DC-rally — The Non-Existant Protest March On Fraud September 12, 2009

1.) Mitt Romney cannot win the Presidency without the votes of Ron Paul supporters, and everyone knows it.
2.) The Corrupted GOP establishment hates Ron Paul, and everyone knows it.
3.) If Ron Paul is not included at the RNC, he could throw a counter convention that would likely have more attendees than the GOP convention itself.

Ron Paul supporters are gearing up for major showdown in Louisiana over the weekend to challenge the entire state’s slate of 46 delegates selected to attend the GOP Convention in Tampa in August. The outcome of the fight may hold major implications for how Ron Paul supporters proceed in their unrelenting delegate fight against Mitt Romney.

*Ron Paul

According to Paul’s campaign, the final list of delegates selected during the state’s Republican convention were chosen against the rules. The list was released on Friday. Back in June, Louisana police arrested Ron Paul supporters after a chaotic scene in which they held their own protest vote in the same room as the Louisiana GOP convention (and they constituted a majority of the participants at the convention). Paul supporters believe their own convention should be recognized by the state as the legitimate representative delegates for the Republican party in Louisiana.

Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton said, “We believe that they grossly and blatantly and repeatedly violated their party rules and elected a delegation that was improper. We believe that our rump convention is the legitimate delegation and they have a right to be seated at the Republican National Convention.”

The Ron Paul campaign says the state party has been difficult to communicate with, and even stand-offish. “They’ve been extremely non-communicative. They gave us a cold shoulder,” said Benton.

But executive director of the Republican Party of Louisiana Jason Dore has responded negatively, saying, “This whole this is kind of bizarre. Unless we gave them a majority, they were going to challenge our whole convention regardless.” The Republican Party was prepared to award Paul supporters with 17 delegates at the state convention, but Paul supporters refused to participate in the selection process, saying they were deserving of more and insisting on holding their own separate vote.

Now, the decision is in the hands of the RNC Credentials Committee, which will hear the challenge one week before the GOP convention in August. Whatever the Committee decides, the case holds significant implications for several other states where Paul supporters are issuing challenges to the state Republican Party due to delegate fraud. In Massachusetts and Oregon, Paul is planning similar challenges.

The larger issue here is that a candidate needs the majority of delegates in at least five states in order to enter their name into the nomination at the Convention. While Ron Paul holds the majority in three states (Iowa, Minnesota, and Maine), he needs two more in order to gain official recognition.

If supporters lead a successful challenge in at least two of Massachusetts, Oregon, or Louisiana, Ron Paul supporters will have a very different convention in August.

Policy Mic

ron-paul-end-fed — Presidential Candidate Ron Paul.

1. For a candidate’s name to be placed into nomination at the RNC you DO need a plurality of delegates from 5 states.

2. Binding and Non-binding distinctions DO NOT have an affect on nominating a candidates name. If “binding” is allowable by rule, (it is not) it would only pertain to a vote taken on the nomination, not the process of placing a name in nomination.

3. The Ron Paul campaign HAS the majority of delegates in the following 7 states: Nevada, Maine, Minnesota, Louisana, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Colorado.

Paul is running a pre-RNC festival, and his fans are running another one, so Tampa should still be full of Paul news, and the world of American politics will continue to be, as much as some might regret it, like Esquire‘s reliably awful Charles Pierce.

Business Insider is reporting rumors that the Paul people may achieve their goal (for what it’s worth) ofgetting “audit the Fed” into the GOP platform.

Jeff Taylor, an actual RNC delegate, at American Conservative had a long, interesting piece on what Paul delegates can do in Tampa anyway, what Romney should do, and the history of non-unity at GOP conventions. Some highlights:

While some Paul backers are sore losers, it is equally true that some Romney backers are sore winners. What would it cost Governor Romney and the RNC to announce that they are waiving the five-state Rule 40 requirement and allowing Congressman Paul to have his moment in the sun at the convention? Far from hurting the Romney campaign, it would be a magnanimous gesture from a position of strength. It would serve to placate Paul supporters, as a show of respect, and to unify the party….

Allowing Ron Paul to be placed in nomination, allowing an old-fashioned demonstration to occur on the convention floor, and allowing unbound delegates to pay tribute to their champion by casting votes without pressure or hostility would be a wise move by Romney. Far from being an embarrassment or a sign of divisiveness, it would denote strength of personal character and political position. This would preempt “convention chaos” and let the Paul campaign be more persuasive in its attempt to keep its delegates respectful and on-task….

Remember, as Taylor spells out at length: George Romney remained an enemy of GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater through the convention in 1964 and beyond, and had votes for himself recorded from the floor of the convention in both ’64 and ’68 despite having no chance of winning.

And what about the vice-presidency?

Paul may not have the five-state pluralities to allow him to officially “seek” the presidential nomination at the convention, but delegates who are bound to Romney for president are not bound to anyone for vice president. In other words, Paul supporters from Nevada who are obligated to vote for Romney on the first ballot for president are free to vote for whomever they choose on the balloting for vice president (if there is balloting). Paul apparently does have a plurality of stealth/actual supporters in at least five states, thus qualifying as a candidate who could be placed in nomination for vice president. Delegates themselves could initiate this move at the convention, although presumably Paul would need to agree to the effort to bring it to its speech-making and roll-call-voting fruition.

A challenge from the convention floor over the vice presidential nomination has precedents. At the 1976 Republican National Convention, the California and Texas delegations were the backbone of the Ronald Reagan effort in Kansas City. After the liberal Ford had defeated the conservative Reagan, Ford chose a Ford backer, the moderate Robert Dole, as his running mate. The Texas delegation was so conservative that it was the only state to give a majority of its votes to men more conservative than Dole when voting on the vice presidential nomination. Jesse Helms received 43 from Texas, Dole received 26, and Reagan received 9, among others. Who was the chairman of the 100-member, 100-percent Reagan-supporting Texas delegation at the 1976 convention? Congressman Ron Paul…..

Once again, the legacy of George Romney is instructive. It’s the presidential nominee’s prerogative to select his own running mate. That has been the norm for many decades. The convention normally accepts the vice presidential choice by acclamation. At the 1968 convention, however, some liberals were dissatisfied with Nixon’s choice of Spiro Agnew. Although he was from the liberal wing of the party himself, Governor Agnew had turned against Rockefeller and had embraced Nixon and right-wing rhetoric for political reasons. Some liberal delegates proposed Governor Romney as an alternative. Romney allowed his name to be placed in nomination for vice president. Not surprisingly, Agnew beat him 1,119 to 186, but the protest nomination was allowed and the votes were recorded….

Reason

Reading The Tea Leaves:

With The City Of London Calling For The Glass Steagall – It May Now Make Sense To Them, That Ron Paul Leads The Charge As President For Capitalism aka; Austrian Economics.