Fayette County Mass Convention - a fiasco

[rp007]

In summary, the Fayette County convention was a fiasco. It was literally Ron Paul supporters vs absolute zombies of the Republican party. If we would have had 10-20 more RP supporters, we would have dominated the convention. But no, we were just short of the majority. This led to many, many "altercations" on votes, resolutions, nominations, etc. 120 attended.

Lessons learned:

1. We should not have announced our support for Ron Paul. We gained nothing by this. The intent was good, but the strategy failed. The old line Republicans got pissed off and actually ended up voting against us rather than against or for the idea. One example of this is a resolution that we tried to pass stressing limited government. It was actually voted down! That's right people, a Republican convention voted DOWN a resolution stressing limited government. They did this because the whole ordeal became an us against them mentality.

2. We came across as whiners. We objected way too freaking much. Some of those objections were absolutely justified, however we pressed too much. Instead of accepting the failure of a vote and immediately calling for another resolution or vote, we objected. This pissed everybody off and hurt our cause. How do I know this? I had a couple of non-Ron Paul supporters at the Convention who were very sympathetic to us and the movement (in the begining). By the time it was over, they detested the Ron Paul movement.

3. The establishment are idiots. I mean this in the most sincere way possible. I almost threw up listening to the resolutions/business that were being presented. A nation of sheep would sum up the entire ordeal. There were periods when I thought I was in a psychology experiment where they had infiltrated the convention with robots. To reiterate, the sheep voted DOWN a resolution for limited government. They then voted to END the presentation of resolutions because they were so pissed about the Ron Paul supporters presenting them.

4. We know who NOT to vote for. There were candidates there begging for our vote. Mostly for representatives and council members. This was very much like attending your middle school class elections. No wait, my middle school class elections contained more substance. Thank you to the candidate running based on Mccain's POW experience. I have no idea how Mccain's experience apples to you, but you were the most entertaining candidate of the whole bunch. I will make sure your opponent has my vote.

5. This goes back to #1 above. We should NOT have represented Ron Paul overtly. We should have represented the core Republican values. I think we would have had our resolutions passed if this had not turned into a Ron Paul vs the establishment debate. This is a lesson learned and MUST be applied for the District/State conventions. If we had the majority, this would not be a problem. We did not have the majority however, so we must remember to NOT do this in future conventions.

In summary, a lot of people supported our ideas in the beginning. They supported them because they are the core Republican values. The failure came when we represented a candidate overtly that has not won the primaries and has not garnered positive attention by the media. The old school Republicans rejected this and did not trust us. Hindsite is 20/20, but we MUST adapt and learn from this mistake. We must covertly represent Ron Paul in the future by overtly supporting the Republican core values.

[mudburn]

Wow, sounds like quite a morning. I was the only one at my county convention who I know is a die-hard Ron Paul supporter, and based upon the makeup of the group, I didn't want to push things with the resolutions I had with me. The leadership in the county was so excited that I was there and wanted to be involved -- most the people there don't want to put forth any effort, it seemed. I didn't figure that my support of Ron Paul was an issue to bring up, but core values and bases of conservative republicanism are issues to support and which others can champion. The mindset is that McCain has the nomination and its the republicans' job to make sure he wins since he's a republican (beat the democrats at any price). I will have more opportunity to influence the party locally as a libertarian-minded conservative than as a Ron Paul supporter.

Did you end up with any delegates to the district convention besides the old-guard party regulars?

dp

[hawks4ronpaul]

Can any other Fayette people add their impressions?

Thank you.

[rp007]

We pretty much all became delegates. Fayette County gets 166 delegates and 120 people were at the convention. The problem was that some RP supporters became alternate delgates because the old school republicans nominated a ton of absentee delegates. We tried to overrule this by requiring that any person physically at the meeting takes priority over the absentee individuals. We did not have the majority however, and we failed to get this resolution passed. Again, 10-20 RP supporters would have made the difference. But to reiterate, pretty much every RP supporter there became a delegate.

