Oklahoma Ron Paul Supporters and Republican Vice-Chair Called Out by a Huckabee Grassroots Leader

It was brought to the attention of the management of the Ron Paul Exposed blog that an e-mail has been circulating with the following message. Ron Paul Exposed contacted and interviewed the originator of the e-mail, Oklahoman, Mike Ford. He told us that he has received many contacts from Ron Paul supporters condemning his action, but stands by his statements. He made comparison to actions they've proposed to, "...if Huckabee supporters inserted color photos of mutilated fetuses into the bags of candidate info without asking permission from the County GOP office; perhaps their intentions and causes were good, but it's just not proper to do that - in fact it's way out of line." He also stated that he believes that the refusal of Precinct Captains to put the 'Get Out The Vote' packets in the hands of the voters in their precincts should be grounds for their removal from those positions. Ron Paul Exposed blog agrees with Mr. Ford on these points.

The e-mail:

Ron Paul Radicals At It Again In OKlahoma

I have received word from sources within the OKGOP that the radical fringe of the Ron Paul campaign are deliberately sabotaging our Republican Get Out The Vote program.

According to one source, some of those who seized vacant GOP precinct chairs are deliberately not cooperating with Party leadership, and refusing to distribute GOP materials to voters in their precinct. All Republican precinct chairmen have an obligation to coordinate with the Republican Party and support the GOTV strategy to support GOP candidates.

Another source reports that one Ron Paul state coordinator has requested via email ( http://ronpaul.meetup.com/32/messages/4301701/ )that all of their chairmen should pick these packets up, and it is likely they will send volunteers by the GOP offices to pick up boxes that need to go out and offer to distribute them. Unfortunately, the agenda is dishonest, as they are not intending to help the GOP. Instead, in a mass email to Paul supporters, he points out the advantages to gaining these voter lists (with addresses and phone numbers), maps and info bags.

"The walking list will come in handy later, and the packets can have fliers added about the bailouts, the N.A.U., or whatever issue you want to get the word out about. We have several flyers for all kinds of issues that you can add to your packet to use this opportunity to spread truth in your neighborhood, so if you need one, just reply to this email and ask. If you are a Precinct Chair, Vice Chair, or Secretary please make sure you attend this meeting!"
-Ryan Underwood
Organizer:
Tulsa Area Republicans Restoring the Republic

These materials are property of the Oklahoma Republican Party, and obtaining them along with private voter information under false pretenses is a sign of poor character. This behavior does not represent the attributes of a true conservative, and I can almost be certain that Ron Paul and the majority of his associates would object with us.

I am calling on all Precinct Chairmen, members of the Executive Committee and State Chairman Gary Jones to condemn this action with me and demand that these materials be returned, followed by the resignation of ALL GOP Precinct Chairmen who have acquired their positions for their own non-Republican political agendas.

I also ask that any of you who are associated with, or are close to, these individuals, to contact these individuals and convince them to act responsibly and ethically.

Finally, I would like to thank Stae Vice Chairwoman Cheryl Williams for opening up this Pandora's box! Some of the same radicals that you appointed to GOP committees and displayed favoritism to, regardless of the fact that many of us objected, may now cost us the majority in the Oklahoma House and Senate.

Sincerely,

Mike Ford

Precinct Chairman 406 - Bixby

Interview with Oklahoma Ron Paul delegates

Another take of Michael Bates with another reference to this blog.

This time, we find Mr. Bates story in the Urban Tulsan, a weekly newspaper, in which his column enjoys a large readership throughout the Tulsa area. Much thanks to Mr. Bates for noticing the efforts of this blog and linking to it!

Mr. Bates also has an award winning blog that is well-known in the Tulsa area, called Batesline.com.

He gives reference to the Urban Tulsan article below on his site on April 18th with yet another link to this blog, in a piece entitled, "Paul-itical Analysis".

Bates is also heard, as a weekly guest, on a local radio talk show on KFAQ 1170.

According to Mr. Bates, this blog was instrumental in the success of the Non-Ron Paulers by having Exposed what they're secretly up to. Someone took it upon themself to pass out a flyer with a list of names on them which were found on this blog. Good going whoever you are and it was our honor to be of service to you and help with your great success!

APRIL 16, 2008
Paul Plot
There's something more than meets the eye about these Ron Paul Revolutionaries

BY MICHAEL D. BATES

An energetic movement of idealistic young people seeks to make their candidate the Republican nominee for president. They aren't deterred by the fact that he has only managed to win about five percent of the vote and a dozen delegates in the primaries so far.

They have a plan for victory at the Republican National Convention, a plan that includes Oklahoma's May 3 Republican state convention as a crucial battle. The prospect has party officials worried.

Some of his overenthusiastic supporters have vandalized public property with graffiti and flooded online polls in support of their man. (Other supporters claim that his enemies are stenciling his name on bridge abutments to discredit him.)

