I want to become a delegate - help

[solrac]

Becoming a delegate is an extremely confusing and poorly documented process.

I've read ALL the web sites posted about becoming a delegate. Nothing has any conclusive, easy to follow information. Here is what I know so far:

- The process is different in every state, and there are no how-to websites devoted to any particular location.

- You must become a delegate before your state's primary. (Is this true?) Or you can NOT any longer do it.

- You must first attend a caucus in your state or county (?), and make a speech, and get other like supporters to vote for you, and there is a bunch of courtroom like jargon that you must yell out during the process like "objection", "point inferred", etc. etc.

- Once you get voted as a delegate, you are at the county level. To rise to the state level you have to do more of the above (??). And get more votes? Are we ultimately supposed to just vote each other in as delegates? Like a big round robin thing?

- Eventually you become a full fledged (???) STATE delegate and you get to vote at the RNC on Sept. 1 - 4th. I would LOVE to travel there and give Ron Paul a vote, but it probably won't happen. This shit is too complicated and my job keeps me so busy. But if I had a simple to follow set of steps I would be able to do this.

- Once you're a full fledged (?) state delegate, at the RNC you MUST vote for your candidate. If no candidate receives the nomination then a brokered convention begins and delegates can vote for whomever they choose. Now this is important: I also read that back at the city or county level delegate (when you first become a delegate) they will totally railroad you and ban you or make you fail if you show support for Ron Paul. So you have to disguise yourself as just a "politically active" republican who would like to vote and be involved, but not for Ron Paul. A Paul supporter in disguise. THEN, you have to sacrifice a vote for Ron Paul to another candidate at the RNC, hoping it still reaches a brokered convention. Then if it does, you, and hundreds of other "Ron Paul delegates in disguise" can all then change their mind and vote for Ron Paul.


Is it just me or does all this seem p'ucking INSANE? How in the %%$$&$&$& HELL is an average American who has NO experience in this going to become a successful delegate?

Everywhere people post things like "ALL THAT MATTERS IS DELEGATES" and "If you're not becoming a delegate now you should be BANNED".

That's like asking me to build a rocket to get to the moon by next Thursday.

***

I'm hoping someone can tell me, in a simple, clear, concise, step by step fashion how to become a delegate in Los Angeles county, become a state delegate, then journey to the RNC in September to vote for Ron Paul's nomination.

OR -- Is it too late for me because the California primary is over?

Thanks,
-Carlos-

 

[Redcard]

Okay, first, Carlos, if you don't understand it, it likely isn't a good thing for you to go.

That said, it's also too late, as on Feb 5th, county delegates were chosen.

To answer your question, it goes Precinct to County , County to State, and then State to National. None of these trips are paid for , you are required to pay for them all yourself. Further, time off must be settled by you and your employer. If you're not present at the time of vote, an alternate will place the vote.

 

[Austin]

- The process is different in every state, and there are no how-to websites devoted to any particular location.

- You must become a delegate before your state's primary. (Is this true?) Or you can NOT any longer do it.

- You must first attend a caucus in your state or county (?), and make a speech, and get other like supporters to vote for you, and there is a bunch of courtroom like jargon that you must yell out during the process like "objection", "point inferred", etc. etc.

- Once you get voted as a delegate, you are at the county level. To rise to the state level you have to do more of the above (??). And get more votes? Are we ultimately supposed to just vote each other in as delegates? Like a big round robin thing?

- Eventually you become a full fledged (???) STATE delegate and you get to vote at the RNC on Sept. 1 - 4th. I would LOVE to travel there and give Ron Paul a vote, but it probably won't happen. This shit is too complicated and my job keeps me so busy. But if I had a simple to follow set of steps I would be able to do this.

- Once you're a full fledged (?) state delegate, at the RNC you MUST vote for your candidate. If no candidate receives the nomination then a brokered convention begins and delegates can vote for whomever they choose. Now this is important: I also read that back at the city or county level delegate (when you first become a delegate) they will totally railroad you and ban you or make you fail if you show support for Ron Paul. So you have to disguise yourself as just a "politically active" republican who would like to vote and be involved, but not for Ron Paul. A Paul supporter in disguise. THEN, you have to sacrifice a vote for Ron Paul to another candidate at the RNC, hoping it still reaches a brokered convention. Then if it does, you, and hundreds of other "Ron Paul delegates in disguise" can all then change their mind and vote for Ron Paul.

Sorry, but the only thing that you said that is true is that all states are different. I will look into the California process to see if you are still eligible.

