acptulsa
04-19-2009, 02:16 PM
I spent the day yesterday at the Oklahoma G.O.P. Convention. It was, well, discouraging. The candidates for state chair and vice-chair we preferred were defeated. The proposal to return to a caucus system in the presidential primary (at the precinct level) was defeated. And we certainly were shown some, shall we say, disdain for being Ron Paul supporters.
Undoubtedly no small part of this was that they don't consider us to be team players. We didn't blindly fall in the McCain camp, for example. In a state full of football fans, the people here do very much value 'taking a hit for the team'. They swallowed their pride, and gagged when they voted no doubt, for 'the team' and we didn't--we stood on principle and sneered when anyone suggested we do otherwise. And they were encouraged by the local powers that be to look upon a caucus as elitist--a way for the erudite to show up the not so well spoken--and they did.
Well, it's easy to get discouraged at times like this. But I'm not. I saw positive signs in amidst the 'carnage'. For one thing, none of our defeats yesterday were debilitating. Sure, Ron Paul did better in caucus states than otherwise. Sure, the caucus system is good because even the sleepiest voter must think and hear the issues out before he or she can vote and be done with it. But it's no guarantee of success. And there is still time before the next presidential election to rethink it, refine it and re-submit it. And while we would have loved to have the other candidate for state chair win, well, the chair will do the bidding of the people of the party--and we haven't actually lost influence.
In fact, I'd say we've gained a little influence. In some ways, we didn't put our best foot forward yesterday. There were times we allowed our arguments to degenerate into personalities and intimations of betrayal instead of staying focused on the message. Even so, the other side was just as disingenuous as ever. The argued one minute that the caucus wouldn't gain us anything in terms of national exposure (despite historical evidence to the contrary--we've had far less visits and no open speeches by G.O.P. candidates during the primaries since we abandoned it) yet they argued that Iowa voters are subject to many annoyances and we would be, too. Obviously contradictory arguments. They also used the fact that we would be paying with our tax dollars for the Democrats' primaries but they wouldn't be paying for ours. Well, if we don't differentiate ourselves from the Democrats I surely don't know how we expect to beat them. But we didn't get these arguments made; in the heat of the moment we lost our tongues and played the personality card to our detriment. Even so, I, for one, had people coming up to me afterward--people who didn't support Ron Paul--expressing their desires to reform certain aspects of the system.
It was a day to play underdog. Like underdogs, we had few victories. But also like underdogs, we gained sympathy in certain quarters.
Leaving the convention I smugly considered us in Tulsa County to be the smartest county in the state, and generally salved the burns in other silly ways. Having slept on it, however, I find my wounds healed far more. Because I can see how this is, in the end, good for us--maybe better in the long run than victories would have been. First, we learned a lot. Most of it fell in the category of 'what not to do', but such lessons are important! Secondly, I can see that this backlash against the libertarian wing is born of insecurity, and that insecurity is well-founded.
The Democrats mopped up last year, and this pretty much killed 'neocon-ism'. This year, they are breaking promises left and right. Their monetary policies are unsustainable. Their insistence on continuing unsustainable imperialism around the world is preventing them from sustaining the lie that they differ substantially from the neocons. And all of this is catching up to them, and this blowback will snowball. Only the most hard core environmentalists and union-for-union's-sake labor activists have that same degree of 'the team, right or wrong' attitude that so characterizes Republicans. And I feel more than ever that we are playing the game right.
By standing on principle and associating (albeit at arms' length) with the Republicans, we are offering them something they haven't had for decades--the opportunity to be the party of principle. This gets the Republicans thinking about principle, because we will soon be showing them how principle can actually be a selling point. And by standing on principle, we are positioning ourselves to capture the hearts of a lot of Democrats who are slowly but surely becoming aware of their party's complete abandonment of principle. And the more campaign promises Obama breaks, the more obvious this will become.
We have a foot in each camp. To be sure, each camp is lighting matches and giving us the old 'hot foot', yet we keep our feet firmly planted on the moral high ground. The powers of both parties keep painting us as extremists, and the Democrats in particular are always careful to try to shove us out on that 'right wing'. But if we continue to say that state level socialism isn't contrary to the U.S. Constitution or our principle of states' rights and continue to oppose these imperialistic wars, we will continue to attract Democrats to switch. And if we continue to attract crossover Democrats, we will eventually either take the G.O.P. over or we'll win it over--because they'll be sick of losing.
Right now is a lonely and difficult time. But we really aren't on the fringe any more. With our fiscal conservatism and our opposition to imperialism, we do indeed have a principled foot in each camp. Now, the only way to have a foot in each camp is to be, not on some extreme 'wing' or another, but to be positioned right in the middle! And I believe that's exactly where we are. We are having our Valley Forge winter right now, but if you'll recall, the Founding Fathers survived that winter and went on to create greatness. And I do believe we're right on track to do the same.