Their habit of using search engines to find and flood every blog entry and Internet forum thread invoking their candidate's name led Oklahoma City blogger Charles G. Hill of dustbury.com to invent a code name for him: "Pon Farr," a Star Trek reference to the Vulcan mating season that aptly captures the nerdy passion of the candidate's followers.

Their zeal has earned them a plethora of nicknames from their detractors: Ronulans, Paulbots, Paultards. They call themselves the Ron Paul Revolution, but one thing you can't call them is a bunch of quitters.

The Texas Congressman and obstetrician is the original "Dr. No," often the lone vote against bills that he believes violate the limits that the Constitution places on the powers of the Federal Government. But it's his position against American military involvement in Iraq that seems to motivate much of his youthful support base.

Paul was the 1988 presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, but he is seeking the Republican nomination this year. His supporters believe they can compensate for his poor primary showing with superior organization.

Conventional wisdom says that Arizona Sen. John McCain has the Republican presidential nomination sewn up. CNN's delegate count puts McCain at more than 1300 delegates, more than enough for a majority on the first ballot at the convention. All of his rivals have suspended their campaigns.

Not since 1976, when Gov. Ronald Reagan nearly defeated incumbent Pres. Gerald Ford, has the nomination been in doubt when the convention was called to order. Traditionally, since nothing of substance has to be decided, congressional district and state conventions send longtime volunteers and faithful donors to the national convention as a reward for their service to the party.

These delegates are wined and dined by corporate sponsors. The convention program is designed mainly as an infomercial for the party, using free network airtime to spotlight the presidential nominee, candidates in key Senate races, and rising-star governors. Delegates get a chance to be up close and personal with the political and media celebrities they watch on Fox News.

I was a delegate in 2004, and it was great fun. But the actual business of the convention -- choosing nominees for president and vice president, voting on a platform, and establishing rules to govern the Republican Party for the next four years -- was treated as a mere formality.
But all that is grounded in tradition, and nothing in the party rules says those traditions have to be followed.

Here in Oklahoma, Paul won about 3% of the statewide primary vote. McCain finished first, winning statewide and in three congressional districts, entitling him to 32 convention delegates. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the 1st and 2nd Districts; he gets six national delegates.

State law and state party rules bind delegates to vote for the choice of the primary voters on the first ballot, but they don't require that the delegates have to be supporters of the candidate to whom they're bound. If Huckabee releases his delegates before the convention, as expected, those delegates will be free to vote for whomever they will.

Paul's supporters have captured five of the 15 delegate seats that were filled at Oklahoma's congressional district conventions -- three belonging to McCain and two to Huckabee. They won seven of the 15 alternate positions -- six of McCain's and one of Huckabee's. They managed this by getting their people to the district conventions and working the voting system to their advantage.

They also managed it with a certain amount of stealth. At the 1st District convention in Tulsa on April 5, a dozen or so ran for delegate. In their speeches, they never mentioned their support for Ron Paul, and they stayed away from Paul's distinctive positions. In particular, there were no mentions of the war in Iraq. They tried to come across as enthusiastic young Reaganauts, emphasizing issues held in common with mainstream conservatives.

But an anonymous flyer outed them, based on a list of the Oklahoma Ron Paul meet-up group found on ronpaulexposed.blogspot.com.

And so the Ron Paul Revolution came away from the 1st District convention empty-handed. Long-time Republicans turned their people out and held a 60-40 advantage over the newcomers. This majority voted for the candidates they knew from years of party involvement.
Instant runoff voting--in use since the 2000 1st District Convention (at my encouragement)--ensured that whichever side held the majority would prevail.

I oversaw the tallying of the votes, in which many of the Paul people participated. While they were disappointed in the outcome, they seemed satisfied that the process was fair.

Paul's fans still have hopes of winning the state's 23 at-large delegates at the May 3 state convention, to be held at the Renaissance Hotel in Tulsa. The state party's executive committee (of which I am a member) will nominate a slate of at-large delegates and alternates.

Traditionally, these slates are elected by acclamation, but that tradition can be overturned by the will of the majority and another slate elected.

The Paul supporters may also try to win Oklahoma's two open seats on the Republican National Committee. That would not only give them two more national convention delegates but two places on the party's governing body for the next four years.

If similar efforts in other states give Paul a majority of national delegates, a simple rule change could unbind all delegates from voting according to primary results, clearing the way for Paul's nomination.

Even control of a handful of state delegations would give Paul considerable leverage over the proceedings, including the choice of a vice presidential running mate and the rules that will govern the 2012 nomination process.

The machine against which the Paulinistas rage is made up of people who were insurgents themselves once upon a time. Many members of the current GOP "establishment"--the activists who hold party offices, attend caucuses, conventions, and the monthly meetings of various Republican clubs, and provide a volunteer base for Republican campaigns--came into the party as Reagan supporters in the mid to late '70s, as Christian Coalition-trained activists in the late '80s, or as talk radio fans in the early '90s.

