Doug Wead Blog: "Ron Paul stuns in Arizona, upset win is game changer!"

[tsai3904]

Someone who understands what happened yesterday in Arizona and Oklahoma, please respond to Josh Putnam (@FHQ) on Twitter. He's an influential expert on the delegate process.

He retweeted this:

Jonathan Capps ‏ @JonathanCapps8
@FHQ I think the party has started fighting back. RP got 0 of the at-large OK dels yesterday & in AZ, Romney's slate won 26 of 29 del slots.

Then said this:

Josh Putnam ‏ @FHQ
.@JonathanCapps8 Was off the grid this weekend, but not surprised by AZ. OK, based on past Paul-based activity ('08), is somewhat surprising

PLEASE be respectful as he has written unbiased articles about our delegate wins in many states. Give him the facts and I know he'll do his own research into what happened.

 

[parocks]

Actually...we had a quorum to continue the meeting and elect Karen Johnson as committeeman to RNC since the az gop Chairman Morrissy kept insisting she didnt win even though she did receive the most votes by a high margin . Chairman Morrissy wanted to force us into a mail in ballot re-vote ...and we rejected it over 3 times until he finally decided to break the rules and adjourn without a floor vote!

I believe I saw that on the ustream (which by the way is a hidden story in all of this - ustream is much much better than twitter or facebook or anything else for live events.) . Here's a more specific question? what exactly was changed in the parking lot at AZ, and was most of what we saw at the end there about Karen Johnson, and that's it?

 

[bluesc]

Paying people like Collins.

There was a post from a member in either Idaho or Wyoming asking why there wasn't any help from the official campaign in their delegate selection. Oklahoma isn't an isolated incident.

Maybe we should be hosting online fundraisers for our people at individual state conventions (and paying for experts to go there and help them) instead.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Maybe we should be hosting online fundraisers for our people at individual state conventions (and paying for experts to go there and help them) instead.

I agree and officially endorse this idea.

 

[Lightweis]

I can tell you the campaign has done nothing in Virginia. Its all grassroots winning these conventions

 

[Tudo]

Huh?

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I can tell you the campaign has done nothing in Virginia. Its all grassroots winning these conventions

I thought the campaign was supposed to be better organized this time.

 

[tsai3904]

I thought the campaign was supposed to be better organized this time.

Where the campaign has offices, we have done well. This includes Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Alaska, and Nevada. The campaign can't have offices in all 50 states.

 

[JWZguy]

Where the campaign has offices, we have done well. This includes Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Alaska, and Nevada. The campaign can't have offices in all 50 states.

Don't forget Louisiana. We won in a landslide here.

 

[parocks]

Paying people like Collins.

There was a post from a member in either Idaho or Wyoming asking why there wasn't any help from the official campaign in their delegate selection. Oklahoma isn't an isolated incident.

There should be someone in the official campaign who is paid to do this. Is there a National Field Coordinator?

 

[parocks]

Where the campaign has offices, we have done well. This includes Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Alaska, and Nevada. The campaign can't have offices in all 50 states.

I'm not arguing in favor of offices in all 50 states (or against), but shouldn't there be a line of communication between the national office and the people on the ground in charge in the states where there isn't a paid staffer?

 

[bluesc]

Where the campaign has offices, we have done well. This includes Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Alaska, and Nevada. The campaign can't have offices in all 50 states.

They can send representatives for a few days when conventions are taking place.

 

[BrooklynZoo]

I can attest to the fact that there was a lot of official campaign organization in Nevada. Was everything always as efficient or communicated as well as could have been? No, but there was definitely an outline and a general direction of where we were going during the county and state convention processes if you were paying attention. During the state convention, there were text messages and signs (or balloons) raised to direct votes as needed.

This is a grassroots effort and while I'd like there to be more direction from up high, we are the ground troops and we need to think bottom-up and on our feet if we're going to win this war.

 

[parocks]

I agree and officially endorse this idea.

Second. A chip-in where the money goes to whoever is in charge in the state.

We could also have projects. We can help organize. Some people think that what has happened is the official campaign cares about some states, and other states they literally do nothing for the conventions.

We might need to pick up the slack. Money, but also information. Does every single convention know that the first thing you need to do is to get your own convention chair in there?

