Sunday, April 6, 2008

Oklahoma Republican District 4 Convention

http://veiledglory.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/oklahoma-republican-district-4-convention-report/
Oklahoma Republican District 4 Convention Report
March 4, 2008 — cbrunette
Edited, 1:09 pm Central, see bottom

We are happy to report that the Ron Paul delegation to the Oklahoma District 4 Convention made an enormous impact this past Saturday! The main logistical reason to attend the convention is to elect delegates to the national delegation. Our district was allotted 3 spots along with 3 alternates. RP supporters were as organized as the old school members in selecting our nominees and in our voting. At the end of the day, we came out with two alternates! The best part of the process was that our county had the most RP votes. Can I get a huzzah?
For those of you new to the idea, here is how the convention worked. Each county had a proportional number of votes. If they did not have an equal number of delegates to votes, each vote was weighted either less or more. Some counties only had two or four delegates attend and had 12 or more votes. This meant that their voting power was magnified. One county had four delegates and 24 votes! If there had been just a handful of RP supporters from that one county, we could have secured at least two national delegate spots.
Still, the Rabble created quite the stir! Instead of the voting only lasting from 1 to 2:30 pm, it stretched to past 5 pm. Why? Each and every delegate vote had to be a run-off. [If one nominee did not receive 50% plus one, there was a run-off between the top two nominees for that cycle.] This continued for every delegate and alternate spot. Our chosen nominees came in second during the initial vote and for the run-offs. So close!
So how did we do it? When we arrived at the convention, we met with a gentleman wearing an RP ball cap. He handed us a slip of paper with the names and order of the nominees. The paper also gave us directions on how to vote. We then mixed anonymously with the rest of the crowd. That simple. We also were alert to any vote order changes during the process.
One young gentleman from Oklahoma City, Dennis England, will be a name you should remember. He gave the best speech of all the nominees. I mean, almost everyone gave him a standing ovation, even the Old School! He didn’t mince words, either. Mr. England earned an alternate spot to the RNC. You can bet he will keep his mouth open the entire time.
On the downside of the event were the nauseating speeches from elected or non-elected officials. That was tiresome, to say the least. If you tracked all they said, the “real” Republican party is the following:
White
Christian
Not from the East or West Coast.
It was amazing to me, as a participant in the Ron Paul campaign, how so very dense the Old School is to what they should be doing and saying if they do not want the Party to die with them. I was embarrased that such thoughtless drivel should proceed from members of my political party.
Maybe their idea of the Party should die with them! Viva la Republic!!
Snippet from a fellow supporter’s e-mail:
Way to go delegates! We went to dinner with the brains behind our Convention strategy,including our new nominees, after the Convention yesterday. They said when they saw the Comanche vote come up, they all looked around in surprise. They said “Wow, who are those people?” They told us to pass on thanks to you for being there. They said we played a crucial part in the elections.
Makes me grin from ear to ear! Thanks for the links, everyone!


Posted in Ron Paul. Tags: Convention, Republican, Ron Paul.
3 Responses to “Oklahoma Republican District 4 Convention Report”
Joel Mann Says:
March 4, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I don’t know if I got to meet you on Saturday, but I was one of the Cleveland county RP delegates… I had soooo much fun, and watching the “Old Guard” sqirm was just too much fun. I was slated to try for delegate too, but at the last minute on Friday night, they changed up the order, so I didn’t get to try.

I was one of the ones pushing to get Dennis to the top of our “battle order” list.

Awesome! I hope you goto State as well, we need everyone we can get to show up!

~Joel

cbrunette Says:
March 4, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Joel,

I don’t think I had the pleasure of meeting you or anyone from the, ahem, Table in the Corner. I was wearing a black headscarf, if that seems familiar to you. My husband and I left directly afterwards.

The look on our county chairman’s face every time he came down our row to pick up our votes was priceless.

We are planning to head up to Tulsa in May. Hopefully we will have similar success and similar meet-up stratagem.


~Anna

Joel Mann Says:
March 4, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Ok, I remember seeing you. We really did say “Hey, who are these Comanche county people!?” when the vote came up… you guys were sitting on the other side of the room, so we couldn’t get a good look at ya, but we were sure glad you were there. You guys made the difference in getting the 2 people elected. Without Comanche, we would have come up empty.

Kudos for Comanche!

And I can promise you that there will be even more coordination at state. Consider District our warmup and our “BS in Political Maneuvering”.

See ya in Tulsa!


~Joel

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