagine the influence this change would give a presumptive nominee over any delegate that doesn’t toe the line. He could, in effect, choose the people who are to choose him. It’s not hard to imagine the temptation a campaign would feel to use this power to intimidate delegates and to reward friends, supporters, and campaign contributors. The proposal also contained a provision altering the method of allocating delegates, in order to front-load and shorten the primary calendar.
Unfortunately, the proposed change to Rule 12 passed. Thankfully, the proposed changes to Rule 15 were stopped. But an “insiders’ compromise” version of the “disavowal” provision did pass.
Under the “compromise,” a new Rule 16 was added to attempt to stop an alleged “faithless elector” problem -- delegates who run claiming to support one candidate but then vote for another at the Convention. The new Rule 16 requires that a delegate who attempts to violate his binding pledge to a candidate under state law or state party rules shall be deemed to have resigned and the Secretary of the Convention must record the improper vote as it should have been cast based on state law or party rule. This compromise was supported by conservative stalwart James Bopp, as well as Ron Kaufman and Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi. Blackwell opposed the compromise because it retained the Rule 12 change.
As long as the RNC can change the rules between conventions, the proposed changes to Rule 15 that we managed to stop could easily be revived at any time, without a vote at a National Convention. Since the RNC usually follows the lead of its Chairman, and the Chairman has powerful incentives to go along with an incumbent Republican President, it should be easy for Team Romney to change the party rules pretty much any time at their pleasure. This should trouble every Republican.
At a minimum, the effect of the new rules will be to empower insiders over the broad party electorate and to discourage grassroots activists from taking part in the process. They will thus have a chilling effect on intra-party debate, including debate over the National Platform and, of course, on future rules changes. The “Inner Circle” has scored quite a coup.
In Terms of Process
After Ginsberg’s proposed changes were presented in the RNC Rules Committee, Blackwell circulated a letter denouncing them and vowing to resist them by means of “minority reports,” which can be offered for votes on the Convention floor and, if adopted, would have the effect of defeating the proposed changes.
Over the next four days, we worked feverishly to kill the rule changes, sending out a national call to action and urging our activists to lobby the party chairs and Rules Committee members from their state about the issue. We lit up facebook and twitter (using the hashtag #RNCpowergrab) and burned up phone lines with hundreds of calls. We filled up people’s voicemail inboxes. We caused an avalanche of emails. We irritated the heck out of some people. But the pressure had a decisive effect. Negotiations began on the so-called “insiders’ compromise.”
We knew we were fighting an uphill battle. Blackwell laid the groundwork for a floor fight by obtaining more than the requisite number of signers on each of the two minority reports. (Twenty-eight signatures are required.)
As the Rules Committee meeting neared, Team Romney worked hard to peel signers off the minority reports.
When the committee finally met, Blackwell was absent, and we have conflicting reports about whether he still had the requisite number of co-signers. One report suggests he did, but that the committee basically disregarded the minority reports because he was not there to defend them.
Why was Blackwell absent? This was out of character for the veteran, battle-scarred activist. Did the insiders pull a Nixonian trick to make sure the leader of the opposition wasn’t present during the crucial meeting? Here’s how CNN explained his absence:

… [S]ome [rules] committee members suggested meddling was at play. A bus full of Virginia delegates arrived at the committee meeting -- after it had adjourned.
“The bus that was supposed to pick up the Virginia delegation arrived an hour later than it was supposed to,” explained Virginia delegate Morton Blackwell, a prime opponent of Rule 16 [a.k.a. the insiders’ compromise on delegate “disavowal”].
Blackwell continued: “And then when we went downtown, we went around the same series of blocks repeatedly – twice. And then the bus took out away from downtown, went about a mile and a half, and then did a u-turn and came back. And did another circuit, of the same place where we had been before.”
And at that point, the Virginia delegates demanded, “‘Stop the bus. And we're going to walk.' And we did.”
Mike Rothfeld, a Virginia delegate also on the bus, went further.
“They pushed us around for 45 minutes and then we missed the meeting,” Rothfeld said. “We were in the security perimeter, they pushed us out of it three separate times. They moved us around until the meeting was adjourned.”
[Colorado delegate Florence] Sebern claimed the snafu was “deliberate.”
Neither she nor the others recalling the story would say who they were directing their anger at. And none could provide proof to back up their claims.