[hawks4ronpaul]

We pretty much all became delegates. Fayette County gets 166 delegates and 120 people were at the convention. The problem was that some RP supporters became alternate delgates because the old school republicans nominated a ton of absentee delegates. We tried to overrule this by requiring that any person physically at the meeting takes priority over the absentee individuals. We did not have the majority however, and we failed to get this resolution passed. Again, 10-20 RP supporters would have made the difference. But to reiterate, pretty much every RP supporter there became a delegate.

So, being slightly less than half in turnout results in having less than a third of delegates.

It is important to turn out all the RP alternates at the state convention in case today's absent delegates are absent again later.

http://hawks4ronpaul.blogspot.com/

[Signzit]

In summary, the Fayette County convention was a fiasco. It was literally Ron Paul supporters vs absolute zombies of the Republican party. If we would have had 10-20 more RP supporters, we would have dominated the convention. But no, we were just short of the majority. This led to many, many "altercations" on votes, resolutions, nominations, etc. 120 attended.

Lessons learned:

1. We should not have announced our support for Ron Paul. We gained nothing by this. The intent was good, but the strategy failed. The old line Republicans got pissed off and actually ended up voting against us rather than against or for the idea. One example of this is a resolution that we tried to pass stressing limited government. It was actually voted down! That's right people, a Republican convention voted DOWN a resolution stressing limited government. They did this because the whole ordeal became an us against them mentality.

2. We came across as whiners. We objected way too freaking much. Some of those objections were absolutely justified, however we pressed too much. Instead of accepting the failure of a vote and immediately calling for another resolution or vote, we objected. This pissed everybody off and hurt our cause. How do I know this? I had a couple of non-Ron Paul supporters at the Convention who were very sympathetic to us and the movement (in the begining). By the time it was over, they detested the Ron Paul movement.

3. The establishment are idiots. I mean this in the most sincere way possible. I almost threw up listening to the resolutions/business that were being presented. A nation of sheep would sum up the entire ordeal. There were periods when I thought I was in a psychology experiment where they had infiltrated the convention with robots. To reiterate, the sheep voted DOWN a resolution for limited government. They then voted to END the presentation of resolutions because they were so pissed about the Ron Paul supporters presenting them.

4. We know who NOT to vote for. There were candidates there begging for our vote. Mostly for representatives and council members. This was very much like attending your middle school class elections. No wait, my middle school class elections contained more substance. Thank you to the candidate running based on Mccain's POW experience. I have no idea how Mccain's experience apples to you, but you were the most entertaining candidate of the whole bunch. I will make sure your opponent has my vote.

5. This goes back to #1 above. We should NOT have represented Ron Paul overtly. We should have represented the core Republican values. I think we would have had our resolutions passed if this had not turned into a Ron Paul vs the establishment debate. This is a lesson learned and MUST be applied for the District/State conventions. If we had the majority, this would not be a problem. We did not have the majority however, so we must remember to NOT do this in future conventions.

In summary, a lot of people supported our ideas in the beginning. They supported them because they are the core Republican values. The failure came when we represented a candidate overtly that has not won the primaries and has not garnered positive attention by the media. The old school Republicans rejected this and did not trust us. Hindsite is 20/20, but we MUST adapt and learn from this mistake. We must covertly represent Ron Paul in the future by overtly supporting the Republican core values.


This should show, just how desperate and weak the old guard can be in some areas they clearly needed for warm bodies, with everything that happened you guys and you got 20 Delegates.

YOU GUYS ARE LUCKY, you guys took a chance and tipped your collective hand for RP support and it did not cost you everyone, like it should have! Lucky!

Did you get a feeling there were many Stealth Delegates there?

They would be the only faces in crowd with Big Ass grins on, everyone else, would have daggers in their eyes, based on your story.

I'll say it again, "I hate Hitlery, and Obomba will sell us down the river, Cut Taxes and God Bless RWR. That's it, you go to state. Stay low at state, and bam, Ron Paul Takeover!

