gilliganscorner
02-12-2008, 01:26 PM
From: http://libertarianthinktank.org/2008/02/12/washington-state-gop-debacle-you-dont-know-the-half/
The Washington State GOP stopped counting caucus results after only 87% of the counties reported in, just as John McCain edged past Mike Huckabee. Bradblog reports that this decision was made unilaterally by Washington State GOP chairman Luke Esser, or as Brad of Bradblog.com calls him, “Esser the Suppressor”. Brad also claimed that Luke Esser has a history of devising measures to suppress votes. He cites a UW Daily article written by Esser in 1986:
Luke “The Supressor” Esser
Now your average leftist loudmouth is a committed individual and can almost never be persuaded to ignore his constitutional rights. The deadbeats, however, are a different matter entirely. Years of interminable welfare checks and free government services have made these modern-day sloths even more lazy. They will vote on election day, if it isn’t much of a bother. But even the slightest inconvenience can keep them from the polling place.
That’s nothing. When I signed up to be a Precinct Committee Officer for my precinct in Seattle, I received a barrage of strange calls. Two of them came from the GOP district chair. In the first call, he asked how committed I was to the Republican Party. I truthfully said that I grew up in a Reagan household, served in the military, supported Rossi for Governor in 2004, and have voted only for Republican presidential nominees.
This loosened him up enough to talk some smack about Ron Paul. He said the problem with Paul is that he makes great, impassioned speeches in Congress, but refuses to “get anyone to go along with his ideas”. Whatever. “By the way”, he asked, “are you supporting anyone?” I said that I liked the whole field but I want to keep my preferences to myself. He said that was no problem.
After his first call, I got a call from another district chair. She outright asked me if I was a Paul supporter. I said the same thing. She shilled for Huckabee’s morality for some minutes before I told her that I was more interested in economic issues. “Yeah, but you don’t support gay marriage and those things do you?” I explained that, really, I don’t care.
She talked a little about being a PCO. She told me that I would run the precinct’s caucus, but “if a bunch of Paul supporters show up, you could loose the vote” I couldn’t understand what that meant. Anything but Paul is a win? Fortunately, my district chair called back to explain.
He said that he was encouraged by all of the new PCO applications, but that he would have to deny any applications from people who weren’t forthright about being Ron Paul supporters. He said that he had found us on a Ron Paul meetup group and that our PCO applications were denied. He didn’t say whether he did this with other candidates’ supporters.
I reminded him that I never lied to him. He acted like that mattered, “Oh. I didn’t really think about that. Most people just lied to me, but I guess you didn’t”. He promised to think about it and get back to me the next day. He did not. Nor did he return the email that I sent the following week. Rather than take a dangerous chance on a homeowner/law student/father of two, like me, our precinct went without a PCO.
So what the heck is going on that the Washington GOP’s representatives distinguish between Paul and a Republican win? A couple of months ago a Washington GOP official was quoted in a fury stating that he did not want a big turnout of Paul supporters because Paul is not even a real Republican (I think it was the Everett Herald, but I couldn’t find the article again after a 2 hour search) Apparently, strict Constitutionalists are personae non gratae around these ‘real’ Republicans.
So there you have it. If the Party stopped the vote after only 87%, my instinct tells me it’s not Huckabee that they’re worried about. Paul came in right behind those two with 21% of the vote, plus the vote stopped in Everett. But I suppose that invoking wrongdoing against Paul makes it a conspiracy theory.
Those “uncommitted” delegates might go for Paul too, considering that a large chunk of Paul supporters ran as incognito delegates, for precisely these reasons. This isn’t much of a secret, so this may be someone’s attempt to mitigate that effect. After all, Esser denied trying to get over on Huckabee, “I would have done the same for Gov. Huckabee if he had the same margin and the same underlying dynamics as Sen. McCain.” I believe that. Would he do it for Paul?
Incidentally, that district chair is a delegate for McCain now. He ran the caucus, so I approached him to make nice afterward. I told him it was a good thing that so many young voters were interested in politics. I also told him I became a delegate for Paul. Flustered, he said that we have only one candidate who can beat the Democrats and that we should be united.
Of course, I disagree. First, predicting McCain’s viability before he runs a national campaign is like calling Giuliani a front-runner before he looses to Ron Paul in the primaries. More importantly, I think that we will have the most statist, authoritarian Republican nominee since Nixon. I think we should send him a message to remind him where he came from.