As grassroots we can come up with money which can go to an advanceman or woman with equipment in a vehicle.

 

[lib3rtarian]

They can send representatives for a few days when conventions are taking place.

Correct. No one is asking for them to open full-time offices in all 50 states. But the LEAST they can do is to send down a couple of campaign guys (preferably a parliamentarian and a lawyer) to guide, motivate and advice the grassroots before and during the state convention days, for a couple of days. Grassroots will be more motivated if they sense a campaign presence and if they feel that a win is important to Ron. If the campaign can't do this, they are downright useless.

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

According to Doug Wead, who is getting his information from the increasingly incompetent campaign.

I can't wrap my head around how you get the GOP to recognize results produced in a parking lot by strangers, but according to our people in OK, it happened.

Well, if those elected delegates in the parking lot are strangers, the GOP must be run by dictators hiding in the shadows.

The floor IS the convention. The chair is just suppose to direct the speaking in an orderly manner, he isn't suppose to hand down things on high or order people. Those are free representatives of a sovereign people, and they vote to adjorn or not adjorn, who should handle the secretary job of chair, the whole works.

 

[lib3rtarian]

Why are you folks rapping on bluesc? His reference to "strangers" is to say how RNC will view them. He is not saying that they are strangers to him or us.

 

[RDM]

Correct. No one is asking for them to open full-time offices in all 50 states. But the LEAST they can do is to send down a couple of campaign guys (preferably a parliamentarian and a lawyer) to guide, motivate and advice the grassroots before and during the state convention days, for a couple of days. Grassroots will be more motivated if they sense a campaign presence and if they feel that a win is important to Ron. If the campaign can't do this, they are downright useless.

To be honest, I don't think there is much left of a campaign staff on hand anymore. I think they are a bare bones operation at this point with their own objective and their objective is not on the same page as the grassroots. Look!!!! It's like this. We can sit around here on this forum and debate about this and debate about that, but all this debating is WASTING time and time is not on our side.

It's high time, the GRASSROOTS pulls up the BIG BOY pants and let's get down to business. What I'm saying is SCREW the campaign. They are NOT showing or giving ANY signals they're in this 100%. Whatever plans they have in their agenda, let them do their thing. OUR agenda should be to get RON PAUL in the WhiteHouse and that means almost literally taking over the campaign just like we are taking over these conventions. LET"S GET THINGS ORGANIZED and Let's get the ball rolling.

 

[sailingaway]

What very much surprises me is that there's confusion, and apparently these conventions sometimes come and go without the official campaigns involvement.

If the campaign has a "delegate strategy", and they certainly have talked about a delegate strategy, I would think they would have at least one person doing this as at least part of what they do. The Ron Paul official campaign should be in contact with 1) "the person on the ground who is in charge" and 2) "they guy who they want to be the convention chair." In Maine 1) was Eric Brakey, and he was official campaign and 2) it was Brent Tweed.

The official campaign should tell person 1) exactly what they want person 1) to do, and to find a person 2). How is it just not being done? I'm not saying they have to pay someone like Eric Brakey to be there (it does get the organizational job done), but someone sitting in the main office should know and give instructions to whoever is there.

Perhaps it's happening and we don't know it?

I think the campaign is short for money compared to previously, and has kept staff going in the caucus states they targeted this whole time. But I don't think they were looking at AZ, a primary all or nothing state, etc. I don't think they carried it so far as 'which STATE CONVENTIONS can we win' and go for every single one. I was amazed at AZ. I never thought for a moment we'd have a presence like that, and I am thrilled with the grass roots there -- I don't think the campaign even had a person in the state.

Maine, on the other hand they had a presence in, and Iowa and so forth. and those go more smoothly. What we need to know is where they DON'T have a presence and grass roots are gearing up, or the campaign needs a point person to get that info so they can have someone on the ground.

Or we need to chip in for a top notch parliamentarian at minimum for the conventions.

OK had one from how it sounded, but it didn't sound like AZ folks had anything but the reading over of the rules they had done themselves, and it is hard to respond in the split second you have when you don't know the gambits backwards and forwards.

 

[opinionatedfool]

Have there yet been any real numbers out of AZ?

Of course we won OK. Not sure why the campaign isn't getting all over this as a victory.