The problem now, is they know who each one of you are, I don't think there is much chance any of you will make it to St. Paul.

[rp007]

It was very easy to see who the Ron Paul supporters were based on the "stand up" votes for resolutions/rules/nominations. Stealth supporters were not a factor due to most everyone being elected as a delegate. Stand up votes were required for the majority of resolutions because the convention was basically split in half: Ron Paul supporters vs Old Guard. Voice votes were not acceptable due to the inability to ascertain who won the vote based on Yay/Nay.

[Signzit]

It was very easy to see who the Ron Paul supporters were based on the "stand up" votes for resolutions/rules/nominations. Stealth supporters were not a factor due to most everyone being elected as a delegate. Stand up votes were required for the majority of resolutions because the convention was basically split in half: Ron Paul supporters vs Old Guard. Voice votes were not acceptable due to the inability to ascertain who won the vote based on Yay/Nay.

Stealth Delegates would have been a non-factor-

less they end up like the rest of you, with targets on your backs.

Stealth Delegates will not openly come out, until St. Paul, that's why I asked for smiles/Big ass Grins.

[molly_pitcher]

6th district delegates, please PM me. It is a matter of urgency. No, seriously, it is.

Why haven't you PMed me....?

[erin moore]

not to hijiack your thread or anything, but it was a similar experience with a better outcome in Hardin Co. We did not voice our support for Ron Paul (one guy showed up with a shirt on, which he had to turn inside out because of a rile they passed) So if you want an opposite side to your theory, it workled for us to be "active, energetic, concerned registered repulbicans."

They hated almost all of our resloutions, but I got most of them through committee (except the FED) but most got voted down on the floor. thats ok though. we have planted the seed of doubt in their minds. they boted down our limited government one too, and nais, real id, world government organizations, border security.... an so on. we got through 2nd ammendment and abortion, big shocker.

i knew the rules inside and out though and i bjected FREQUENTLY. I had to fight for a better part of 30 minuted to get preference on the list of LATERNATE delegates for the people who were present.

they took their own list of "party member" (which we were not on) and used that to complie the delegate list. less than half of them were there, when they read tyhe alternat list some of the same names were being repeated! So we all go onto the top of the alternate list, which means we will defenitely be going to district because the other 64 main delegates will NOT show up.

the esteblishemnt are idiots. we got our choice for chair,not a paul supporter, but a guy who voted with us frequently throught the day as oppsed to the woman who lobbed personal character attacks at me for not having been a rebpulican for as long as she had been. I can't help it shes old and im not :).

anyway.... hang in there. make sure you read and re-read roberts rule's of order (get the in breif and the standard version) so you can see clearly when they are out of order and call them on it.

[molly_pitcher]

they took their own list of "party member" (which we were not on) and used that to complie the delegate list. less than half of them were there, when they read tyhe alternat list some of the same names were being repeated! So we all go onto the top of the alternate list, which means we will defenitely be going to district because the other 64 main delegates will NOT show up.


This sounds familiar :rolleyes:

[TheTyke]

The folks in Nelson County were pretty nice. A few asked about my Ron Paul button (I knew stealth was better, but I've been waving signs on the street corners, so I figured they knew me) :P And I estimate we had over half of the people there.

That being said, resolutions were not discussed or passed at all. It was pretty informal, and at one point everyone started getting up to talk to each other and pass the delegate signup sheet around, and they just kinda adjourned the convention. :)

If I understood right, even with all our people, there weren't enough delegate signers, so we all automatically get position. It looks like we will get a lot of the delegates^^

[patrickdsg]

Fayette County Convention – The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Today (March 15th) I attended the Fayette County Convention. Here is how it went down from my perspective.

There were 120 people in attendance and I believe about 30-40 were Ron Paul supporters. Not quite enough to get anything accomplished, but certainly enough to make our presence felt.

