West Virginia Email Primary

[rmikelyons]

Didn't see this posted elsewhere, so I apologize if I'm double-posting.

West Virginia Holding an EMAIL PRIMARY - ACTION ALERT
Body: A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY for Dr. Paul in the Mountain State: West Virginia's GOP has changed their national convention delegate selection process so that the majority of their delegates (18 of 30) will now be determined at a state convention to be held in the state capitol on, you guessed it, Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008. And, get this, the state delegates to this convention will be determined by an EMAIL VOTE among WV Republicans during the first two weeks of January!!

These 18 national delegates are the state's "At-Large" delegates. WVGOP will still be determining their 12 (3 per congressional district) "District" delegates at the open primary in May. But, these delegates plus the automatic three more for state party chair, district chairman and chairwoman will be a moot point by then. WVGOP has lined-up Flip Romney to be a keynote speaker at their February state convention and plans to have their vote all over and done with by early afternoon. WV wants to be first in the nation to announce to national media who has won their state...they hope to influence the big states of California, NY, Michigan, etc.

CALL TO ACTION: We need to get this info to email addresses of as many West Virginian Ron Paul supporters as possible. BECAUSE, in order for a voter to participate in this email vote, they need to "enroll", i.e., apply for a username and password by the end of November. AND, we need to find some 600 Republican voters here (as of Sept 1 -each county gets roughly one per 1000 "R" voters) who are willing to pay $25 and sign-up to be a Ron Paul delegate to the state convention. MOUNTAINEERS - TAKE SOME TIME and read the following links:

INTRO ANNOUNCEMENT:
http://www.wvgopconvention.com/

CONVENTION RULES:
http://www.wvgopconvention.com/content/img/f40884/Convention_Rules.pdf (PDF File)

CALENDAR / DEADLINES:
http://www.wvgop.org/convention.html

[jcbraithwaite7]

I'm working on my husband's family... most of them are Dems. but are coming around to Ron Paul. What about focusing on WVU campus? My husband is an alumni but we live in Florida now. Maybe we should do a "Adopt a Mountaineer" like the Adopt an Iowan.

[LarryWhite]

The official rules came out about a week ago, you now have until the end of Nov to register Republican to be a delegate. I'm the organizer of the Charleston meetup group, and we've started a list of delegates by county, and getting the word out. We have about 10 to 15 people signed up now pledging to be delegates to the state convention.

What area of WV are you from? There's 4 different meetup groups in the state now, and each has some info about this. My group is going to focus a lot of attention on Regatta this year and try to educate people about the process.

[Spirit of '76]

Larry White and Matt Harris are both working on compiling a list of those people wishing to be delegates.

I am on that list.

The most important thing at this point is that anyone interested in being a delegate or interested in voting for those delegates must be a registered Republican by September 1st!

[Spirit of '76]

The official rules came out about a week ago, you now have until the end of Nov to register Republican to be a delegate.

Ah, so it's changed to November? Are we sure?

[LarryWhite]

it's deep in the official rules on wvgopconvention.com.

To vote in the online election or be a delegate, you have to be an 'eligible republican'. Section 2.10 defines eligible republicans as

'those individuals duly registered to vote as Republicans under the laws of WV on or before the 30th day of November of the year preceding the Convention year."

After this election I should have an associate degree in poli sci from interpreting all these rules.

[Spirit of '76]

After this election I should have an associate degree in poli sci from interpreting all these rules.

No doubt!

I just noticed this:

8.1 Filing Requirements - At Large Delegates. Any Presidential Candidate
seeking At-large Delegates under Rule 3.1 shall declare as a candidate by
filing with the State Chairman a Certificate of Candidacy and include a list
of nominees for At-large Delegates equal to the amount allocated by the
National Party Rules.

8.1.1 The filing period for Presidential Candidates under Rule 8.1 ends
on December 31st of the year preceding the Convention Year.

