In Defense of the Massachusetts Delegation
Hello all,
First I'd like to thank all the supporters who came out to the caucuses across Massachusetts and especially in the eigth district (Boston) where we swept our caucuses. If every RP supporter across the nation had committed to this level, I think we could have had enough stealth RP delegates to get this nomination.
My story is here for all to judge. I'm just going to give the facts here. I think you can judge for yourself about how we handled this. There is a lot of speculation also, which I may post later after verified.
We came into town Monday night and were invited to a GOP reception which was followed by a RP reception across town. At the GOP reception we gathered near a replica of air force one along with many RP delegates from other states. We decided to start a Ron Paul chant while streaming out to ruffle some feathers. It worked
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We arrived at the RP reception with a plan hatched by Chris Blanc, who was quoted above and Todd Fay, who was Chris's alternate. We got in the reception and listened to Dr. Paul. After the speech we had a supporter who was going to go along with the plan take the mic and announce a meeting outside the hall. Drew Ivers took the mic not long after this and started to announce that he wanted people to stick around and listen to him and Jesse Benton.
The purpose of our meeting in the courtyard was to plan to nominate RP for president, which the campaign had given up on for a long time. We understood the rules of the roll call vote, which stated that RP could not be nominated or placed on the ballot of choices for the roll call vote for all states without the support of the majority of five delegations. We identified the ten smallest delegations and assigned delegates from across the country to approach delegates from these delegations with petitions for placing RP on the ballot. This was understood to be a Hail Mary, but we were not going to give up. We went nuts on the floor on Tuesday trying to get these petitions signed.
The people from the WA delegation were actually able to get the support of the majority of the virgin islands delegation, but our luck stopped there.
We were not able to get RP placed on the ballot for all states. Some states were legally required to report the votes of RP supporters who were legally bound to RP, but most states were not. In Massachusetts, most of us were bound by state law to McCain. We were only given the option of McCain or abstain.
When asked about my vote by my party chairman, I was given the option of McCain or abstain. Knowing there would be legal issues, I told him I was to abstain. Every Ron Paul delegate from Massachusetts initially voted to abstain. This started a shitstorm on the floor behind the wolf blitzer tent. We told them we wanted RP to speak on and have full floor access which he had been denied by the convention. They called in a Rep from the McCain campaign who told us that we could make a deal. If we got all the delegates for RP from all states united to vote for McCain, we could potentially have recognition for RP from the stage (maybe not RP but perhaps a grassroots supporter). We called as many delegates from other states to meet, and we decided not to take the deal. The reason for this was that we were unable to contact anyone from the campaign to advise us or to tell us that RP was willing to speak. No one answered their phones... I personally told everyone that we had to make the decision without the campaign (since I don't trust them anyway), but this was not the majority opinion.
During the meeting we were surrounded by a massive goon squad with ear pieces listening and typing everything we said. We had the sergeant at arms harassing our people trying to steal our list of RP delegates from all states. We had interns surrounding us with fake homemade signs to hide us from the media. We broke the meeting with the resolution to negotiate on the state level.
I can't speak for what happened in other states, but I do not expect anyone was given tickets to the rage concert... Many people had tickets already and wanted to go instead of being on the floor or anywhere near the propaganda festival.
For our state, we worked out a deal which was by no means unanimous. There was much dissent, but I think most of the people who did not agree are now realizing that we did the best we could do. Most of us gave our votes to alternates rather than abstaining.
Now for my interpretation:
To us, eight abstentions which would likely not have been reported was of less value than cooperation with the party in helping to get a meetup director on the State Committee, getting RP supporters on town commitees and formally welcoming us into the party. This puts us in a position to elect more RP supporters to the state committee for the upcoming election cycle, and if we fully activate all our supporters in the state we can own this committee, period. In the next presidential elections, Massachusetts can have 100% delegates for Ron Paul or a similar candidate without a doubt in my mind. Had we not made this deal, the party would have likely opposed us illegally every step of the way. We have an agreement in writing from our state party granting us several things that have already and will bring us much closer to our goals in Massachusetts. To get this, we worked with people in the party who supported Pat Buchanan in prior presidential runs, and a man on the national platform committee who struck a clause in support of the North American Union on our insistence. These party people are extremely happy. I believe they're happy not because of the unanimous vote as much as the prospect of having us in the party in the future.
Other delegates have voiced their approval of this deal, having achieved nothing in their states except getting totally ostracized. You can decide what you think for yourself though.
