This was about usurping the establishment that has been controlling these senate and precinct districts for 30 plus years. It's something that is not won overnight but it happened today in SD-25, in North Austin SD-14 the RP supporters did not gain control of the convention so I don't know how that went. I mean this is Republican Bush country, these people for have been riding this Bush platform for at least 20 years. This is the base of the party that is in control of this nation. This came from the National Republican Chairman for Texas. We have took over at least 2 senate districts that I know of and that is an amazing feat. I would say that 90% of us are all 1st timers.
Unfortunately, the Legacy PAC which had some presence in SD-25 had a very large presence in SD-14. In fact, its leaders belong to SD-14 -- as you can imagine, wresting power from these guys was very difficult for us in SD-14. We finally ended our convention about an hour and a half ago (9:30 PM).
Many, many delegates were very worn out by the end of the convention (nearly 14 hours!!!). There was no debate on the resolutions. The report from the resolutions committee passed as a whole. HOWEVER, we had already influenced the language of the report prior to the convention. Our resolutions contained condemnation of TTC, McCain-Feingold, abortion, UN, amnesty, illegal immigration, the Fed/income tax/16th amendment. There are some weird resolutions (i.e., very religious resolutions), but overall it was good.
We got a decent sized amount of Ron Paul delegates to the state convention. I think I heard 25% tossed around... RP support at the convention was actually greater than 40%, though -- maybe almost 50-50. The problem was that most of our support came from small precincts, which had weaker voting strength than the neocon/Legacy PAC large precincts.
The greatest amount of debate took place at the beginning on a motion to adopt the minority report of Robert Morrow (a very active, dedicated member of RP efforts) to amend the rules. It would have allowed the small precincts to caucus and nominate delegates to appear before the Nominations Committee to be considered as a state delegate. It failed, but it was a good fight which definitely showed that the status quo Republicans had no intention to give RP supporters ANY leeway.
The most important thing, I think, is that we have made our voices heard. The establishment Republicans know we're a force to be reckoned with. Guest speakers like Rep. McCauly and some others called out RP supporters specifically, acknowledging our presence.
It was an interesting experience. Can't wait for 2010.
