Cabarrus County precinct meetings - Saturday Feb 25th

[slacker921]

The Cabarrus County Republican Party will hold its 2012 Annual Precinct Meetings Saturday, February 25, at J.N. Fries Middle School in Concord. Registration will begin at 9:00 and the Meeting will commence at 10:00AM sharp.

All Republicans registered to vote by January 31, 2012 who live in Cabarrus County are welcomed to attend.

Come and meet your candidates seeking office in November, learn more about your precinct and the county party structure and find out about the groundwork that is being laid and already has been laid for the 2012 elections. We will also be conducting a Precinct Training session where we will learn about ways to ensure we get more conservatives elected in our county, state and federal governments.

This year, all Precinct Meetings will happen ON A SEPARATE DATE than the Annual Republican County Convention. The Annual County Convention is scheduled for March 10 and will also be held at J.N. Fries Middle School.

Anyone wishing to be a voting delegate at the County Convention, their District Convention, the State Convention or anyone wishing to be considered as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Florida MUST FIRST ATTEND the Annual Precinct Meetings on February 25th.

 

[MozoVote]

Have you established a contact list yet of the Paul supporters? It's a good idea to get together before the precinct meetings and explain how things work, what to do (and not do), and establish some face-to-face familiarity. The newbies benefit from hearing in person from the seasoned delegates.

 

[slacker921]

Mozo... how? I don't have any idea who will be showing up. I've seen a few new faces at the GOP meetings, but don't have contact info, etc. The campaign isn't active in NC yet so I can't ask a local Paul campaign worker to give me info. We don't have a meetup.... and I can't take an active role in organizing a Paul delegation.

In '08 there were LOTS of new faces at the precinct/county meeting, but almost none of them showed up for the district convention when it really counted.

also... for those of you in the 8th district, the convention will be April 21 at 9AM in Albemarle at Stanly Commons (across from the hospital). BE THERE. Delegates for the national convention will be selected and in '08 we needed about 10 more voters there to send a Paul supporter to the national convention. You don't have to go to the national convention (it costs over $1,000), but please be at the district convention to help send someone else.

 

[MozoVote]

You can get a list of Paul donors from the FEC website. But it's almost too late now to mail them letters asking to attend the meeting. You could still go door knocking though if you have time for that.

 

[eblairmorris]

Yours seem awfully early, Pitt Co. here isn't having them until mid march. Do I have my information wrong?

 

[MozoVote]

Mecklenburg and Wake have already had precinct meetings. Some counties have them in February and follow up with the actual county convention in March.

Most counties are small - and combine both gatherings to be held on the same day.

 

[slacker921]

I just thought I'd give a report..

There were 144 at the Cabarrus precinct meeting. There were several precincts with nobody representing them at all.

It's pretty much the same crowd as in '08, just a little grayer. It's really, really frustrating to see that after all these years the Paul supporters in NC still don't get that all they have to do is SHOW UP to the GOP meetings and they can make a huge difference.

A LOT of the candidates for Congress and statewide offices came and spoke (Scott Keadle.... why did you show up and then leave without speaking??) and one of the things I found interesting was that I didn't hear "Iran" or "terrorist" ONE TIME. That's a huge change from '08, where candidates were trying desperately to outdo each other on the fearmongering. The Islamofascism talk was gone.

My friends that went along had their eyes opened and that's good... they all said "whoa... those people have NO concept of the separation of church and state." They were also really puzzled by the worship of Reagan there (there was a powerpoint showing the whole time and it had several photos and quotes of Reagan). One said "well, I suppose it would be rude to point out how many big government programs and how much debt Reagan added".... I have very little doubt that if there's a straw poll at the district convention then Santorum will win it.

The chair of the 8th district got up and said that by attending the precinct meeting we were automatically delegates for the County and District conventions... I need to get some clarification on whether that means we don't need to go to the county convention or not. I'll go to the county convention, but I'm sure my friends that I dragged along would like to skip it.

