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Suzu
09-14-2008, 06:11 PM
LETTER to the Editor of Columbia, Missouri paper (http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/09/08/letter-missouri-republican-party-put-damper-dissent-state-convention/)

At the Republican National Convention, all of Missouri's 58 delegates
arrived pledged to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) whom we had voted 2-1
against in the primary. The Missouri Republican Party settled this at
the state convention in Branson with the closest thing I have ever
seen to a police state in America: a carnival of low testosterone
Stalinism.

For the first time, I saw uniformed armed guards patrolling a
Republican convention. They had the local sheriff's department and an
unarmed but uniformed private agency. Brief cases, rucksacks, cameras
and recording devices were barred. I also saw a woman's handbag
searched. And despite air conditioning, more than 1,000 people who
were packed into one large room got hot after a few hours, yet even
plastic bottled water was banned.

Delegates always sit by Congressional districts. Never before,
however, had I seen districts roped off with delegates penned like
livestock as pages and adult volunteers attempted to keep us all in
our seats. At political conventions people always mill around to
communicate, coordinate strategy, etc. But, somebody wanted to crush
this routine politicking so vital to American democracy.

One of the volunteers said, "We have to keep order."

Was I in the right place and time? Or, en route to Branson, had I made
a Twilight Zone wrong turn and come to 1930s Italy?

Trouble began when the GOP State Committee presumptuously decided all
Missouri delegates to the Republican National Convention must vote on
the first ballot (there hasn't been a second ballot since 1948) for
whomever placed first in the February preference primary although,
legally, the state convention- not the committee- is the highest
authority of any Missouri political party.

Republicans badly need to reform their "winner-takes-all" presidential
primary system which gives us candidates like Bob Dole - last seen in
a Viagra commercial. Some argue against changing to proportional
representation with each candidate getting a number of delegates about
the same as his share of the primary vote because Democrats do it.
This sounds almost like a French general saying, "We don't want tank
divisions in our army. That's what Germans do."

Motions for rule reform with proportional representation won in
several local caucuses around Missouri. Sometimes the common people
have common sense.

State GOP organization leaders reacted ruthlessly. Among the worst
abuses was the Second Congressional District Convention where
according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 20, almost half of the
delegates, mostly from St. Charles County, were purged for not
supporting McCain's nomination. The story had a photo of pretty Emily
Platt, 18, asking, "Where is the room for dissent within the
Republican Party?"

At district and state conventions, chairmen crassly disregarded their
own party's rules to prevent rule reform motions from even being
debated and voted on.

I know of no precedent for 375 delegates, almost one-fifth among
1,976, receiving letters challenging their credentials and summoning
them on short notice to "hearings" in Jefferson City on May 5.

The Jefferson City News-Tribune quotes Rob Lee, of St. Louis, as
saying "It's just harassment. When you ask them, ‘What are you
challenging me for?' They refuse to tell you. You have no idea what
you're defending yourself against." Challenged delegates said
allegations were vague, sources unidentified, and "hearings" took
place in a closed room with no one allowed to witness or record
anything.

It galls one to see the party of Lincoln resembling fiction by Orwell
or Kafka.

Some of these same elected delegates plus others were challenged at
the state convention. In violation of GOP rules, they could not vote
until after the effort to bring rule reform to a vote had been
blocked. With so many pro-reform votes not cast, reform was blocked
with a cheap, vicious trick. Aside from a few bizarre anomalies such
as former state Sen. Franc Flotron of St. Louis County, only delegates
for Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) were challenged; they had
spearheaded the rule reform movement.

Paul's campaign had no chance to make any challenges of its own
because members were refused access to caucus records.

With these and other legally dubious, morally reprehensible tactics,
some party leaders disgraced and fractured the Missouri Republican
Party, an already beleaguered party, and prevented or delayed reform.
Worse yet, they got away with it and set an ominous precedent for
future conventions and perhaps even other parties.

They could have nominated McCain anyway by playing fair; they gained
nothing by playing dirty. It may someday come back to haunt them.


William Edward Samuels is an independent columnist, attorney and former
visiting law professor with the Yale-affiliated Civic Education Project
in Russia. He is a Boone County Republican committeeman and
chairman for the 23rd legislative district.

torchbearer
09-14-2008, 06:18 PM
what is really sad... that happened in more than one state in the GOP.

Micah Dardar
09-14-2008, 06:19 PM
Organize, Missouri! I enjoyed traveling through your state on the way to the Rally, especially St. Louis. Don't let them get too far ahead before you start to fight back! From what I've seen of most of America, you guys have a better chance than most states if you start fighting now!