RP, Maine, another win, barely reported

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Cygnus

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Jan 4, 2007
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Ron Paul wins majority of delegates from Maine GOP - BostonHerald.com

That's 4 states and a territory now, right? I find it fascinating how little play this gets, solely as an outsider watching how the national conversation is molded in one direction rather than showing the various fascets that really exist. To me this has more to do with the concentration of messages in media than anything else [there was a great special on that on Now with Bill Moyers several years back]. So, liberal or conservative, this is really interesting. As marketers it is all about messaging and controlling that message -- it is the best job of reputation managment I've ever seen with RP being repeatedly kept out of the conversation. New goal for me: I want to learn how to manipulate the direction of conversations at the mass level; there's more money in that.

Political junkies, does this now trigger a forced brokered convention? Also, are Santorum/Gringrich delegates now unbound?
 


Santorum and Gingrich delegates have not been released yet. They're being held for leverage at the national convention where Romney will probably have to give up a whole lot to get them. More important than the win of delegates was the takeover of party leadership positions. The Republican Party of Maine is now firmly controlled by RP supporters which will affect future elections for all sorts of positions. It's the definition of a grassroots takeover.
 
What's with the violation of procedure talk? Again, as an outsider to this circus, just about every single story I dig into on the primary and caucus levels has had a degree of procedural violations.
 
They claim it wasn't an open forum because they split the convention into counties to vote for the delegates. They were already doing it that way from the floor, but people kept leaving and coming back, so the number of ballots and the number of voters never matched up. The first 2 votes, for Secretary and Chair took 4 hours.

It was almost a unanimous vote to split into counties.

You will now see the Romney campaign challenging 'everything' that doesn't go their way. Their M.O. lately at these conventions seems to be to introduce a clusterfuck, then complain about it.
 
Cygnus said:
That's 4 states and a territory now, right?
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Actually, it's 7 Confirmed states now (AK, WA, MN, ME, NV, IO, LA) and >3 Unconfirmed but sure-thing states at the moment. (Including Mass, the state where Romney was governor! We shut him out of a lot of districts there, but it's still close.)

The Virgin Islands vote is interesting... Normally we win the delegates but not the "popular" (straw poll) vote... So the media reports exclusively on the straw polling. In VI it's the opposite, Romney technically has one more delegate there, but the Popular vote went to us! -So the media is reporting it as a Romney win anyway... They just won't clarify why.


Cygnus said:
Political junkies, does this now trigger a forced brokered convention? Also, are Santorum/Gringrich delegates now unbound?
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What forces a brokered convention is when neither Romney nor Paul gets 1144 on the first voting session in Tampa. The press may SAY that mittens has "over" 1144 well before then, but it's not brokered until everyone Fails to achieve 1144 on the floor.

Anyone who gets 1144 of course will be the nominee, by long-standing party rules, and with Paul's organization, I wouldn't be too surprised if he was able to do that. (Of course he'll need to sweep TX and CA first to have a chance.)

As for the Binding, we've recently discovered that Rule 38 of the RNC rulebook basically says "We can't really force you to be bound at the convention to your states' straw-poll winner for president."

If this is true, which seems to be the case when looking at Warren G Harding's campaign, then I have no doubt at all that Paul's minions have filled up enough of Romney's slots covertly to make 1144 happen for Paul on the very first vote.
 
Fuck... Make that NINE confirmed states... I left out MO and CO! (Too much going on nowadays.)

These are almost every state that is finished selecting its' delegates.

Basically we're winning every state's delegate majority. It's clear to everyone paying attention that the majority of people in the country are Ron Paul voters... So the straw polls must be rigged.
 
Well if lukep had lost count I feel better about having lost count.

I still have some serious doubts as it pertains to RNC allowing Paul to "lose" the straw and win the delegates -- I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see volley after volley of suits challenging constitutionality of arcane state-by-state rules that somehow manage to gum up the process long enough for the RNC to pass a special resolution binding delegates back to primary wins and thus handing it over on a silver platter for Romney. Like him, some of my best friends run multi-national companies. Unlike him, I have a fucking spine. That's why I leaned towards Paul. If he's not the pick (and unfortunately I'm more pessimistic about this than you seem to be), I'd rather have 4 years of Obama over Romney [which is exactly what would happen].
 