For many, if not all us, it was the first time we’ve participated in this manner. It was certainly a learning experience. We made no secret about our support of Ron Paul, which may have been a mistake as the “establishment” did seem a bit hostile or at least gave me the feeling of being some “fanatic” infiltrator.

While some will argue, and maybe rightly so, that this means we should be much more covert in our participation, I think it actually misses the real problem.

What is the real problem? PARTICIPATION, PARTICIPATION, PARTICIPATION. Don’t get me wrong, I was ecstatic that 30-40 supporters took the time to participate. But look at these numbers! 30-40 Ron Paul supporters and 80-90 “establishment” party hacks?

This is not only our problem, but it is also the GOP’s problem. There are about 66,304 registered Republicans in Fayette County. The “party hacks” at the convention accounted for 0.13% of those registered, and we accounted for 0.06% of those registered.

Today’s turnout didn’t even represent two tenths of one percent of the registered Republicans in Fayette County! “I mean, what’s going on here?”

If Ron Paul only receives 4% of the vote in this county, he will receive approximately 2600 votes. Where were those people today? Could you imagine if we had just 10% of them show up to participate? There are 219 people signed up to the local meet-up for crying out loud! The GOP is ripe for the taking! The best “they” can do is turn out 90 people and elect “absentee” delegates? We only have ourselves to blame if we don’t take our party back.

I personally knew of five people that confirmed their intent to attend only a couple days prior that did not show. Two of those five actually donated to one or both of the major “money bombs.” Another supporter that donated to the campaign told me “I don't think I'm up for participation in the conventions…I think I'll remain on the sidelines.” He’s going to write in “Ron Paul” in November. Thanks. I obviously didn’t do enough to get them there. While I can’t confirm this, I’m willing to bet that most of the others in attendance would probably share a similar experience. I can only imagine what the outcome would have been if all who committed actually showed.

Well there are the numbers and the big problem as I see it. Now here’s what happened at the convention.

We didn’t have the majority and we weren’t incognito. This probably hurt us since they seemed to think we were there just to “crash the party.”

We did force a hand (or standing) vote count since it was tough to determine accurately based solely on the “yays and nays” by voice only. It appeared as if they haven’t had to do this in quite a while as it created a bit of confusion.

We had submitted all the names of our delegates to the county chair prior to the convention. They seemed to know something was up so all our people were put on the alternate delegate list. Had we been a little more low key, we would have likely been delegates as the county chair emailed me only a couple of days prior to the convention informing me there were more delegate slots.

A slate of 166 delegates and 24 alternate delegates was proposed and ratified. Obviously not all of the delegates on the slate were in attendance. We unsuccessfully attempted to challenge this, but I don’t think we really knew how. At this point, if we don’t raise a ruckus, keep a low profile and just show up to the district and state conventions; we will likely be delegates as I seriously doubt all those 166 delegates on their list will actually show.

We came prepared with resolutions we would have liked to pass on issues such as limited government, tax reform, abortion, gun control, etc. However, we were not given the opportunity to propose them for a floor vote.

We respectfully listened to the proposed resolutions from their resolution committee and voted appropriately. Of course we voted against a resolution of support for John McCain that could have easily been entitled “He’s The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread.” It passed by majority vote, however.

After proposing our resolution in support of a Constitutionally Limited Government, it was actually voted down by the majority in attendance. I don’t think it was really that they are so against the idea of limited government as they were voting against our perceived “party crashing.”

We didn’t get a chance to propose any more resolutions. The Chair actually recognized another supporter who was about read another resolution for consideration when another person motioned that we end all consideration for any resolutions. This caused a great deal of confusion as it seemed we already had the floor, but they wanted to vote on the motion that interrupted us. There was also some confusion as to whether a 2/3 majority was needed to end all resolution proposals that was never quite clarified to my satisfaction. Even after a plea and request just to be heard, we were effectively silenced with 66 votes against us. If they in fact needed 2/3, they didn’t get it, but I don’t know the rules. Everything seemed to happen very quickly.