The Washington State GOP stopped counting caucus results after only 87% of the counties reported in, just as John McCain edged past Mike Huckabee. Bradblog reports that this decision was made unilaterally by Washington State GOP chairman Luke Esser, or as Brad of Bradblog.com calls him, “Esser the Suppressor”. Brad also claimed that Luke Esser has a history of devising measures to suppress votes. He cites a UW Daily article written by Esser in 1986:
Luke “The Supressor” Esser
Now your average leftist loudmouth is a committed individual and can almost never be persuaded to ignore his constitutional rights. The deadbeats, however, are a different matter entirely. Years of interminable welfare checks and free government services have made these modern-day sloths even more lazy. They will vote on election day, if it isn’t much of a bother. But even the slightest inconvenience can keep them from the polling place.
That’s nothing. When I signed up to be a Precinct Committee Officer for my precinct in Seattle, I received a barrage of strange calls. Two of them came from the GOP district chair. In the first call, he asked how committed I was to the Republican Party. I truthfully said that I grew up in a Reagan household, served in the military, supported Rossi for Governor in 2004, and have voted only for Republican presidential nominees.
This loosened him up enough to talk some smack about Ron Paul. He said the problem with Paul is that he makes great, impassioned speeches in Congress, but refuses to “get anyone to go along with his ideas”. Whatever. “By the way”, he asked, “are you supporting anyone?” I said that I liked the whole field but I want to keep my preferences to myself. He said that was no problem.
After his first call, I got a call from another district chair. She outright asked me if I was a Paul supporter. I said the same thing. She shilled for Huckabee’s morality for some minutes before I told her that I was more interested in economic issues. “Yeah, but you don’t support gay marriage and those things do you?” I explained that, really, I don’t care.
She talked a little about being a PCO. She told me that I would run the precinct’s caucus, but “if a bunch of Paul supporters show up, you could loose the vote” I couldn’t understand what that meant. Anything but Paul is a win? Fortunately, my district chair called back to explain.
He said that he was encouraged by all of the new PCO applications, but that he would have to deny any applications from people who weren’t forthright about being Ron Paul supporters. He said that he had found us on a Ron Paul meetup group and that our PCO applications were denied. He didn’t say whether he did this with other candidates’ supporters.
I reminded him that I never lied to him. He acted like that mattered, “Oh. I didn’t really think about that. Most people just lied to me, but I guess you didn’t”. He promised to think about it and get back to me the next day. He did not. Nor did he return the email that I sent the following week. Rather than take a dangerous chance on a homeowner/law student/father of two, like me, our precinct went without a PCO.
So what the heck is going on that the Washington GOP’s representatives distinguish between Paul and a Republican win? A couple of months ago a Washington GOP official was quoted in a fury stating that he did not want a big turnout of Paul supporters because Paul is not even a real Republican (I think it was the Everett Herald, but I couldn’t find the article again after a 2 hour search) Apparently, strict Constitutionalists are personae non gratae around these ‘real’ Republicans.
So there you have it. If the Party stopped the vote after only 87%, my instinct tells me it’s not Huckabee that they’re worried about. Paul came in right behind those two with 21% of the vote, plus the vote stopped in Everett. But I suppose that invoking wrongdoing against Paul makes it a conspiracy theory.
Those “uncommitted” delegates might go for Paul too, considering that a large chunk of Paul supporters ran as incognito delegates, for precisely these reasons. This isn’t much of a secret, so this may be someone’s attempt to mitigate that effect. After all, Esser denied trying to get over on Huckabee, “I would have done the same for Gov. Huckabee if he had the same margin and the same underlying dynamics as Sen. McCain.” I believe that. Would he do it for Paul?
Incidentally, that district chair is a delegate for McCain now. He ran the caucus, so I approached him to make nice afterward. I told him it was a good thing that so many young voters were interested in politics. I also told him I became a delegate for Paul. Flustered, he said that we have only one candidate who can beat the Democrats and that we should be united.
Of course, I disagree. First, predicting McCain’s viability before he runs a national campaign is like calling Giuliani a front-runner before he looses to Ron Paul in the primaries. More importantly, I think that we will have the most statist, authoritarian Republican nominee since Nixon. I think we should send him a message to remind him where he came from.