Preliminary results from the Louisiana Republican Party indicate that Ron Paul supporters won majorities in Congressional Districts 1, 2, 5, and 6, with a narrow decision having occurred in District 4. This means Ron Paul supporters won about four and a half of the six Congressional District caucus conventions held yesterday.
In each CD the top 25 delegates will go to the state convention on June 2nd in Shreveport. Yesterday, 111 out of 150 or 74 percent of delegates elected today were in fact Ron Paul delegates. The Louisiana state GOP soon will award 30 additional delegates.
After at least 12 years of the Alaska GOP being run by what those party newcomers call “establishment Republicans,” a new force is taking over: Alaska Republicans voted Russ Millette as the party’s new chairman and Debbie Holland-Brown as co-chair. They are both supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Millette, 66, has lived off and on in Alaska, most recently returning to the state in 2005. He will assume chair of the state GOP at the start of 2013. But for now, he will serve as the party’s finance chairman.
Ruedrich, an old-school Republican who had held the job of chairman since 2000, chose not to run again, leaving the field wide open. Some party loyalists had expected that either Alaska GOP favorites Judy Eledge or Bruce Schulte would win the chairmanship, particularly after Schulte opted out to give more power to Eledge’s nomination.
But after the party delegates’ votes were tallied Saturday evening, a cheer erupted from Paul supporters on the second floor of the Hilton. Others looked crestfallen. Some blamed failed senatorial candidate Joe Miller and his wife, Kathleen, who spent much of their time Saturday huddled with Paul supporters. Miller was largely expected to jockey for a party leadership position, but it was Kathleen who, sporting a Ron Paul sticker, won a seat on Alaska’s GOP Electoral College.
"The masses... do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines, nothing can prevent disaster."
Inspired by Ron Paul, local political activists are getting their hands dirty by running for office themselves. From Business Week:
If forcing his philosophy into the mainstream is the benchmark, Paul can claim victory. Listening to his rivals in the Republican debates demand that the Fed be audited and the Departments of Energy and Education be shuttered, it’s clear that many of Paul’s positions, once considered extreme, are now Republican talking points. Paul’s influence outweighs his low poll rankings and back-of-the-pack primary returns.
“Our time has come,” says Paul, tempering the display of optimism. “It’s still going to be a knock-down, dragged-out fight.”
Paul leaves behind a small army of brawlers itching to take up the battle in his name. This election year, at least 65 of his supporters are campaigning for local, state, or national office in 23 states. They join more than a dozen Paul acolytes who won elections in 2010, including Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, who is seeking a second term — not to mention Paul’s son Rand, who was elected to the Senate as a Republican in Kentucky.
[...] Other Paul followers and former aides have maneuvered their way into Republican Party leadership positions in Nevada, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, and Maine, where they are attempting to rewrite party platforms and keep establishment Republicans from giving Paul’s 70-plus primary delegates to Mitt Romney.
"The masses... do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines, nothing can prevent disaster."
It was supposed to go smoothly for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Friday night when she took the stage to give a speech and introduce guest speaker U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, at the Alaska Republican Party Convention.
Murkowski has faced some tough crowds in the past, particularly in 2010 when she was running for re-election against Joe Miller in the midst of a tea party uprising. But all of that was supposedly behind her.
Her win in an historic write-in campaign against Miller seemed to take the wind out of the tea party movement in Alaska. For various reasons, like Alaska’s weird economy and geography, the tea party wasn’t gaining as much ground as in other states.
That all seemed to change as Murkowski stood before her fellow Republicans at the Hilton in downtown Anchorage on Friday.
Dozens of Ron Paul supporters -- who would ultimately get their man, Russ Millette, the votes he needed to become the next chair of the Alaska Republican Party -- found common ground with Joe Miller and his supporters. And Murkowski paid the price as they heckled her on stage.
Paul and Miller fans have more in common than what might seem at first glance: Their distrust for the federal government, their focus on the national debt, and their pursuit of individual liberties. They have less in common when it comes to social and international issues, but that takes the back seat to the real goal of both factions: to take over the Republican Party, both locally and nationally.
Murkowski was naturally surprised -- “confused,” she said in an interview on Saturday evening -- when she began to speak and was heckled. According to various accounts, it began with one woman yelling from the back of the room.
And then, in what must have seemed like something straight out of a William Golding novel, the woman yelled, “Republicans rise!” And lots of them -- the new face of Alaska’s GOP -- rose up.
