Friday, April 11, 2008
Follow-up on CD 6 dust-up
It had seemed to me, after my post last week about the decision whether or not something untoward had happened at the CD 6 GOP convention, that the wording of the questions would be important to know. I have confirmed these with district chair Mark Swanson, who spoke with me by phone this morning.
to vote for McCain to what they told the nominating committee and what was reported to the delegation. (UPDATED: I've changed this passage based on an email from Andy Aplikowski, who made the motion. He also notes that nobody answered the first question as a no or a maybe. Thanks for the correction, Andy!)
I am hoping to get someone from the Ron Paul campaign to tell me whether or not they have the same understanding of the events. Swanson said to me that he had no problem with slates of delegates, but that they are the responsibility of the presidential campaigns, not of the district leadership. He also thought the meaning of the questions asked were clear, and that the answers of those elected were untruthful. There does not appear to be anything in the RPM constitution that I am aware of that would allow one to unseat those delegates, but I think it fair to question the candidacy of someone willing to use such tactics to get themselves heard at a national convention.
One must wonder how the RPers would feel if the roles were reversed. Given their state co-ordinator's statements last July that they would not support Rudy Giuliani for president if he won the primary, and where one says
- Are you a Republican?
- Will you support John McCain at the Republican National Convention?
...what does that mean?...It means that everyday at the convention you will be supporting Senator McCain. Additionally, I discussed with Dan [Nygaard, nominations committee chair] and he said he took time with every person that gave any sort of a qualifying criteria, that is why some people were listed as "no" or "maybe" and were given the opportunity to correct the print-out (what was displayed on the screen).Swanson said paper copies were handed out because of the changes made on the fly, and I'm expecting to receive one later today. The screen, he said, may have been hard for district delegates to read. All of the delegates elected answer the questions "yes", and none were reported to have changed their answers or stated they were uncertain until after the election, when the motion was made to bind the delegates
I am hoping to get someone from the Ron Paul campaign to tell me whether or not they have the same understanding of the events. Swanson said to me that he had no problem with slates of delegates, but that they are the responsibility of the presidential campaigns, not of the district leadership. He also thought the meaning of the questions asked were clear, and that the answers of those elected were untruthful. There does not appear to be anything in the RPM constitution that I am aware of that would allow one to unseat those delegates, but I think it fair to question the candidacy of someone willing to use such tactics to get themselves heard at a national convention.
One must wonder how the RPers would feel if the roles were reversed. Given their state co-ordinator's statements last July that they would not support Rudy Giuliani for president if he won the primary, and where one says
If the Republican Party is so, um, flexible as to nominate a statist, then certainly the voting public is within its right to enjoy its own flexibility...and who thinks "the GOP must lose" because of its pro-war candidate, did they actually correctly answer the first question?
