Politico
The Republican National Committee just got a taste of life under the new GOP order in Nevada.
Thanks to the efforts of Ron Paul supporters, the Clark County GOP — the largest in the key swing state — voted narrowly Tuesday to censure RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and demand his resignation.
His crime? Priebus is accused of violating RNC Rule 11(a), which stipulates that the Republican National Committee cannot “contribute money or in-kind aid to any candidate for any public or party office except the nominee of the Republican Party or a candidate who is unopposed in the Republican primary.”
The resolution asserts that Priebus broke party rules when he announced April 25 that the RNC was setting up a joint fundraising operation with Romney since there were still candidates — namely Ron Paul — in the race at that time.
May 17 2012 | Posted in
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The Oklahoma Republican Party has launched its latest web ad focused on the poor performance of President Obama in Oklahoma, and asks the question, “Are you bona fide?”
May 16 2012 | Posted in
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Politico
While the media was quick to report that Ron Paul’s statement Monday signaled something akin to an end to his campaign, there’s a robust debate on the Daily Paul blog that reveals his supporters think otherwise.
One widely-held opinion is that the press is willfully misinterpreting Paul’s statement about his intentions.
More than a few commenters think the statement is part of a Paul campaign gambit to lull the establishment, Romney forces or the media into complacency.
Among those who read the statement as a suspension of the campaign, there’s a good bit of disappointment, not to mention disbelief.
Here’s the link to the Daily Paul thread.
May 15 2012 | Posted in
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The Hill
Mitt Romney holds a 3 percent lead over President Obama nationally in the latest CBS News-New York Times poll.
Romney took 46 percent in the poll, compared to Obama’s 43 percent. The 3 percent difference is within the poll’s 4 point margin of error.
Obama and Romney were tied at 46 in the same poll conducted last month.
The president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage has dominated the headlines recently, but the poll found the economy will be the most important issue to voters in the fall. Sixty-two percent said the economy was the most important issue, while the deficit was a distant second at 11 percent. Only 7 percent said same-sex marriage was the most important issue in the election.
May 15 2012 | Posted in
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Doug Wead
“We are absolutely not dropping out of this race! We are focusing our efforts squarely on winning delegates and party leadership positions at state conventions.” - Jesse Benton, Campaign Chairman
Ron Paul announced today he would not be competing in the upcoming primary states, saying that he would focus, instead, on his delegate strategy. A strategy that is working, by the way, and transforming the Republican Party. It is something he has said many times since the February 11, 2012 caucus in Maine.
Only this time, the main stream media gave the announcement full attention and treated it like the end of his campaign. Drudge ran it as a front page headline “Ron Paul is out.”
It is all evidence that Alfred Harmsworth’s famous quote that “news is not when a dog bites a man but, rather, when a man bites a dog” has now been offciaily turned on its head.
For the last two years the national media has been saying that Ron Paul is out. So how could that possibly be news? One might ask, “When has the mainstream media ever thought that Ron Paul was in?”
Bracing for a Ron Paul win in Iowa, major new outlets last January announced that if he won, the Iowa Caucus, itself, would be discredited. According to the New York Times and the Associated Press, Ron Paul is still listed as the recipient of one, count em, one delegate from Iowa, a state that he now dominates.
Likewise, the fact that Ron Paul supporters took a big chunk of the delegation of Mitt Romney’s home state of Massachusetts was not big news. This was evidently not a man biting a dog. There were no headlines, just small reports saying we were “flooding” state conventions with delegates. We were sucker punching the front runner. Even this, “we were stealing delegates.” Now, that’s a trick.
It was a ridiculous assertion. One cannot “flood” state conventions with delegates. Nor can one “steal” a delegates, unless they mean we packed them away in vans and drove them off to camps behind barbed wired. Each delegate was elected at District or County caucuses by delegates that were elected at precinct caucuses. So yes, one can flood precinct caucuses with people who in turn must get elected but that had to happen last January or February. It was then that we beat Romney in Massachusetts, and all the other states, it was in the heat of battle.
Now? We are trying to make nice. Like our attempt to “give” him the delegation from Arizona, an offer his man refused to make. So after three attempts to give him a majority we reluctantly won instead, thank you.
