Reporting from the NCGOP Convention - Your help is still needed!

[GunnyFreedom]

Yesterday and Today at the convention

From: Glen Bradley

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If there is anybody on the list who was not able to make it on Friday, or if you know of people who were not planning on coming to the convention today but are selected as delegates, one of the major lessons we learned on Friday is that a very few people can have a very profound impact. As the tired (but true) sayings goes, in politics, victory often goes to those who simply show up.

Folks, we need you to show up. During the Friday business session we were able to pass two amendments to the Platform, block a call to end debate, and were instrumental in helping to defeat a power grab within the establishment GOP during debate on the Plan of Organization.

We had about 40 people we were able to identify from the list to show up on Friday, and with those 40 we swung a voting block of over twice our number. Our voice was heard, and they know that we are there. Now that we are getting our message out and we are learning the process, what will surprise the establishment even more is when we continue working to restore the GOP to Goldwater conservancy through 2009, and 2010.

But we need you there today. Yes, we will accomplish only a little during 2008, because they were warned that we would be there, and we are there rattling cages and sparking debates the likes of which have never happened on the floor of the State Convention in the lifetimes of the current leadership. But we need to be there to plant the seeds for our overwhelming victories at the 2009 State GOP Convention.

In order to plant those seeds, we need to do a couple things. First we need to establish a reputation as a true conservative block, and a powerful block at that. Yesterday (Friday) with attendance numbering 409 delegates, we brought 40 people and swung a block of around 98 votes. Establishing a 24% conservative voting block is not something that will be ignored in a party which has been slowly losing it's conservative base now for the last 20 years! If we can bring every possible delegate to the convention today, we may be able to swing as much as a 35% block, or a 40% block, but we need your help to do it.

And I, too, need your help. I have been graciously nominated to run for national committeeman against the incumbent David Lewis. David Lewis is currently a member of the NC General Assembly and has a great deal of time and experience in NC Politics. His current position as National Committeeman was an emergency executive appointment 4 months ago, and he will be running for election for the first time today. I happen to like David personally, but politically he is a neoconservative, and he recently caused a major party fracture over siding with McCain against the NC GOP regarding the Barack Obama/Pastor Wright ad. In the end, we may or may not be able to wield enough votes to put a strict constructionist on the National Committee from North Carolina, but every single vote against him will be a message that conservancy is not dead in the NCGOP, that we are here to stay, that we are here for the long haul, and that we WILL see our party returned to the values held by Barry Goldwater and in the early years of Ronald Reagan.

So please, do what you can to attend today. Registration will take place from 8:30 AM to 11:00 AM, with the final business meeting to take place from 2PM to 7PM, at some point during which the national committeeman, national slates, and Presidential Electors will be elected,

We plan on gathering in the Ron Paul Hospitality Suite (arranged by Gary Hardee PCC) at around 1PM to prepare for today's business session. I am looking greatly forward to seeing you all there!

Glen Bradley
2nd District
Franklin Co

 

[slacker921]

I wasn't able to make it yesterday but I'll be there this morning.. I'm glad to hear you all aren't getting totally shut out and are having some effect. See you there..

 

[Cowlesy]

Bump!!!!

Go Gunny and NC!!!!!

 

[Sandra]

Bump!

 

[slacker921]

I went.. my county chair tried to get my credentials excluded. When they called the number of credentialed delegates for each county mine had 10.. my county chair popped up and said 2 of his were missing. I caught him on his way back to his seat to make sure he knew I was there and he had a dejected look on his face. The credentials committee had told him I had indeed checked in already. He had my name and another Paul supporter written on the back of a business card.

He asked for my e-mail address and I gave it to him - for the 4th time this year.

I'll let others report on how it went...
A few things I found interesting...
---- we had over 130 votes for Gunny (awesome job on the nomination and speech) so there were a good number of Paul supporters there... .and yet the nomination chair said only 9.5% of the delegate slots were filled this year. YIKES!
-- David Lewis was clearly shaken and trying to make sure the Paul supporters didn't feel like they were being shunned (although many others clearly didn't want us there).
-- I think there were 15 counties who sent ZERO delegates to the convention.. if Paul supporters from those counties had just shown up.. arrrgh!
-- Only about 740 delegates TOTAL showed up. This means an average of 7.4 people per county. Think about this.. if we'd had 4 extra people from each county go through the painless process of showing up to their county convention and then district convention we would have had the majority by a long shot. Just 4 people from each county....

 

[Cowlesy]

I went.. my county chair tried to get my credentials excluded. When they called the number of credentialed delegates for each county mine had 10.. my county chair popped up and said 2 of his were missing. I caught him on his way back to his seat to make sure he knew I was there and he had a dejected look on his face. The credentials committee had told him I had indeed checked in already. He had my name and another Paul supporter written on the back of a business card.

He asked for my e-mail address and I gave it to him - for the 4th time this year.

I'll let others report on how it went...
A few things I found interesting...
---- we had over 130 votes for Gunny (awesome job on the nomination and speech) so there were a good number of Paul supporters there... .and yet the nomination chair said only 9.5% of the delegate slots were filled this year. YIKES!
-- David Lewis was clearly shaken and trying to make sure the Paul supporters didn't feel like they were being shunned (although many others clearly didn't want us there).
-- I think there were 15 counties who sent ZERO

Thanks for the report and for attending!!!! Great to hear Glen had a good showing!

 

[Cowlesy]

bump

 

[ronpaulhawaii]

bump

I hadn't seen this.

