There _might_ be some backroom discussion among the state delegations to the effect that "we all know McCain is a stiff, just put up with it 3 more months, after he loses we will clean house".
The dynamics in each state is different. But I agree, I would not trust establishment pols to keep their word.
Here's the update on what happened in Nevada with each deleagtes explanation as to why they voted for McCain:
Chris Dyer explains his vote for McCain:
Quote:
Paul delegates hand the party a unanimous vote, go to Rage Against the Machine
Ron Paul delegate Chris Dyer told me tonight the state party gave the Paul delegates two choices, vote for John McCain or abstain.
"Party asked nicely for a unanimous vote, we said yes," said Paul delegate Chris Dyer. "They got what they wanted. We got to see Rage (Against the Machine). Everyone wins."
And so the great delegate fight finally comes to an end.
Carl Bunce explains his vote for McCain:
Quote:
We were censored and pressured. Period! We have been followed and surrounded by security everywhere we go in MN. We got treated as children the entire time by NV GOP leadership. . We gave the NV GOP their 34 delegates.
Nick Vanderpool (Delegate Organizer) earned our votes or I should say our absense of principles because he talked to us like an adult and not like a spoiled child stomping his feet. He has my respect and NV will not suffer the disfavor of the RNC overlords now. We may be able save our party with much work and talking outloud instead of secret whispers in back rooms.
That is the last olive branch! If we (Freedom Minded Republicans) do not receive any respect starting tomorrow, they (Anyone but Freedom Minded Republicans) will all have a hard time doing anything politically in NV without us on their ass on every issue.
We have learned their game and their tactics. We have out-played them at every step of the way. But when the rules change on a moments notice then we can not play anymore. We must improvise! As we have. NV will have its day in the future. No one is giving up! This is a rigged game and we see that clearer the ever now!
We are still processing all the happenings of this week. We have a lot of intel on the corruption seeded at the national level.
Meeting with other state delegations gave us so much info on other tactics we have not seen yet in NV.
More to come...
Carl Bunce
Arden Osborne explains his vote for McCain:
Quote:I was only asked 'how I would vote' there never was a real vote. no ballot.
My response when asked was that since I had no candidate in the race (there
was only one nominee) I said I would abstain. When I was approached again
and told that I would be the only one keeping the vote from being unanimous,
we then discussed allowing an alternate to vote in my place since I had no
candidate, but that was that - there was no actual vote.
What anyone who is not here may not understand is that this convention was
a staged show. There was nothing to gain by being disrupting the
coronation...There was everything to gain for the future of our movement by
abstaining. Our win was our presence, our loss would have been throwing that
win away by closing the door to the party.
It's easy to criticize from the sidelines, but unless you were here to see
that there was nothing that could have been done that would even be
perceived as a good sign of protest (the mikes were guarded) - then you
can't really see the whole picture.
Lisa Marie Johnson explains her vote for McCain
Quote:
We did what was right so we could "fight for another day" as Arden said. Yes, Arden was going to abstain. Carl and Chris considered it too. So did I when I finally was seated.
I repeat, there was no official voting for Ron Paul. Some state leaders were just nice enough to allow their people to have that spoken and then took them away for the final count. The didn't show that on tv. Only Alaska, VP Palin's state, was allowed to mysteriously have their RP votes on the final tally. Same thing for Romney. I know because I stayed till the final gavel.
Abstaining would have been pissing on the party just to make a point rather than admitting the loss we all knew we had days if not weeks earlier. Where would that get us?
They had to come to us, finally, and basically admit we could make them look bad to be spitefull or let them look good to the RNC and earn some respect in a graceful defeat. I know it hurts. Believe me or don't, but it's been the worst birthday I've ever had. But we still learned a lot and if you throw us aside, you throw that knowledge aside also.
In the end, we know, however difficult it was last night and will be for some time, we did what we know in our hearts to be good for the future of our movement. That is a vote for Ron Paul. Pissing away everyone's hard work would have been the end of all of us. That's the reality.
You may say it doesn't matter because I didn't vote for him. But the fact is he wasn't nominated. You can't vote for someone who isn't nominated. I understand your anger. I'd probably feel the same if I wasn't there. It didn't change the nomination. From here on out, those of us who act respectable will be treated with respect. We've earned that, all of us, but it was the delegates who you elected, who delivered it to you, even though you can't see that now.
What kind of advocates for liberty are they if they cannot make a simple argument or negotiate an agreement to abstain or vote for Paul on the first ballot when it would be entirely symbolic and do no harm at all.
Thanks for the post, Badger. I'm sure it must have been a tough situation for the delegates. Based on what I read there, we really should be even more grateful that some states (Washington, Oregon, West Virginia, Alaska) actually mentioned their Ron Paul votes.
This happened in our state district. A couple of moles took over "leadership" of the ron paul voters and threw the election.
Problems of informal spontenous movements forming I suppose.