I’m not well versed on the Robert’s Rules of Order, but I can assure you that I will know the rules backwards and forwards before the next convention. I think we all need to know how the process works so we can participate more effectively and be less intimidated. We could have quickly cleared up some confusion for them as well. I purchased my own copy of “Robert’s Rules Order” to study right after the convention. Knowledge is power, but this would have easily been overcome if were the majority (which we should have been).

To sum it all up, I’ve seen the “elephant.” It’s not nearly as big or intimidating as I expected. The GOP IS ours for the taking, but only if we really WANT it! I and a few others I know are more fired up than ever to continue our participation and recruitment. I only hope others don’t get discouraged by the day’s events and walk away. We can make a difference! We can affect change! Just look at the numbers! Hindsight is 20/20 and if I had fully understood the lack of participation in the GOP, it would have been worth 10 times more effort on my part to claim a victory. We certainly aren’t doing all we can!

I can only hope that this account of events as I saw them will serve as a warning and encouragement to others who have not yet held their conventions. Do whatever you can to get your people there! If you think you’ve done all you can, do more! If you even think about not attending, forget it! SHOW UP! You’ll only regret it if your convention turns out like mine. If your conventions and caucuses have already passed you by, start working now to participate in GOP activities and recruit others to join you and you can be the majority next time! We really can change the party from the inside out!

[MozoVote]

Let's be honest, a lot of meetup members are "try before you buy" types, and Meetup does not clean out the deadwood. A turnout of 10 to 15% of your Meetup size is common. ncGOPerForPaul told me when he scoured the donor list, he found people that had MAXed for Paul that did not come. :( Go figure.

I do agree with the idea of being "stealth". I did not see any RP gear or buttons at my convention. All of the meetup participants WHO CAME to the convention, became delegates to district.

[Matt_in_Lex]

I attended the Fayette County convention Saturday also and even though things didn't go our way, I still had fun. I'm very much a lurker and never comminucated with anyone from the local meetup. And with my wife due in a few months, won't be getting too involved soon.

Anyway, I was going to write some of the officals and came across this. Just in case anyone wanted to show up and see what they had to say about our presence or show you're really wanting to be involved, they have a monthly meeting Monday night.

http://republicanpartyoffayettecounty.wordpress.com/events/

Republican Party of Fayette County - March Meeting
When: Monday, March 17, 2008 - 7:30pm
Where: County Headquarters (Southland Drive)

[TheTyke]

Although we got lucky in Nelson County I think, I have to second this participation thing. If we'd had a few more people show up, we could have dominated! I'm talking 100% of the delegates, and all resolutions passed (if we'd known how to pass resolutions, lol). Tons of people who were on the supporter list, and tons of friends from work just didn't show up. I give major props to those who did, we almost filled the slate!

It's the same for primary votes. I read that only 15% of a candidate's supporters turn out to vote, on average. If 100% turned out, the lowest person on the list could win.

It's frustrating to know that Americans have the power in their hands to change things, due to our beautiful form of government... but they don't do it. We really have no one but ourselves to blame for the problems of the country.

[rpovert]

Rp007, I disagree with your assessment of the Fayette County Mass Convention, especially the part about the Ron Paul supporters coming across as whiners. We attempted to follow Robert’s Rules to force vote count and adhere to the 2/3 vote required to end anyone’s ability to be heard (debate, resolutions, what have you). Not only that, but there were times when the chair only counted either yes votes or no votes. According to Robert’s Rules, decisions are made by the majority of voters, not the majority of those in attendance. It is possible therefore, for 42 votes to win when there are 122 in attendance. We were not whinny; we were standing up for our rights.

Also, we could not have been covert. Two women from our meetup group worked their tails off to communicate the importance of attending the convention. They spoke about it at the meetups, they communicated through emails, and they sent over 400 emails asking meetup members and Ron Paul contributors to become delegates. We needed to know how many delegates we had in order to choose a strategy.