Great OP, Glen. You really are a powerhouse. Thanks

I went.. my county chair tried to get my credentials excluded. When they called the number of credentialed delegates for each county mine had 10.. my county chair popped up and said 2 of his were missing. I caught him on his way back to his seat to make sure he knew I was there and he had a dejected look on his face. The credentials committee had told him I had indeed checked in already. He had my name and another Paul supporter written on the back of a business card.

He asked for my e-mail address and I gave it to him - for the 4th time this year.

I'll let others report on how it went...
A few things I found interesting...
---- we had over 130 votes for Gunny (awesome job on the nomination and speech) so there were a good number of Paul supporters there... .and yet the nomination chair said only 9.5% of the delegate slots were filled this year. YIKES!
-- David Lewis was clearly shaken and trying to make sure the Paul supporters didn't feel like they were being shunned (although many others clearly didn't want us there).
-- I think there were 15 counties who sent ZERO delegates to the convention.. if Paul supporters from those counties had just shown up.. arrrgh!
-- Only about 740 delegates TOTAL showed up. This means an average of 7.4 people per county. Think about this.. if we'd had 4 extra people from each county go through the painless process of showing up to their county convention and then district convention we would have had the majority by a long shot. Just 4 people from each county....

Valuable observations, thanks.

"...clearly shaken..." ... Hmmmm....

 

[slacker921]

I should say.. I had to leave right around 6.. at the time I left it looked like this:
-- the state GOP tossed out the suggestions for delegates from the Paul campaign and instead picked 2 of their own and listed them on their slate.
-- The state credentials chair claimed there was infighting amongst the Paul supporters about who should be the delegates.
-- Instead of 5 delegates from NC (even CNN shows that Paul should get 5 since he got 7% of the vote in the primary) for Paul the NC state GOP awarded only 3 (1 selected during the caucuses at the district convention and ->2<- selected today at the state convention). They claimed that the outcome of the primary ONLY effects the delegate selection at the state convention. So... now we know that next go round we can stack the county and district conventions and those delegates are locked in. Next time we'll select 20+ delegates at the district conventions no matter what the people vote for in the primaries. bwaaahahhaha!

but.. maybe things changed after I left.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

I should say.. I had to leave right around 6.. at the time I left it looked like this:
-- the state GOP tossed out the suggestions for delegates from the Paul campaign and instead picked 2 of their own and listed them on their slate.
-- The state credentials chair claimed there was infighting amongst the Paul supporters about who should be the delegates.
-- Instead of 5 delegates from NC (even CNN shows that Paul should get 5 since he got 7% of the vote in the primary) for Paul the NC state GOP awarded only 3 (1 selected during the caucuses at the district convention and ->2<- selected today at the state convention). They claimed that the outcome of the primary ONLY effects the delegate selection at the state convention. So... now we know that next go round we can stack the county and district conventions and those delegates are locked in. Next time we'll select 20+ delegates at the district conventions no matter what the people vote for in the primaries. bwaaahahhaha!

but.. maybe things changed after I left.

Actually, it was Linda Daves, the NCGOP chair who told that whopper about how she 'tried to contact the Ron Paul people' and 'nobody contacted her' and that when we did 'there was too much infighting' so she couldn't decide who to list.

A lot of us were outraged that the NCGOP chair would outright lie like that. I had to get up and walk out of the convention hall, and I know several others did likewise. Apparently a lot of the Old Guard Republicans (who were otherwise glad to see Ron Paul people not win their points) were actually outraged at Linda Daves too, at least one of them saying within my earshot, "Well, if she's going to lie about something that small then I sure won't be voting for her again next year!"

Everything was great until the delegate slates were proposed. A little bit of research on our part revealed that the two 'Ron Paul' delegates that the NCGOP chose were in fact McCain delegates who lost at district.

I'm not really sure as of yet what to do to address this thing with Linda Daves, but I can assure you that I will not let it rest unanswered. Among the ideas I am kicking around is a letter writing campaign (not e-mail, but hard copy letters) detailing what happened, describing the facts of the situation, pointing out hoe Linda outright lied, and everyone sending it to her, cc'd out to the RNC chair, the RNC Executive Committee, and all the local news outlets in the state of North Carolina.

The truth was that there WAS no dissent within the Ron Paul ranks. We had agreed on our at large delegates some time ago and submitted the names to the NCGOP chair nearly 2 weeks ago. We contacted her repeatedly, and she never made any efforts whatsoever to contact us. We were organized with Gary Hardee, with Ron Paul PCC, so we had the official campaign with us the whole time.

Linda Daves lied on the floor of the Convention with the intent of making us look bad, hoping to make it more palatable for the rank and file membership to accept their shorting us delegates.

However, their shorting us the delegates was a very shortsighted move, and helps us a lot in the long run. It's a heck of a lot easier to get delegates at district than at state, so like Slacker said, in 2012 we can stack the deck in district, and still demand our percent at state -- citing 2008 as precedent. That wasn't really what made me angry.

What made me angry was that the NCGOP chair lied about us on the floor before the whole convention. And now I think it is our duty to make sure that North Carolina knows what their NCGOP chair is doing to them.

 

[MozoVote]

I won't excuse Linda Daves for what she did. But I am willing to keep in mind, that she is under tremendous pressure from the RNC and established Washington insiders like Libby Dole to "deliver". I bet Linda knows her actions are costing her support for chairmanship. The look on her face said to me, that she wasn't looking forward to that phase of the convention.

After the 2008 election is over, she will try and distance herself from the McCain wreckage. But whether the Paulites will forgive, is doubtful.