 

[fabijo]

It looks like California delegates needed to be filed by each candidate by January 7, 2008. On the Ron Paul 2008 website, it says the list was submitted:

http://people.ronpaul2008.com/california/2008/01/25/delegates/

What I am confused about is what I am reading about a list of alternates. That list needs to be submitted by March 6, 2008.

It looks like California would be hard to infiltrate anyway, unless Ron Paul supporters already applied prior to January to McCain's side.

 

[solrac]

Okay, first, Carlos, if you don't understand it, it likely isn't a good thing for you to go.

This is the most absolutely insane thing I've ever heard. The whole reason our country is in the mess that it's in is because our education system has been undermined. The fact that I have absolutely no CLUE as to how this runs is proof that something is wrong with our education system. The PTB probably does not WANT average americans to learn how this works and control our education curriculum. So the answer is to LEARN and DO. Not to admit defeat and shy away from it because you don't understand the process.

That said, it's also too late, as on Feb 5th, county delegates were chosen.

Damn.

To answer your question, it goes Precinct to County , County to State, and then State to National. None of these trips are paid for , you are required to pay for them all yourself. Further, time off must be settled by you and your employer. If you're not present at the time of vote, an alternate will place the vote.

How do I sign up to be an alternate? Also, I would be financially able to make the trips and would not have any problem with scheduling as I am self employed and financially self sustained.

 

[Redcard]

You can't be an alternate now. You had to be voted in. See, if you don't understand the process, you aren't going to be helpful there. Part of being a delegate is getting to vote "Ron Paul" at the convention, but there's a LOT OF gaming that goes on there too. If you can't understand the system, you're likely to be snowed under or mitigated.

 

[solrac]

Sorry, but the only thing that you said that is true is that all states are different. I will look into the California process to see if you are still eligible.

GOOD -- I hope I was wrong about almost everything. (Even though I didn't state anything, I was asking for true / false.)

And I sincerely appreciate any info you may look into for California.

 

[solrac]

You can't be an alternate now. You had to be voted in. See, if you don't understand the process, you aren't going to be helpful there. Part of being a delegate is getting to vote "Ron Paul" at the convention, but there's a LOT OF gaming that goes on there too. If you can't understand the system, you're likely to be snowed under or mitigated.

Redcard, you should spend your time teaching people step by step how to become a delegate and be successful rather than saying there's no hope for the uneducated.

Your way of looking at this is a road to defeat.

Sorry, but you gotta change your attitude. Change comes from grass roots. And believe me, the grass roots do NOT know how to become delegates. Most people don't even know that delegates exist, grass roots or not.

I watched the 2000 and 2004 elections on TV and this year is the first time I've ever heard the word delegate in my life. (Other than in computer programming where a delegate function would help pass variables or parameters from one scope to another.)

If you are blessed with knowledge and brains you should be traveling to the other states that are left (your time and money permitting of course) and instructing Paul supporters out there how to become delegates.

I bet you most of them out there are like me. F'in CLUELESS.

Thanks,
-Carlos-

 

[Redcard]

Your way of looking at this is a road to defeat.

Sorry, but you gotta change your attitude. Change comes from grass roots. And believe me, the grass roots do NOT know how to become delegates. Most people don't even know that delegates exist, grass roots or not.

Change my attitude?

You're too late for California, Carlos. You're just too late. My attitude doesn't change that. If you were in Texas, or Michigan (which, now is too late too) , or another state that hasn't voted or registered its delegates, that'd be different.. but my attitude is one of frustration.. because just NOW people like you are coming up and saying "How do I be's a delegate?" when we've been wanting people to speak up in the party for awhile.

I don't believe in this Brokered Convention strategy, but Paul does, and he's been telling people how to get involved with this for a while now.

My way is the way to defeat?

Excuse me? Mr. I don't know how to be a delegate despite precinct captains and Ron Paul and everyone here talking about it? No. Delegates matter. Getting to be one matters. I'm not one, but several people from my precinct are working their way into it.

It's not my fault that Dr. Paul has chosen to go this very shaky route. It's HIS. You want to blame someone for not educating you, blame Dr. Paul. Not me. MY way would have been to buy TV ads and not mailers, because that's what statistically works. My way would have been to buy databases and target Centrist Democrats, Moderates, and Libertarians/Independants, not to take the REpublican walk sheets.

My point is, you're asking me to be nice when the time for being nice has passed. We're LOSING BADLY, and we need to wake up to that reality and start addressing things we can address.

 

[solrac]

Change my attitude?