8.1.2 Alternate National Delegates as defined by the National Party
Rules shall be elected by the State Republican Convention to be
held during months of June, July, or August of the Convention
Year.

8.1.3 Any Presidential Candidate filing pursuant to Rule 8.1 shall be
required to pay to the State Party or its designee a filing fee of Five
Thousand ($5,000) Dollars no later than September 1st of the year
preceding the Convention Year.


Has the campaign paid this fee?

[Spirit of '76]

Has the campaign paid this fee?

I just got off the phone with campaign HQ. They're going to look into this and call me back.

[LarryWhite]

Good catch, I didn't realize it had to be paid by Sept 1st. They'd better fork it over as much work as we're putting into getting delegates and organizing.


I know Romney's going to be on the ballot, they issued a news release about it:

http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48728136_mitt_romney_mitt_romney_governor_mitt_rom ney_announces_west_virginia_statewide_steering_com

I figure Mccain and Guliani at least will particpate, both had strong fundraising here.

Be sure and let me know what they say, I've spent the last two months telling every person I know or who would talk to me about this damn convention process.

[pyrazole2]

Looks like they changed quite a bit from the original notes. They're worried about how it's going to work out....I think we'll be able to take those 18 spots. We'll have someone stand for chairman and chairwoman, and we'll have plenty of time to get the 9 others in the open primary.

Doing my part in Parkersburg!

[Spirit of '76]

Still waiting for word from HQ. I know they're busy, but if I haven't heard anything by tomorrow, I'll call and bug them again.

[LarryWhite]

Found the original 'proposed' rules, it mentions a filing fee of $2000 but does not give the time frame for paying it. So they've upped the filing fee to $5000 and now put a time limit on filing, then didn't publish the rules until last week.

We had a lady come to the last meeting who had been involved in the local GOP for many years, been a poll worker, and even was a delegate to the national convention at one time (didn't say for who, but doesn't matter), but she became disenfranchised with the WV GOP and stopped volunteering. Anyway, she told me she was very happy we were going to be organizing and getting delegates, but that we'd better have thick skin, because the WV GOP has already decided who they want to nominate, and they are going to fight us every step of the way in every way possible. They don't play fair, she said, so don't expect them to.

I see now what she was trying to tell us.

[Spirit of '76]

Yeah. They refuse to link to my website, even though they link to a bunch of crappy blogs.

Rotten to the core...

[USPatriot36]

Seems like a pretty crooked way of doing things to me. I would want to know how the votes will be counted before I would spend too much money or work too hard on this process. Seems like a rigged game to me.

[LarryWhite]

The fact that they're trying to rig it just makes me want to beat them at their own game. They've set it up online, so a large portion of the registered voters won't even bother to vote in this, which plays into their hands to rig it, but also plays into our hands too since it cuts down on the # of people you have to convert, we just have to be sure that the people that are passionate about Dr Paul know the process, so far all of them do, even people I talk to who I didn't know were Paul supporters know about the convention process. It's really inspiring to come across someone who knows all about it independently of the meetup groups and websites.

There's more of us than we know about.

[skiingff]

The official rules came out about a week ago, you now have until the end of Nov to register Republican to be a delegate. I'm the organizer of the Charleston meetup group, and we've started a list of delegates by county, and getting the word out. We have about 10 to 15 people signed up now pledging to be delegates to the state convention.

What area of WV are you from? There's 4 different meetup groups in the state now, and each has some info about this. My group is going to focus a lot of attention on Regatta this year and try to educate people about the process.

4 different meetup groups? I only see the Charleston one listed online. Anyway I lived in southern west virginia (north beckley area) for 2 years and my best friend, who I used to live with, has resided in Oak Hill (fayette county) his whole life. Therefore, I could register to vote as a Republican in West Virginia and also get my friend, who is a registered Republican already, to sign up for the convention to vote for RP.