The fact is that all of this fighting makes Ron Paul nervous. Yes, he is taking on the establishment. Yes, he wants the monetary policy reformed so that the poor and the middle class and even the excluded rich can know the thrill and opportunity of free markets that aren’t rigged for insider trading. But Dr. Paul is a happy warrior on these issues. He is a person who has always believed in a respectful dialogue and debate. As John Tate says, “That is what he wants his legacy to be.”
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Shouting people down is not Ron Paul’s way. Winning a battle of ideals based on principles, in a respectful way, is how he approaches the contest and it is how he wants others to approach the contest, as well.
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By ending the primary battles, Ron Paul is signalling to the field that this is the end of hostilities. In primaries you end up tearing each other down. It is millions of dollars spent on negative advertising. In caucuses, as brutal as they may be, you change the Republican Party, you empower the new and challenge the established.
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The delegate strategy is working. That is the way we will impact the platform in Tampa. That is the way we will begin the process of change. It is through the caucuses that we are attracting youth, like the twenty-one year old woman recently elected to the national committee from Maine or the Ron Paul Hispanics or the Independents who have never been involved in party politics.
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Yes there is pain.
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The establishment turned off the air conditioning at the
Arizona State GOP Convention last weekend, trying to sweat the Ronulans into leaving.
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In
Oklahoma they pulled out a ballroom divider to cordon off Ron Paul supporters and shut them out of participation. Later they turned out the lights. Voice votes that were clearly lost were declared won.
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In Carson County, Nevada they turned off a microphone when a Hispanic tried to speak, they knew that Hispanics were for Ron Paul.
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In Minnesota they told their people not to vote for any delegate under the age of fifty.
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In Alaska, they defeated the majority by retaining the committee which “interpreted rules” and later, after taking the delegation, reluctantly gave up the party control to the new majority but transferred all of the money out of the Republican Party accounts.
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In Virginia, at a District Convention, they coaxed the Ron Paul delegation outside and then locked the door. The pastor of the church that was hosting the event was, himself, locked outside.
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In Missouri they had all the delegates sign up at County Conventions and then had their County Chairman take the rolls outside and lock them in their car trunks so they could block roll call voting and have their chairman declare lost voice votes as won. At another convention delegates were arrested.
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Our people have been punched, yelled at, lied to and worked until they can hardly stand. But on they come, fighting for their children, fighting for their future, angry at the corruption of the banks, of Wall Street, of the lobbyists, of the congress, of the White House. The battle for liberty is not over. It has just taken on a new phase. It cannot be stopped by the national media. If that were the case it would never have been born in the first place.
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And some will say that it is a lost cause, which I will not concede but it does remind me of Clarence Darrow’s famous line, “Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.”
May 14 2012 | Posted in
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UPDATED FROM INITIAL REPORTS
Ron Paul says he won’t spend more money on his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He said he doesn’t have the money to continue a full-blown campaign.
[This comes as Oklahoma backers say they'll protest the proceedings of the Republican State Convention held last Saturday. Leader Lukus Collins cites what he says were procedural and rules errors.]
Paul on Monday issued a statement that insisted he would continue the fight for delegates, taking the battle to the GOP convention in Tampa. But the favorite of libertarians and tea partiers says he would no longer spend “many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.”
Paul, the congressman from Texas and a favorite of tea partyers, effectively ended his presidential campaign Monday but urged his fervent supporters to continue working at the state party level.
In an email to supporters, Paul urged his libertarian-leaning backers to remain involved in politics and champion his causes despite the apparent end of his presidential aspirations. Paul has found success in wrecking the selection process for delegates to the party’s late-summer nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., and trumpeted that he has delayed Romney’s expected nomination.
“Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted,” Paul said in his statement. “Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have. I encourage all supporters of liberty to make sure you get to the polls and make your voices heard, particularly in the local, state and congressional elections, where so many defenders of freedom are fighting and need your support.”
Paul’s supporters have proved successful in winning state GOP conventions in places such as Maine and Nevada. His supporters in Iowa and Nevada were chosen to lead the state central parties.
Paul’s flock is likely to make similar inroads this weekend in Minnesota, which Paul was slated to address. Paul has already dominated the state’s congressional district conventions, winning at least 18 of the 24 national delegates selected, even though he finished a distant second to Rick Santorum in local caucuses in February.
“Our campaign will continue to work in the state convention process. We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that liberty is the way of the future,” Paul vowed.