You're too late for California, Carlos. You're just too late. My attitude doesn't change that. If you were in Texas, or Michigan (which, now is too late too) , or another state that hasn't voted or registered its delegates, that'd be different.. but my attitude is one of frustration.. because just NOW people like you are coming up and saying "How do I be's a delegate?" when we've been wanting people to speak up in the party for awhile.

I don't believe in this Brokered Convention strategy, but Paul does, and he's been telling people how to get involved with this for a while now.

My way is the way to defeat?

Excuse me? Mr. I don't know how to be a delegate despite precinct captains and Ron Paul and everyone here talking about it? No. Delegates matter. Getting to be one matters. I'm not one, but several people from my precinct are working their way into it.

It's not my fault that Dr. Paul has chosen to go this very shaky route. It's HIS. You want to blame someone for not educating you, blame Dr. Paul. Not me. MY way would have been to buy TV ads and not mailers, because that's what statistically works. My way would have been to buy databases and target Centrist Democrats, Moderates, and Libertarians/Independants, not to take the REpublican walk sheets.

My point is, you're asking me to be nice when the time for being nice has passed. We're LOSING BADLY, and we need to wake up to that reality and start addressing things we can address.

I may be too late for California but it's never too late to change attitudes from one of frustration to one of hope and helping everyone possible.

The reason I don't know how to become a delegate is not my fault, nor is it my defeat. The campaign hopefully had more than enough people who DID know the way and became delegates. You must understand I was so busy you could not believe. I was working 16 hour days all month of January. Even weekends. Combine that with the fact that NO clear instructions for becoming a delegate were made available. The Ron Paul campaign failed in listing a step by step plan for becoming a delegate for every single state. There was enough money the campaign received to put some of it towards a comprehensive "how to become a delegate" for EVERY state web site, right on ronpaul2008.com. But it's not there.

Or how about this? A person who DID become a delegate could have simply written a day by day diary of every single thing he did in the process of becoming a delegate, so that others could simply copy those actions. This did not exist.

As for blaming someone for my non-education, I will NOT blame Dr. Paul. He has educated me so much. Everything I know about liberty, rights, the constitution, true history (not fake history as taught by schools), the economy and the fed, and much much more ALL came from Dr. Paul, or from links related to Dr. Paul. The only thing he could have done better is back up his delegates strategy with a good delegate website like I describe above.

As for addressing things we can address now:
- That is another question I had before

Now that primaries are over and delegates are voted, what can I as a Californian do to continue to support the campaign, besides donating money?

Donating money is easy. So easy that Ron Paul set a new record of fundraising in American HISTORY. If becoming a delegate were as easy (or even half as easy) as clicking a button to donate money, Ron Paul would have TONS of delegates now, because we (the grass roots) would have flooded the delegate process.

So besides donating money which I will continue to do, and canvassing (which I will do as soon as my workload lightens), what more can I do? If there is nothing more, that's fine, and I'll continue doing what I'm doing. But if there is more, let me know.

Sorry I couldn't make it to become a delegate.

 

[Redcard]

I understand. It is the campaign's fault.

I'm sorry for being snappy and mean. It's just, a lot of us came here with ideas that we saw that were wrong, and hoped to make a change.. and we were called trolls.

Well, now we're seeing if our ideas were implemented we might have had a better chance, and it's just frustrating to watch people piss away this election.

Right now, It's sort of a dead man walking thing for me. He's lost, I know it, and the time where he could have done something has passed.

It just .. it's so sad. We could have done this. We really could have done this, if it was managed properly.

 

[RPDelegate]

All I did to be become a delegate in MN was go to the caucus and raise my hand when they asked who wants to be a delegate. It was really that easy. It's not rocket science and you don't have to know a damn thing about politics. You simply have to get to your caucus and raise your hand.

And initially, I was the only person that raised my hand. Everyone else there was totally clueless and had to be convinced by the guy running the caucus to please be a delegate because there were six delegate spots in our precinct, and so far I was the only person that raised my hand.

It's really unfortunate now that people are seeing RP loosing, they now want to step up to the plate and be a delegate or do this or that. I sure wish people would have agreed to do this a month ago when people were on here constantly screaming at each other to become precinct captains and delegates. It's too late now people. I can't believe after seeing this happen in Iowa, that people allowed this to happen again and again and again, in state after state.

Best thing we can do now, it try to get the word out in what states are left to become a delegate if possible in your state. It also sucks that every state has it's own rules. But that's probably by design so that the GOP can have better control over who they want to win the nomination.