I'm still trying to understand how this is going to work. It's a bit confusing. From what I read online, each county can either do an online vote or hold a caucus to elect the delegates to the state convention. Then, whoever wins the state convention vote (eg Ron Paul) will get to send his appointed delegates for WV to the national gop convention. My question is, do you have to register as a delegate and pay $25 to attend the state convention, or do you have to do that and have people vote for you to go to the state convention? In other words, who determines who gets to go to the state convention? And once at the state convention, who determines who votes for their candidate of choice?

[USPatriot36]

From what I read, it is not a vote by e-mail. Voters will get a code they enter on a website to vote. The only way I can see that this could possibly be fair is if they publish a list with the names of everyone and how they voted. Nothing short of this could be trusted. Even if they show you how you vote, what would prevent them from adding 3000 voters for Romney or Giuliani.

[LarryWhite]

We have one in Charleston that I organize, Huntington, Morgantown, and a Central WV group. All really just getting started but good starts so far.

You register online at wvgopconvention.com after October, they verify your a Repub, and send you a username and password by email. Then you log back on to that same site between Jan 1st thru 14th and vote online.

If we get WV supporter's email addresses, we could do a newsletter type email explaining when the dates are and send reminders about loggin in and voting.

The online voting just votes in delegates for each county, so each county is it's own race. Then those delegates go to the state convention in a straw poll type situation to pick a candidate, if the winner doesn't get 50% of the vote, they cut all but the top 3 and then do a revote an hour later or so.

Essentially it's a PR stunt, the candidate will get a few delegates to the National Convention out of it, but the real prize is TV time. The convention is on the same day as the 'super duper' tuesday, so there is going to be intense media coverage of the race all day long, and since the first polls don't close until after 5 at the earliest, WV will be the first state of that Tuesday to announce it's winner. If the winner wins the first vote, the announcement could happen as early as noon. All these news reporters will have nothing to talk about all day but the winner of the WV race until the other states polls close.

[skiingff]

We have one in Charleston that I organize, Huntington, Morgantown, and a Central WV group. All really just getting started but good starts so far.

You register online at wvgopconvention.com after October, they verify your a Repub, and send you a username and password by email. Then you log back on to that same site between Jan 1st thru 14th and vote online.

If we get WV supporter's email addresses, we could do a newsletter type email explaining when the dates are and send reminders about loggin in and voting.

The online voting just votes in delegates for each county, so each county is it's own race. Then those delegates go to the state convention in a straw poll type situation to pick a candidate, if the winner doesn't get 50% of the vote, they cut all but the top 3 and then do a revote an hour later or so.

Essentially it's a PR stunt, the candidate will get a few delegates to the National Convention out of it, but the real prize is TV time. The convention is on the same day as the 'super duper' tuesday, so there is going to be intense media coverage of the race all day long, and since the first polls don't close until after 5 at the earliest, WV will be the first state of that Tuesday to announce it's winner. If the winner wins the first vote, the announcement could happen as early as noon. All these news reporters will have nothing to talk about all day but the winner of the WV race until the other states polls close.

Let's try contacting the West Virginia Libertarian Party, to see what help they could possibly lend, and also we could obtain a list of registered Republicans in the state.

[LarryWhite]

Already contacted the LP party, had a few at the last meetup, and I went to their last meeting. They're very supportive, but we've already got about as many delegates from them as we're going to get.

The constitution party has been supportive too, but very independent group of people, not too keen on switching ot Repub, even for Dr Paul.

[LarryWhite]

Big thing is to start contacting the state legislature Republican members, they are all automatic delegates to the stae convention, so their support is key. But yeah, it's going to come down to buying a list of registered Repubs and calling them.

[Spirit of '76]

Already contacted the LP party, had a few at the last meetup, and I went to their last meeting. They're very supportive, but we've already got about as many delegates from them as we're going to get.

The constitution party has been supportive too, but very independent group of people, not too keen on switching ot Repub, even for Dr Paul.

I think we need to work on getting the LP and CP to each nominate Ron Paul as their candidate, as well.