There were also 2 votes for Paul from Nebraska, but they didn't get included in the roll call!Originally Posted by Kilrain
In Defense of the Massachusetts Delegation
Hello all,
First I'd like to thank all the supporters who came out to the caucuses across Massachusetts and especially in the eigth district (Boston) where we swept our caucuses. If every RP supporter across the nation had committed to this level, I think we could have had enough stealth RP delegates to get this nomination.
My story is here for all to judge. I'm just going to give the facts here. I think you can judge for yourself about how we handled this. There is a lot of speculation also, which I may post later after verified.
We came into town Monday night and were invited to a GOP reception which was followed by a RP reception across town. At the GOP reception we gathered near a replica of air force one along with many RP delegates from other states. We decided to start a Ron Paul chant while streaming out to ruffle some feathers. It worked.
We arrived at the RP reception with a plan hatched by Chris Blanc, who was quoted above and Todd Fay, who was Chris's alternate. We got in the reception and listened to Dr. Paul. After the speech we had a supporter who was going to go along with the plan take the mic and announce a meeting outside the hall. Drew Ivers took the mic not long after this and started to announce that he wanted people to stick around and listen to him and Jesse Benton.
The purpose of our meeting in the courtyard was to plan to nominate RP for president, which the campaign had given up on for a long time. We understood the rules of the roll call vote, which stated that RP could not be nominated or placed on the ballot of choices for the roll call vote for all states without the support of the majority of five delegations. We identified the ten smallest delegations and assigned delegates from across the country to approach delegates from these delegations with petitions for placing RP on the ballot. This was understood to be a Hail Mary, but we were not going to give up. We went nuts on the floor on Tuesday trying to get these petitions signed.
The people from the WA delegation were actually able to get the support of the majority of the virgin islands delegation, but our luck stopped there.
We were not able to get RP placed on the ballot for all states. Some states were legally required to report the votes of RP supporters who were legally bound to RP, but most states were not. In Massachusetts, most of us were bound by state law to McCain. We were only given the option of McCain or abstain.
When asked about my vote by my party chairman, I was given the option of McCain or abstain. Knowing there would be legal issues, I told him I was to abstain. Every Ron Paul delegate from Massachusetts initially voted to abstain. This started a shitstorm on the floor behind the wolf blitzer tent. We told them we wanted RP to speak on and have full floor access which he had been denied by the convention. They called in a Rep from the McCain campaign who told us that we could make a deal. If we got all the delegates for RP from all states united to vote for McCain, we could potentially have recognition for RP from the stage (maybe not RP but perhaps a grassroots supporter). We called as many delegates from other states to meet, and we decided not to take the deal. The reason for this was that we were unable to contact anyone from the campaign to advise us or to tell us that RP was willing to speak. No one answered their phones... I personally told everyone that we had to make the decision without the campaign (since I don't trust them anyway), but this was not the majority opinion.
During the meeting we were surrounded by a massive goon squad with ear pieces listening and typing everything we said. We had the sergeant at arms harassing our people trying to steal our list of RP delegates from all states. We had interns surrounding us with fake homemade signs to hide us from the media. We broke the meeting with the resolution to negotiate on the state level.
I can't speak for what happened in other states, but I do not expect anyone was given tickets to the rage concert... Many people had tickets already and wanted to go instead of being on the floor or anywhere near the propaganda festival.
For our state, we worked out a deal which was by no means unanimous. There was much dissent, but I think most of the people who did not agree are now realizing that we did the best we could do. Most of us gave our votes to alternates rather than abstaining.
Now for my interpretation:
To us, eight abstentions which would likely not have been reported was of less value than cooperation with the party in helping to get a meetup director on the State Committee, getting RP supporters on town commitees and formally welcoming us into the party. This puts us in a position to elect more RP supporters to the state committee for the upcoming election cycle, and if we fully activate all our supporters in the state we can own this committee, period. In the next presidential elections, Massachusetts can have 100% delegates for Ron Paul or a similar candidate without a doubt in my mind. Had we not made this deal, the party would have likely opposed us illegally every step of the way. We have an agreement in writing from our state party granting us several things that have already and will bring us much closer to our goals in Massachusetts. To get this, we worked with people in the party who supported Pat Buchanan in prior presidential runs, and a man on the national platform committee who struck a clause in support of the North American Union on our insistence. These party people are extremely happy. I believe they're happy not because of the unanimous vote as much as the prospect of having us in the party in the future.
Other delegates have voiced their approval of this deal, having achieved nothing in their states except getting totally ostracized. You can decide what you think for yourself though.
FYI this is a blog positing by an influential party member here in MA
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/...ues_unite.html
Massachusetts Paul delegates voted for McCain??
What would have changed if they hadn't?
I think you delegates ate a shit sandwich.
Die in a fire, the lot of you.
Thanks for a very good post! I don't know enough to judge anything, but I appreciate your effort. Don't let people discourage you. I probably wouldn't have been able to do what you did (too hotblooded), but it may have been the best choice, given the circumstances.
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