Primaries have not been Paul’s strong suit — he hasn’t won a single primary or caucus. But Paul’s supporters have successfully navigated the convention process in a number of states, adding to Paul’s delegate total while gaining influence over state parties.
Read more on Newsmax.com: Ron Paul Says He’ll No Longer Campaign for GOP Nomination
May 14 2012 | Posted in
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Mark Costello’s Office
Labor Commissioner Mark Costello announced from Racine, Wisconsin that he is in Wisconsin campaigning for Governor Scott Walker. Walker is the subject of a militant union inspired, and funded, recall effort over pension and collective bargaining reforms. Walkers reforms have turned a $3.5 billion deficit into a $300 million surplus without raising taxes.
Walker has dominated the political debate on a national level by correcting unsustainable pension liabilities and generous benefit packages that were leading Wisconsin into bankruptcy. He also brought about needed collective bargaining reforms of unionized government workers.
As Walker heads into the final stretch of the union funded recall effort, Costello is joining campaign efforts today in Racine, Wauwatosa, and Germantown. On Tuesday, Costello will campaign for Walker in Fond du Lac, Appleton, and Green Bay. Costello will be making campaign appearance at volunteer victory centers in support of Governor Walker.
Costello stated, Governor Walker is a nationwide hero of the taxpayer. “It is a privilege for me, as Oklahoma Labor Commissioner, to campaign for a person of exceptional courage.”
May 14 2012 | Posted in
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Thank you, Barack Obama.
In one fell swoop, you have given legs to Mitt Romney’s campaign for president and his need to unify conservatives behind his campaign.
Gay marriage.
I know the polls show general public indifference to Obama’s pro-gay marriage position.
This is not about the “general public.” This is about those die-hard (Christian) conservatives who always vote, who talk amongst themselves and to others, and who have influence that extends to their homes, their places of business, their churches.
Romney badly needed an issue to help him with the most conservative of the electorate, Republicans especially.
He now has it.
I’m not alone in this conclusion. Prominent social conservatives say Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage is the fuel Romney needs to unite the right in November.
Rick Santorum says Romney needs to use this “potent weapon” against the president in the general election. And Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Sunday called the president’s announcement a “missing piece of intensity” for the presumptive GOP nominee.
Reports Fox News: “Though gay marriage was not an issue that factored prominently into the 2012 election season until this past Wednesday, when Obama made his historic announcement, the clear distinction now between Obama and Romney has elevated the matter. Obama has said he didn’t make a political calculation when he decided to take the plunge and announce his support for the unions. Now officials and activists on both sides of the aisle are suggesting that, while Obama has used the issue to raise millions of dollars for his campaign this past week, the announcement is not necessarily a political winner in the fall.”
“I don’t think the president did a political calculus to do this because if he did, he needs to go back to the calculator because it’s a bad formula,” Perkins told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Perkins called gay marriage a “serious issue” for Americans, and reportedly claimed Obama “helped fit that missing piece of intensity that Mitt Romney is going to need.”
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” American Values President Gary Bauer claimed Obama had taken “six or seven states he carried in 2008 and put them in play” with his endorsement of same-sex marriage.
Obama’s embrace of gay marriage has support; the left-wing leadership of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, so far removed from mainstream “normal” Democrat thought in Oklahoma, loves Obama’s position. And if they really entertained any thought that Obama could carry a single county in Oklahoma in November, they can forget it. It’s likely Obama will lose the state worse than he did in 2008, and he got trounced by a weak John McCain then.
For additional national reaction to Obama’s statement, read http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/13/social-conservatives-claim-obama-gay-marriage-endorsement-could-unite-right/?test=latestnews#ixzz1upoJXocM.
May 14 2012 | Posted in
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David TackettYou know, conventional wisdom says I need to keep my mouth shut. I’m a candidate for State House and I don’t need to upset anyone inside the party lest they won’t help me.
But I just can’t be quiet. And let me summarize it by saying this… Ron Paul people, you were right in principle, but wrong in execution.
First, let me try and say before the RPers completely ignore the rest of my diatribe… Remember, I was the one who stood with you at the 1st Congressional convention, not because I’m a RP supporter, but because I believe in the rule of law.
Read all of Tackett’s column: .
https://www.facebook.com/notes/david-tackett/the-okgop-convention-both-sides-messed-up/10150876827397171
May 14 2012 | Posted in
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