Things calmed down, for a moment at least, when Barrasso -- the Wyoming senator who had flown all day to get to Alaska and caught the red-eye later that night to return home -- took the stage. But when he told the crowd he was supporting Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, many in the crowd booed and began to chant for Ron Paul.
Many other Paul supporters said they were surprised by what had transpired. Some who attended the meeting with Paul and Miller supporters before the dinner said they thought the plan was going to be to stand up and face the wall when Murkowski spoke.
Murkowski didn’t believe it was the Paul supporters who planned the protest.
“My impression of the Ron Paul organization is that they have great energy,” she said. “I didn’t understand them to be an organization that acts in a manner like that.”
Mostly, she was embarrassed for Barrasso.
Evan Cutler, a Paul organizer, gave a heart-felt apology on the convention room floor the following day, saying he neither condoned nor supported what happened, adding that it was “completely inappropriate.”
"The masses... do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines, nothing can prevent disaster."
Since Santorum left the race several weeks ago, the wind has left the sails of the Republican effort in the state. Mitt Romney recently made an appearance to a sparse crowd of less than 500 people that was poorly covered in the local press. Ron Paul drew a large crowd recently at the University of Rhode Island that could impact the primary result only if his student base actually takes the trouble to vote.
"The masses... do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines, nothing can prevent disaster."
Nearly 2,000 Ron Paul supporters lined Route 1 and Fraternity Row on March 28 to see the GOP presidential candidate speak at Ritchie Coliseum about what he stands for and why he should be elected president.
Paul called on the young people to take action against the government. He said youths were successful in preventing the Stop Online Piracy Act—an act that would censor many popular websites—when it was introduced in Congress last year. The crowd erupted in applause after Paul’s praise.
Ahuva Sunshine agrees with Paul’s limited government ideas and more freedom. The sophomore government and politics major said, however, that all the support for Paul was cult-like.
“People treated him like a rock star,” Sunshine said. “It was kind of creepy.”
"The masses... do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines, nothing can prevent disaster."
Yep. The delegate tactic is working. Even in states where the delegates are bound the Paul campaign is gaining the majority of delegates.
Some are specualting that an en masse deviation from the primary results may happen. If enough of the delegates simply refuse to vote for Romney (and many of them may) the whole process will be thrown into chaos.
Right now Romney has a bit over 800 delegates. He needs 1140 to sweep the nomination. If he falls even one delegate short of that number there will be a brokered convention.
Romney won't have the bound delegates to carry him through the second round of voting.
Perhaps now people will stop saying that Paul "has no chance of winning" because clearly he has won enough states to carry him to the convention and perhaps his orgainization (which is the only one operating in the black) will have the strength to carry him to the White House.
If Romney can't get the 1144 delegates he needs, Ron Paul WILL win the nomination.
But there is already talk within the GOP status quo ranks about forcing a nomination by acclimation. That means that the chairman (Bohner who has endorsed Romney and clearly has a conflict of interest) may call a voice vote and then, regardless of the vote decree that "in his opinion" Romney is the winner.
The same thing happened at the Dem convention in 08 but it was orchestrated beforehand in order to streamline the process.
However, there are ways around that. To call a motion to remove the chairman for a conflict of interest could force him to step down and clog the process. There could be enough "stealth delegates" to totally override any "punishment" or procedural orders that may be employed and the convention could become "occupied".
I'd hate to see a delegate walk-out but that may happen too.
I don't think party rules will allow absention by Paul delegates bound to Romney but if there are enough of them then there really isn't anything they could do about it.
But right now the tactic is to keep Romney from hitting that "magic" number of 1144. Even if he has 1143, they go to a brokered convention and all hell breaks loose.
Certainly an interesting process this time around at the very least.
"The masses... do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines, nothing can prevent disaster."
Paul supporters may be loud. They may be motivated. They may pack his rallies. But the critical thing that they aren't is anything near a majority. Of Republicans or voters in general.
Paul polls within the margin of error equal with Obama with all voters.
There are those, not just Paul suporters, who think that he's actually got a shot at the nomination.
Even some GOP analysts are saying that he has a shot and that the delegate strategy could well pay off.
Paul polls better than ROmney in all demographics except mormos and rank-and-file GOP. It has been known since the begining that the hard fight is going to be the GOP nomination and not the general election. If Paul can take the Rub nomination he will stand a very good chance against Obama.
The problem is that he's likely to be shut out in Tampa.
But Paul has an obligation to run independently when the convention steals the nomination from him (and it will as far as Paul supporters are concerned).