Other examples of possible dirty tricks:
1. Florida activist Laura Noble informed us that both of Florida's Rules Committee members, Peter Feaman and Kathleen King, were removed from the Rules Committee and replaced with Romney-appointed delegates.
2. Some Rules Committee members were physically barred from entering the room, despite having proper credentials.
3. Some delegates were told that Blackwell was trying to use the situation as an excuse to reopen a settled debate that he had lost four years ago regarding Rule 12. Not true.
4. Some delegates were told Romney personally knew nothing of the matter and it was just his overly aggressive lawyers acting beyond their authority and there was nothing to worry about, he would put a stop to it once he found out what was happening.
5. Some delegates seem to have believed that the rules fight was really just a proxy fight in the larger battle being waged between the Romney and Ron Paul camps over who would represent certain states on the convention floor. This assumption may have discouraged some Rules Committee members from supporting the minority reports.
Governor Sununu chaired the meeting. Governor Barbour strongly urged “unity” and the need for everyone to set aside “differences” to “defeat Barack Obama.”
The rules package, containing the insider’s compromise, passed by a decisive vote of 78 to 14. Unfortunately, the Rule 12 change (permitting the RNC to change the rules between conventions) remained in the package, unaltered.
The package then went immediately to the full Convention for approval. On the convention floor, Governor Sununu offered it as a “strong governing framework” for the party over the next four years, and with no debate or even mention of the controversy over Rule 12, Speaker Boehner then called for the ayes and noes. The crowd roared loudly, on both sides of the question. Despite the “noes” being (in this hearer’s estimate) louder than the “ayes,” Boehner hastily gaveled the matter closed.

Apparently -- and to our surprise and disappointment -- the delegates’ did not have the power to call for a recorded vote from the floor. So we had no recourse from Boehner’s declaration that “The ayes have it.” Had we been able to force a roll-call vote, it would have delayed the day’s proceedings by several hours. We had been counting on this fact to provide us with leverage, since we knew Team Romney would have done almost anything to avoid such an embarrassing logistical foul-up on the Convention’s first night. But alas, it seems, that possibility had been foreseen, and the grassroots revolt was forestalled.
After the disappointing outcome, FreedomWorks released the following statement from Matt Kibbe:

I believe that the Republican party has made a huge mistake by effectively disenfranchising grassroots activists who want to be a part of the party process. If the party sincerely wants the support of citizens, shutting them out of the process is not the way to do it. Sooner rather than later the Republican establishment needs to come to terms with the decentralized nature of grassroots organization circa 2012. The terms of engagement can no longer be dictated from the top-down.

The new rules strongly suggest the insiders don’t think they need the grassroots to win in 2012, despite the critical role grassroots voters played in the historic 2010 wave election.
Despite this setback, we’re proud to have come so close to victory on such short notice and while operating under such severe disadvantages, relative to the insiders. This episode confirms just how powerful grassroots action can be in today’s world -- and we hope the party insiders are taking note of this fact.
The RNC power grab has succeeded. For now. We’ll be back.
The Upshot
We expect Democrats to be top-down, but it’s disappointing when the Republicans, who claim to be bottom-up, act just like Democrats. Perhaps this centralization of power in the RNC is simply a logical development in the present era -- a “progressive” era, when all institutions, under the pressure of unlimited, centralized government, tend, over time, to reflect and become servants of that government.
It’s another sign that the retaking of Washington by the American people will be a “hostile” takeover.
What does Romney's RNC power grab mean for the future? At least three things:
1) As of today, the GOP is now much less representative of state parties and voters than it was yesterday, and thus more representative of whichever interests are smart and powerful enough to dominate the RNC.
2) Grassroots activists will now have to add “Monitoring the RNC” to their “eternal vigilance” list.
3) FreedomWorks will have to add “Influencing -- and when necessary, fighting -- the RNC” to our “Hostile Takeover” strategy.
We must fire Barack Obama. We must show up on election day 2012. But the conservative grassroots must also decide whether and to what extent they want to remain engaged in a Republican Party whose establishment clearly still does not get them.
Dean Clancy is FreedomWorks' Legislative Counsel and Vice President, Health Care Policy

[See attachment links for more documents related to this issue, as well as a PDF copy of this blog-post.]


[See attachment links for more documents related to this issue, as well as a PDF copy of this blog-post.]

File Attachments
Rule15MinorityReport_-_RNC_-_Aug2012.pdf	96.39 KB
RNCpowergrabsummary-FreedomWorks-Aug2012.pdf	138.15 KB
RULE_16_AMENDMENT_-_RNC_-_AUG2012.pdf	132.36 KB
Rule12MinorityReport-RNC-Aug2012.pdf	93.43 KB
MortonBlackwellLetter_-_RNC_-_Aug_2012.pdf	204.38 KB

The more things change the more they stay the same


Romney's "RNC Power Grab": What Really Happened | FreedomWorks