 

[sratiug]

I'm in Mississippi. I've tried to figure out the delegate thing also without a lot of success. I think you can be a delegate by showing up at the 10:00 am meeting on the election day if you are a registered voter. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Bradley in DC]

To answer your question, it goes Precinct to County , County to State, and then State to National. None of these trips are paid for , you are required to pay for them all yourself. Further, time off must be settled by you and your employer. If you're not present at the time of vote, an alternate will place the vote.

While there are sites (particularly Anson's) that repeat this canard, it is NOT necessarily true. Many primary states (including California) HAVE NO CONVENTIONS. Even in caucus and mixed or hybrid system states, the rules vary considerably. Please check the state subfora here for good information FOR YOUR SPECIFIC STATE.

 

[Redcard]

While there are sites (particularly Anson's) that repeat this canard, it is NOT necessarily true. Many primary states (including California) HAVE NO CONVENTIONS. Even in caucus and mixed or hybrid system states, the rules vary considerably. Please check the state subfora here for good information FOR YOUR SPECIFIC STATE.

Right, obviously.

I was just stating in a general manner, that's how it is done in states where Ron Paul wants delegates.

You know, though, as well as I , that this scheme.. well.. won't work.

 

[Bradley in DC]

You can't be an alternate now. You had to be voted in. See, if you don't understand the process, you aren't going to be helpful there. Part of being a delegate is getting to vote "Ron Paul" at the convention, but there's a LOT OF gaming that goes on there too. If you can't understand the system, you're likely to be snowed under or mitigated.

that is not necessarily true. Please stop giving out bad advice. There are processes to substitute out delegates and alternates which happens quite regularly. There is no convention in California.

Since YOU don't understand the process, YOU are not being helpful here.

 

[Bradley in DC]

Right, obviously.

I was just stating in a general manner, that's how it is done in states where Ron Paul wants delegates.

You know, though, as well as I , that this scheme.. well.. won't work.

No, there is no "general manner" as you describe it. If people follow your and Anson's advice we will get no delegates, correct. We don't need delusional schemes, we need people to learn the actual rules in their states and the national convention rules and follow them.

 

[Bradley in DC]

I'm in Mississippi. I've tried to figure out the delegate thing also without a lot of success. I think you can be a delegate by showing up at the 10:00 am meeting on the election day if you are a registered voter. Can anyone confirm this?

Please post in the Mississippi subforum.

 

[enjerth]

Change my attitude?

You're too late for California, Carlos. You're just too late. My attitude doesn't change that. If you were in Texas, or Michigan (which, now is too late too) , or another state that hasn't voted or registered its delegates, that'd be different.. but my attitude is one of frustration.. because just NOW people like you are coming up and saying "How do I be's a delegate?" when we've been wanting people to speak up in the party for awhile.

I don't believe in this Brokered Convention strategy, but Paul does, and he's been telling people how to get involved with this for a while now.

My way is the way to defeat?

Excuse me? Mr. I don't know how to be a delegate despite precinct captains and Ron Paul and everyone here talking about it? No. Delegates matter. Getting to be one matters. I'm not one, but several people from my precinct are working their way into it.

It's not my fault that Dr. Paul has chosen to go this very shaky route. It's HIS. You want to blame someone for not educating you, blame Dr. Paul. Not me. MY way would have been to buy TV ads and not mailers, because that's what statistically works. My way would have been to buy databases and target Centrist Democrats, Moderates, and Libertarians/Independants, not to take the REpublican walk sheets.

My point is, you're asking me to be nice when the time for being nice has passed. We're LOSING BADLY, and we need to wake up to that reality and start addressing things we can address.

Paul may have been trying to tell us how to become delegates, but we were too busy with money bombs and blimps to divert our attention to that.

But you should still be encouraging people to do what they can. I think people should sign up to be precinct captains and canvass their precinct for Ron Paul, even if the primary has passed. Voter education is vital to this movement, even if Ron Paul doesn't get the nomination. If any of you believe in the possibility of a 3rd party run, you NEED to do this.

If Ron Paul has the ground support he can't give up.

 

[Bradley in DC]

I'm hoping someone can tell me, in a simple, clear, concise, step by step fashion how to become a delegate in Los Angeles county, become a state delegate, then journey to the RNC in September to vote for Ron Paul's nomination.

OR -- Is it too late for me because the California primary is over?

Thanks,
-Carlos-

Carlos,

Thanks for supporting the rEVOLution. Most of the "How to be a delegate" sites out there, especially Anson's, have mostly bad information that causes more confusion than helping.

As a general rule contact your local organizer and offer your help. In the case of California, Dr. Paul did now win any delegates (no matter what you read from some delusional posts here and elsewhere on the web). So, it's a moot question for your state.

The other half of the states that haven't voted yet could use some help though!