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Freedom and security. Partners for a bright tomorrow.
But even if Paul does make an indipendent run, he will do well. He won't beat Obama unless he has the backing of the GOP but he will lose it for the GOP if they deny him and go with Mitt "clueless" Romney.
Paul looks as if he's in pain when he smiles and sounds like he's in agony when he laughs or chortles or whatever that thing is that he does to express amusement.
Mulva Wrote:
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> I agree. And those things mean a lot more to most
> voters than policy positions. Sad but true.
Yes, they do . . . up to a point. How much more they do, I don't know, but that they do seems to be beyond reasonable dispute.
Presidents are usually attractive people, especially since the age of television . . . but then there are always the anomalies you've got to figure in <cough>Nixon<cough>.
There are, no doubt, good solid evolutionary reasons for it. Probably some cognitive heuristic or other that allows our brains to shortcut the process of actually listening to the candidates and of trying to figure out what it all means.
I like how Obama wants to continue to use drones to kill people regardless of their guilt, age or gender. He's an equal oportunity killer.
I like how he ignores the constitution, Congress and international law to launch wars.
I really like how he played us on the whole "health care reform" thing and lied about the Public Option.
It's great that he okayed torture everywhere but on US soil.
I really enjoy his war on whistlebowers and the media that reports politically damaging things about his Admin.
I love that he has The Most Transparent Administration Ever and yet somehow it's the most secretive too
I really like the fact that he will promote the interests of multinational corporations over the interests of our country.
How about assassinating US citizens without charges, trial or due process? Awesome!
Or what about cracking down on medical marijuana even when he promised that DOJ resources would not be used for that purposed. Boy he sure suckered us huh? What a great guy.
How about that NDAA? He was skilled enough to sucker us on that too. What talent.
I can't wait to see what kind of draconian crap he comes up with next. We're so lucky to have him in office continuing Bush policies, lying to us with skill, further solidifying the Unitary Execuative, and carrying out war crimes.
It's a good thing that he's so "personable", otherwise voters might have seen through his lies and we'd have John McCain as president doing the exact same things... but John McCain isn't a DEMOCRAT, so that would have sucked.
Yep, sure is a good thing that Obama's in office instead of someone who would have outlawed torture, revoked the Patriot Act, restored civil liberties and constitutional protections. So glad that we don't have someone who wouldn't start an unconstitutional war, carry out a secret drone war in six different countries in violation of US and international law and kill innocent civilians. Whew!
"You also ignored the constitution, ignored Congress and broke international law. Not to mention your torture program, the continuation of Bush policies including handouts for lobbyists and the wealthiest 1% at the expense of the rest of America. Mr. President why are your largest campaign doners comprised of the largest multi-national corporations?"
"Uh... well, uh... I killed Osama!"
You've also killed uncounted innocent women and children in your drone wars. Also with total disregard for US law and Constitutional principles. Is there anything else you would like to lie to the America people about in order to get re-elected?"
But you don't get it, he killed Osama, won a war in Libya with no American casualties, got us out of Iraq and will have us out of Afghanistan if reelected.
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Freedom and security. Partners for a bright tomorrow.
Obama escelated Afghanistan and we're never leaving there either.
He didn't "win" the war in Libya, he only started it by bombing civilian populations and causing more civilain deaths than even the bloated estimates of what "would have" (maybe, perhaps) happened had we not "intervened".
And he did it without COngressional authorization and in violation of international law and the UN no-fly zone. How many of those dead civilians were flying at the time they had bombs dropped on them?
It's easy to have no "US Casualties" when you're bombing desperate people from 30,000 feet. You need to look at the number of civilian casualties Obama caused by his actions.
Mac, there is no looking glass. There is the rule of law or the force of arms.
I'll tell you who Paul WON'T get; the Civil Rights Act supporters vote and the Voting Rights Act supporters vote.
Also the EPA and FDA supporters votes.
AUGUSTA, Maine—Ron Paul's army of supporters in Maine flexed their muscle Saturday as they elected their candidate for chairman of the state Republican convention, a first step toward taking over key party committees and giving the Texas congressman a voice at this summer's national convention.
"The masses... do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind. But their choice is final and determines the course of events. If they prefer bad doctrines, nothing can prevent disaster."
Mitt Romney is way ahead of Ron Paul in the delegate count. But Paul's enthusiastic forces have been effective in controlling state party apparatus, and this could impact the GOP convention.
[www.csmonitor.com]