In the meetup meeting that occurred the week prior to the convention, they only had twenty five affirmative replies. We knew that would not be the majority. So, in an effort to assure that the Ron Paul supporters were at least on a winning slate, they decided to forward those names to the chair for inclusion on their slate.

The Chair figured out that we were Ron Paul supporters. I know, because she accidentally sent an email to my wife that was meant for someone else in the party. In the email she indicated her belief that the Ron Paul people were organizing to attend the convention. In her email, she indicated that she saw a Ron Paul sign on my truck when I signed up to be a Precinct Captain. I don’t own a truck. But, the point is, it was easy to see from the involvement of people not normally involved, that something was happening and it would be easy to guess that it was a Ron Paul effort.

Because of the extremely disappointing number of replies from the Ron Paul supporters to get involved in the convention, I supported then and still do now, the decision of these two ladies to send the list to the party. Otherwise, we would probably have less than ten delegates on either list. As it is, we ended up with over 30.

It is hard to believe how much work these two ladies had to do, to get that number. They had to make many phone calls and send many emails. Even some, who responded, didn’t respond with the information that was requested. That information was required because the credentials committee must have it to verify their party status. These two ladies followed up until they got the needed information.

This kind of spoon feeding shouldn’t be necessary. How did some of us know what was needed? We knew because we put in the effort to read the Republican Rules for Conventions. We did the research.

Your summary is an insult to these two ladies that worked so hard to get what we got. I know, because I’m married to one of them. Now you probably know who I am.

[rp007]

rpovert,
I think you've missed the point of my post. It was not meant to knock anyone that helped organize the RP effort. It basically was meant to:

a. State why we should have been "stealth" in our RP support at the convention. This sentiment is also backed up by other people in attendance as indicated in their posts above. More importantly, one can see from other posts on this board that the "stealth" mode has been the most successful across the state and country. I did not mean that we should have been stealth amongst ourselves, so this in no way is a complaint against the efforts you cite. Rather, we should have been stealth AT the convention (and when submitting the slate, dunno if they knew that slate was RP supporters or not).

b. Show that the event was a fiasco. If you do not think the convention was a fiasco, we will just have to agree to disagree. Not so much a fiasco because of the RP supporters but because of the old guard Republicans. The only complaint I would have is that we did come across as whiners. I understand we disagree on this point as well, but I have now had 3 non-RP people reinforce this belief. If we had the majority, this would not have been an issue. Since we did not have the majority, the last thing we needed was to turn off potential allies.

The original post was not meant to degrade any effort by any individual. It was meant to show that we MUST learn from out mistakes and adapt for the next go-round. I applaud the effort of the two individuals you cite and feel that my concerns/complaints are not based on those efforts.

[rpovert]

I'm not sure what you mean by "stealth". Since all the alternates were Ron Paul supporters, it's obvious they had identified us. I guess you are suggesting that we should have either sat silently or voted yes when they nominated and voted for their slate and we should have left the Ron Paul paraphernalia at home.

I don't have the information to refute your claim that the "stealth" method is working best. The most successful conventions I read about were in Missouri and from what I read, there wasn't anything stealth about those.

I do agree with your point about having the majority. If we had the majority, we could have taken over the entire meeting. So, the real lesson learned is not stealth or not stealth, it is making sure you have the majority! This is the most disappointing part to me because that was stressed at the meetups. It was clear from my first meeting and through the Ron Paul campaign web site, that the conventions and not the primaries were the MOST important event. The words "convention" and "delegate" must be off switches to most people's ears.

[travr6]

The mindset is that McCain has the nomination and its the republicans' job to make sure he wins since he's a republican (beat the democrats at any price). I will have more opportunity to influence the party locally as a libertarian-minded conservative than as a Ron Paul supporter.

Did you end up with any delegates to the district convention besides the old-guard party regulars?

dp

which is a very bad plan.

No way I will vote for McCain. I am voting for Ron Paul in the primary and will definitely not be voting for McCain in the general election.

I would vote for Hillary over him.