 

[MozoVote]

Leave nothing to chance. They may pass a motion at county making all who signed the paperwork eligible, but show up at county just to be safe. As Adam pointed out quoting the party bylaws, that is how it is *supposed* to work.

Precincts without chairs are not unusual. Mecklenburg often has about 1/3 of the precincts unrepresented. I think that's why they tolerate us "Paul" people - the county GOP is desperate to have volunteers staffing the hundred-plus precincts available an urban area.

We did have a straw poll in Mecklenburg, and yes Santorum won it in a blowout. Romney and Paul were basically tied for 2nd with Gingrich far behind.

 

[slacker921]

Saturday, 3/10/2012
2012 Cabarrus County GOP Convention
at J.N. Fries Middle School

The Cabarrus County Republican Party will be conducting the 2012 Cabarrus County GOP Convention this coming weekend, March 10, 2012, at J.N. Fries Middle School, 133 Stonecrest Circle SW, Concord, North Carolina 28027.

Registration will begin at 8:30 and close promptly at 9:15.

All registered Republicans are invited and urged to attend.
You did not have to attend the Annual Precinct Meetings on February 25 to attend the 2012 Cabarrus County Republican Convention.

 

[MozoVote]

Technically true that you did not have to attend the precinct meetings to "attend" the county convention.

However the organized precincts should not be adding delegate names. Only the unorganized precincts can, and the unorganized precincts have only one vote that would be shared fractionally among whomever shows up.

I would not be shocked if they shrug off the plan of organization and just wave everybody in as credentialed anyway. The party struggles every year to improve participation at the conventions.

 

[slacker921]

yep. Go back and look at my first post in this thread... they've already changed the rules because there were a LOT of the establishment regulars who didn't show up for the precinct meeting. My guess, just from looking around at all the younger new faces I'd say there were probably 20% Paul supporters there. The county convention will bring the establishment out and get them registered for the district convention. If they had stood by their original rule (and only allowed the people who showed up at the precinct meeting to go on to the district convention) then the district convention would have been a mess for them.

 

[slacker921]

The Cabarrus county convention was held this past Saturday..

79 were in attendance + there were 11 guests (and there were a few who thought they were registered Republican but weren't or something like that)

144 were at the precinct meeting

This is a county of 175,000 people.



I know of over a dozen Paul supporters who were at either the precinct or county convention, and there were four or five at the county convention that I'm pretty sure were Paul supporters. If all of them go to the district convention then we'll be represented well. From talking to the others I don't think anyone has delusions of taking over the district convention or anything like that, but it seems everyone just wants to be represented and be part of the process (which includes being allowed to vote for a national delegate...). I urged the Paul supporters to plan on going to the state convention in June.

Linda Daves was there stumping for Dan Forest (she even made a video for him). I put him on my list of people not to vote for since I remember how she treated Paul supporters at the '08 NC GOP convention.

The chairman of the 8th district gave a passionate talk about working hard to beat Obama since the Democrats have been "chipping away at the wall of freedom".... the mental gymnastics required to be able to say that while also supporting all of the Republicans in Congress who voted for NDAA, The Patriot Act, the TSA, DHS, the War on Drugs, and all of the other things that both parties have done to build up the police state in the US and shred our Constitutional rights are just astounding.

They held a straw poll (and left off the Presidential race.. hmmm)
Governor: McCrory
Lt. Gov: Forest
Sec St.: Beitler (I wonder how many of them knew that he ran as a Libertarian against Burr?)

 

[MozoVote]

I agree we won't see Nevada style crescendos of Paul people here. NC is like Kansas or Tennessee. We are working to blow out the cobwebs, and get the party to function with more vitality and less direction from Washington DC. When the local party is weak, the National party fills the vacuum.

We did accomplish something at the 2008 state convention. The NC GOP Central Committee wanted to make its powers equivalent to the state Executive Committee. Liberty delegates were just enough to tip this vote, and stop the power grab. We already have enough party business done in secret by the Central Committee, and it is only made up of hand-picked insiders that are hard to dislodge.