Monday, May 7, 2012

What Went Done at the Maine Republican Convention: A Ron Paul Delegate Reports In

Bill H. emails:


I'd just like to point out a few of the happenings at the Maine Republican Convention.  First off, it was clear from the start that Ron Paul had the majority of supporters, even though Romney, Gingrich and Santorum supporters were all united for what they called the "unity" slate.  However, that didn't stop the accusations of "fraud" once the Paul camp won the convention secretary and chair.

You'll hear a lot about these accusations over the next week, and even that Romnney's lawyers are going to contest the results, but all it boils down to is that the long-time, run-of-the-mill Republicans are sore losers.  Clearly the caucus system was designed to help the establishment candidates, and they just couldn't handle the fact that Ron Paul supporters had greater numbers and were better organized.  Listening to the complaints of the Romney camp, you could tell that they were frustrated that they couldn't just come in and vote for the establishment picks.  They were even saying that most years it only takes thirty minutes!  (Sad, isn't it?)

It didn't take long for the deceitful tactics to begin.  After Ron Paul delegates registered, we were given a folder that contained a list of the people we would be voting for as national delegates.  At one point on Saturday, other lists if different Ron Paul people (not on the "official" Paul list) started being circulated by the Romney camp.  They were giving them out to Paul supporters and saying that the delegates had changed, in order to divide the Paul vote.  This was no half-baked attempt at deceiving the Paul voters though.  The new list that was circulating actually looked identical to the original list.  It had the same font, format, and was even on peel-able sticky paper!  Luckily, the Paul camp was too organized to let this affect the outcome.  See here.

At another point during the first day, numerous Romney people started lining up at the microphones to make repeated motions that were out of order, in order to obstruct and delay the convention, apparently as a form of protest.  But, in a clever move, Brent Tweed, the chairman, and the parliamentarians pulled out a statute from Robert's Rules of Order which explains that if the chairman decides that motions are being made in a "dilatory" manner, he can either choose to not acknowledge the person attempting to make the motion, or declare the motion out of order, which is exactly what he did.

Later in the day, the national delegate voting was delayed because two counties had received their ballots, at a very random time, before they were supposed to have access to them.  Its unclear how they were handed out or where they came from, but this caused an issue, because not only had those people thought they voted already, but some of them had already left the convention all together.  I'd point out that the two counties that did this were strongly in favor off Romney, and the county chairs were as well.  It could have been a mistake, or it could have been an intentional move to try to invalidate the voting all together.  Either way, it resulted in us having to wait hours until new ballots were printed off.

Late in the day, while new ballots were still being printed off, people were getting anxious to go home and chairman Tweed suggested that we postpone the delegate voting until Sunday morning, but the Romney supporters were against it.  They wanted to vote that day, and they eventually got their wish.  It was voted that we would break off into county caucuses to vote for county representatives, and from there we would also vote for our national delegate picks, after which we could go home.  At this point, a lot of Romney supporters had left, either out of frustration or for other reasons, but the die-had Paul supporters were still sticking around.

When we reconvened on Sunday morning, district one voted on their delegates, of which there would be six.  Paul won all six in the same manner as the day before, but by bigger margins because Romney supporters didn't show up in as great of numbers.  It was also announced that Paul had won all fifteen delegates from the day before, and after these two defeats, most of the Romney supporters left, giving Ron Paul a two-thirds majority for the rest of Sunday, where the remaining eight delegates (and all alternates) were easily won.

Finally, it should be noted that during all the voting, there were members of BOTH sides monitoring and participating in the vote counting, and the Paul supporters were very well-mannered and calm throughout the convention.  The Romney supporters, on the other hand, were unruly.  Some were yelling and screaming, almost being thrown out for their behavior.  The Romney camp should be ashamed.  They acted like a bunch of spoiled children who always get their way, which, I guess, was probably always true until this year.

Bill H.
Delegate from Portland, Maine

9 comments:

  1. Interesting stuff.

    Sounds a whole lot like what went down in Iowa too. When the ruling party members get rude that's when you see their true nature, it's ugly.

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  2. Great account of what happened, and another awesome win for Liberty! This was mentioned several times on "the Morning Briefing" on Sirius/XM this morning, which is great. After we embarrassed the establishment in Massachusetts two weekends ago, it's awesome to hear that our neighbors to the north did the same this weekend. Each week it's more and more good news for Ron Paul and the citizens of the United States, and more defeat for Mitt Romney and the establishment. Now it's only a matter of how long it'll be before the media starts reporting on it. That will be a tipping point where regular people who get their news from the TV will realize that Ron Paul has been the most electable candidate the whole time. Imagine what's going to happen once regular citizens realize that Ron Paul gets literally 10x as many supporters at rallys and has been beating Romney in polls against Obama since day one - the support for Ron Paul will skyrocket!

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  3. Just to make a correction, during the district one caucus there were three delegates elected, not six, which brought the total to eighteen. Then, there were an additional five delegates elected throughout the remainder of the caucus, not eight. This put the total at 23/23. However, the Maine GOP chairman automatically gets to go, as the 24th, and my understanding is that two of the 23 that were elected (national committeeman and committeewoman) don't get to go until the NEXT election. That's why the totals will be read 21/24 in the news.

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    Replies
    1. So Paul won all 21 delegates for the national convention?

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    2. All 21 that were up for grabs, yes. The other 3 were pre-determined I guess.

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  4. The link to the video of the fake list that was intended to be in the post is here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjCO5TEGAMw

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  5. I really wish there was some video footage of this that could be sent to news stations.

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  6. A few corrections. First it should be reported that Paul won 20 not 21. Gov. Paul Lepage is a delegate, and is uncommitted right now. (His wife was elected as an alternate) Also, 2 national committee members got automatic selection to the delegate pool. Even though they were voted out, the new people will not take office until Jan 2013. So, Rick Bennett and Jan Staples who currently sit on the National Committee will go, and they support Romney. The other automatic delegate is the state chair of the Maine GOP. That is Charlie Webster, and he's so far hasn't committed, but my bet he's a Romney guy.

    To add more on what Bill said, on Sunday, Brent Tweed handle the Chairmanship gavel to Sen. Roger Katz, who's a supporter of Romney. Even he called many of the motions by the Romney people, "Out of order". Ann Robinson was asked to assit Chairman Tweed on matters during the convention. She's a Romney suppporter, but due to her past experience at conventions, and the fairness and objectivity she showed in the past, the Paul campaign wanted her to be there.

    Finally, after the District 1 Delegate election took place, the Paulians made a motion to pick the the 4th,5th, and 6th place finishers as alternates. Romney's people objected. (The 3 alternates that were elected were Paul supporters)

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