Undoubtedly no small part of this was that they don't consider us to be team players. We didn't blindly fall in the McCain camp, for example. In a state full of football fans, the people here do very much value 'taking a hit for the team'. They swallowed their pride, and gagged when they voted no doubt, for 'the team' and we didn't--we stood on principle and sneered when anyone suggested we do otherwise. And they were encouraged by the local powers that be to look upon a caucus as elitist--a way for the erudite to show up the not so well spoken--and they did.
Well, it's easy to get discouraged at times like this. But I'm not. I saw positive signs in amidst the 'carnage'. For one thing, none of our defeats yesterday were debilitating. Sure, Ron Paul did better in caucus states than otherwise. Sure, the caucus system is good because even the sleepiest voter must think and hear the issues out before he or she can vote and be done with it. But it's no guarantee of success. And there is still time before the next presidential election to rethink it, refine it and re-submit it. And while we would have loved to have the other candidate for state chair win, well, the chair will do the bidding of the people of the party--and we haven't actually lost influence.
In fact, I'd say we've gained a little influence. In some ways, we didn't put our best foot forward yesterday. There were times we allowed our arguments to degenerate into personalities and intimations of betrayal instead of staying focused on the message. Even so, the other side was just as disingenuous as ever. The argued one minute that the caucus wouldn't gain us anything in terms of national exposure (despite historical evidence to the contrary--we've had far less visits and no open speeches by G.O.P. candidates during the primaries since we abandoned it) yet they argued that Iowa voters are subject to many annoyances and we would be, too. Obviously contradictory arguments. They also used the fact that we would be paying with our tax dollars for the Democrats' primaries but they wouldn't be paying for ours. Well, if we don't differentiate ourselves from the Democrats I surely don't know how we expect to beat them. But we didn't get these arguments made; in the heat of the moment we lost our tongues and played the personality card to our detriment. Even so, I, for one, had people coming up to me afterward--people who didn't support Ron Paul--expressing their desires to reform certain aspects of the system.
It was a day to play underdog. Like underdogs, we had few victories. But also like underdogs, we gained sympathy in certain quarters.
Leaving the convention I smugly considered us in Tulsa County to be the smartest county in the state, and generally salved the burns in other silly ways. Having slept on it, however, I find my wounds healed far more. Because I can see how this is, in the end, good for us--maybe better in the long run than victories would have been. First, we learned a lot. Most of it fell in the category of 'what not to do', but such lessons are important! Secondly, I can see that this backlash against the libertarian wing is born of insecurity, and that insecurity is well-founded.
The Democrats mopped up last year, and this pretty much killed 'neocon-ism'. This year, they are breaking promises left and right. Their monetary policies are unsustainable. Their insistence on continuing unsustainable imperialism around the world is preventing them from sustaining the lie that they differ substantially from the neocons. And all of this is catching up to them, and this blowback will snowball. Only the most hard core environmentalists and union-for-union's-sake labor activists have that same degree of 'the team, right or wrong' attitude that so characterizes Republicans. And I feel more than ever that we are playing the game right.
By standing on principle and associating (albeit at arms' length) with the Republicans, we are offering them something they haven't had for decades--the opportunity to be the party of principle. This gets the Republicans thinking about principle, because we will soon be showing them how principle can actually be a selling point. And by standing on principle, we are positioning ourselves to capture the hearts of a lot of Democrats who are slowly but surely becoming aware of their party's complete abandonment of principle. And the more campaign promises Obama breaks, the more obvious this will become.
We have a foot in each camp. To be sure, each camp is lighting matches and giving us the old 'hot foot', yet we keep our feet firmly planted on the moral high ground. The powers of both parties keep painting us as extremists, and the Democrats in particular are always careful to try to shove us out on that 'right wing'. But if we continue to say that state level socialism isn't contrary to the U.S. Constitution or our principle of states' rights and continue to oppose these imperialistic wars, we will continue to attract Democrats to switch. And if we continue to attract crossover Democrats, we will eventually either take the G.O.P. over or we'll win it over--because they'll be sick of losing.
Right now is a lonely and difficult time. But we really aren't on the fringe any more. With our fiscal conservatism and our opposition to imperialism, we do indeed have a principled foot in each camp. Now, the only way to have a foot in each camp is to be, not on some extreme 'wing' or another, but to be positioned right in the middle! And I believe that's exactly where we are. We are having our Valley Forge winter right now, but if you'll recall, the Founding Fathers survived that winter and went on to create greatness. And I do believe we're right on track to do the same.