[Spirit of '76]

Big thing is to start contacting the state legislature Republican members, they are all automatic delegates to the stae convention, so their support is key. But yeah, it's going to come down to buying a list of registered Repubs and calling them.

Yep.

Still no word from the campaign, and if what people are saying is true, they're unlikely to call me back. I'll call 'em up again tomorrow.

[Bradley in DC]

I've shared with Matt and a few others some additional information. The "delegate candidate" slate (please notice the correct terminalogy) has to follow RNC by-laws as well. The most important one to point out here is that there must be a gender equality of delegate candidates and alternate delegate candidates.

In addition, I'm hoping we can find a woman and a man with good party credentials (county party chairman, etc.) willing to run for National Committeewoman and National Committeeman to the RNC (who get ex officio votes at the presidential nominating convention ... oh, and part of my plot to take over the Republican Party).

[Bradley in DC]

Yep.

Still no word from the campaign, and if what people are saying is true, they're unlikely to call me back. I'll call 'em up again tomorrow.

Joseph Becker is in charge of the project now but has been, um, uncooperative.

[LarryWhite]

I think we need to work on getting the LP and CP to each nominate Ron Paul as their candidate, as well.

A guy from the LP explained to me at the last meeting why that's probably not going to happen. It's called fusion, most parties exclude you from running if you are running for office with another party.

If he doesn't win the nomination for Republican he'd have to choose between the House seat or being a 3rd party candidate, he can't do both by Repub party rules.

[Spirit of '76]

Joseph Becker is in charge of the project now but has been, um, uncooperative.

Who is this Joseph Becker, and how can we contact him?

[Spirit of '76]

A guy from the LP explained to me at the last meeting why that's probably not going to happen. It's called fusion, most parties exclude you from running if you are running for office with another party.

If he doesn't win the nomination for Republican he'd have to choose between the House seat or being a 3rd party candidate, he can't do both by Repub party rules.

That's a shame...

[LarryWhite]

I know, it's Republican nominee for President or nothing.

IN WV, that means converting Republicans and geeting some indies to switch before november.

The Repub population here is small to begin with, but it's mostly regular folks who were pro war, but now want it over, they do exist, I talk to them almost every day during lunch at work. One lady summed it up best when she said, "I just don't want someone that's going to get our asses kicked. Tell me this Paul guy won't get our asses kicked.' Seriously, that's word for word. Once I explained he was for Afghanistan and the whole letter of marque thing, she liked him.

The ending income tax angle plays well here with Repubs. Considering how much we're taxed in this state, that's understandable.

[LarryWhite]

Just thought of something, the Sept 1st deadline will eliminate at least one canddiate from being on the ballot, Fred Thompson.

[LarryWhite]

It's all good. Received an email from Mr Becker who confirmed they are planning on paying the fee and being on the ballot for the convention. He's supposed to email me when the fee has been paid.

[Spirit of '76]

It's all good. Received an email from Mr Becker who confirmed they are planning on paying the fee and being on the ballot for the convention. He's supposed to email me when the fee has been paid.

Good news.

I couldn't get anything out of them...

[Spirit of '76]

Just thought of something, the Sept 1st deadline will eliminate at least one canddiate from being on the ballot, Fred Thompson.

Ah! Interesting point...

[LarryWhite]

I called the campaign and they gave me Becker's email. He responded within an hour, might have been because I sent the email from work instead of home. Finally a postiive for working for a corporation.

[Spirit of '76]

Heh... Good job. Did you tell him that we've started collecting the names of potential delegates?

[LarryWhite]

Yeah, that was my lead in to asking about the fee, told him we were getting people to pledge to be delegates to the state and national convention, but before we can even be on the ballot as delegates they'd have to pay the fee. He didn't comment on that part, just said they were planning on participating and he would let me know when they paid the fee.

Also sent him a link of the convention website so they could review the rules themselves.

When I get home this evening I'll foward you the email trail.

[Spirit of '76]

Cool. Thanks.