Cygnus said:
I'd rather have 4 years of Obama over Romney [which is exactly what would happen].
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Me too. They represent the same thing, so you can either take it in the ass for 4 years or take it in the ass for 8 years. Beyond that though, there is a more important reason for Romney to lose. If he wins, the Republican Party falls in line to support him as the leader of the Party, thus diminishing the grassroots work by the RP people.

If he loses though, all bets are off because it leaves the Republican Party without a leader, allowing the RP grassroots people to continue taking over the party one precinct at a time, making it easier to run RP type candidates in future elections.

The party realizes this and that's why they're saying "We have to beat Obama", rather than "We have to elect Mitt Romney", because they know he doesn't have wide spread support. They're trying to convince people that they should vote against their conscience in order to beat Obama, but the result wouldn't be any better and that's what people need to realize.
 
I was watching some of the Maine convention on ustream, it was pretty crazy, especially today. All the Ron Paul people had spread the word to maintain order and don't react to the disruptions, you could see them sitting quietly while the chairman was reading through the items of business. The people for Romney who were still there were jumping up and yelling random stuff, and the chairman kept saying 'out of order'.

Then some guy jumped up and said the libertarians were destroying this country, yelled 'freeeedom' and was going to rush the stage. The chairman just told him to sit down or he would be escorted out. The head of the delegation from Washington County refused to stand and be recognized. Everything that was voted on, no matter how big or small, asked for recounts multiple times.

They still have to report the results for CD#2, all the Romney people left and destroyed quorum, so the convention was not officially adjourned. They will probably have to reconvene to do that. But those should go Ron Paul as well, which would make 21/21 delegates + 2/3 for the superdelegates from Maine.
 
jryan21 said:
I was watching some of the Maine convention on ustream, it was pretty crazy, especially today. All the Ron Paul people had spread the word to maintain order and don't react to the disruptions, you could see them sitting quietly while the chairman was reading through the items of business. The people for Romney who were still there were jumping up and yelling random stuff, and the chairman kept saying 'out of order'.

Then some guy jumped up and said the libertarians were destroying this country, yelled 'freeeedom' and was going to rush the stage. The chairman just told him to sit down or he would be escorted out. The head of the delegation from Washington County refused to stand and be recognized. Everything that was voted on, no matter how big or small, asked for recounts multiple times.

They still have to report the results for CD#2, all the Romney people left and destroyed quorum, so the convention was not officially adjourned. They will probably have to reconvene to do that. But those should go Ron Paul as well, which would make 21/21 delegates + 2/3 for the superdelegates from Maine.
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What happens if they just say fuck it and don't show back up or don't give ample notice so the paul supports can't turn out like they normally would?
 
crackp0t said:
What happens if they just say fuck it and don't show back up or don't give ample notice so the paul supports can't turn out like they normally would?
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The ones responsible for giving the notice are Paul people.

This is what it was like for most of the day:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k98ewCK-J1o]Maine Convention - 15 Delegates Announced and Aftermath - YouTube[/ame]
 
crackp0t said:
What happens if they just say fuck it and don't show back up or don't give ample notice so the paul supports can't turn out like they normally would?
Click to expand...

Maine is completely owned by Ron Paul people now, not just for this election but years to come since they took all the party positions too. The only thing the RNC can do now is take this shit to court, which I can guarantee they will do. Romney has one of Bush's lawyers from 2000 already working on it.
 
Unarmed Gunman said:
Maine is completely owned by Ron Paul people now, not just for this election but years to come since they took all the party positions too. The only thing the RNC can do now is take this shit to court, which I can guarantee they will do. Romney has one of Bush's lawyers from 2000 already working on it.
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That doesn't surprise me at all, but what exactly are they going to try and have the court do? They're playing a dangerous game that won't end well for the RNC.
 
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