These pro-military, pro-gun-rights, pro-life, and pro-tax-cut conservatives wanted to do away with business as usual in Washington, and after some nasty battles at county, district, and state conventions, they displaced a previous establishment that had been content to offer cut-rate versions of liberal Democratic policies and to languish as a permanent political minority.

The current party leadership can hardly be called mushy moderates. In 2004, when wealthy Republican donors backed Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys' campaign for U. S. Senate, grassroots conservatives lined up to support Tom Coburn, helping him to an overwhelming primary victory.

Oklahoma's party activists continue to hold to conservative views across the board on fiscal, social, constitutional, foreign policy, and border security issues.

The old-timers welcome the newcomers' support for a smaller Federal government and lower taxes, but they're wary that Ron Paul's supporters, some of them ponytailed and pierced, may tilt the balance in the party against social conservatism.

Their biggest policy dispute involves the Global War on Terror. To long-time Republicans, Ron Paul's "simple, humble foreign policy" looks like naïve appeasement of an aggressive religious ideology that seeks to destroy our way of life.

If nothing else, the Ron Paul insurgency has forced traditional conservatives, apathetic after years of tranquil conventions, to re-engage with the political process.

This year's Republican National Convention could rival the Democrats' Clinton/Obama clash for drama and conflict. What happens on May 3 here in Tulsa will give us an early glimpse of what could happen in September in St. Paul.

A selected posting on Daily Paul from Oklahoma's RJ Harris

CALL TO ARMS FOR OKLAHOMA REPUBLICANS!
Posted April 16th, 2008 by RJ Harris

We, the Oklahoma Ron Paul Meet-up Group Leaders, are currently in negotiations to have Ron Paul or one of his nationally recognized supporters attend our state convention!!! Please, make plans now to come the Republican Convention this May 3rd in Tulsa and help Ron Paul, and your fellow Oklahomans, make history! The Presidential and Vice Presidential nomination season of 2008 is not over yet…not by a long shot!

If you are an RP supporter in OK and a registered Republican then go to the Oklahoma Republican Party web site now and find out who your county Chair is and call that person today asking to be made a delegate to the state convention this May 2nd and 3rd. With your help we are going to take back this county one district at a time, one county at a time, and one state at a time. The following link will provide you with more information on the convention, on who your county chairperson is, and how to contact them so you can get on the delegate list for the State Convention. Additionally, this link will allow you to register for the convention once you have got yourself on the delegate list. http://www.okgop.com/

The following link will help you make accommodations if you want to stay in Tulsa overnight and participate in the Friday nights events as well. http://by108w.bay108.mail.../

If your county chair wont put you on the delegate list…register for the convention anyway! We will move then to suspend the rules if they try and continue some of the underhanded exclusionary tricks they have employed at the district conventions. Once we get past that vote we can move to include the delegates that the establishment republicans may have tried to disenfranchise.

Anyhow, we will be carpooling to Tulsa on Friday night and Saturday morning. If you leave Saturday morning you will have to leave by about 6:00 AM. If you leave on Friday night you may have to get a motel or stay with friends or family. We are currently working on getting Tulsa RP supporters to offer a spare bedroom or living room floor so people can throw down a sleeping bag.

If you need to carpool call Les White at 405-627-5488 or email him at lesdwhite@cox.net and he will pair people together. Remember to tell him if you are wanting to leave Friday night and if you will need a place to stay that night or if you want to leave Saturday morning. There is no need to spend anymore money on gas than necessary.

In case you have been out of the political loop of late you will be excited to hear that Ron Paul supporters have been getting elected to delegate positions all over the country. “Why?” you may ask is this important to you? Because according to even the most basic government text book, presidential candidates have to be just as good turning out the delegates as they are at turning out the primary voters or else their chances of gaining their parties nomination are in jeopardy. In Oklahoma we have managed to take several national delegate seats and we still have the state convention yet to go with 46 more At-Large delegates still up for grabs. Oklahoma Ron Paul meet-up group members/organizers like Les White, Brady Wright, Ryan Underwood, Sandie Crosnoe, Kaye Beach and Myself have been fighting like lions to turn out Ron Paul supporters to various conventions for the purpose of winning delegate seats, getting true conservative resolutions back on the platform, and getting neo-con resolution items voted off of the platform.

When the Republican Party was born it only took two attempts to get our nominee (Abraham Lincoln) elected. Sadly, there were people at that time willing tear our country apart so that they could continue to benefit from the enslavement of others. Ironic that we, the Ron Paul Republicans, have figured out that the slave masters never left us and have returned under the standard of the modern banking system—only this time their goal is the enslavement of everyone, not just one race among us. However, we know today, just like President Lincoln did, that this country and our freedoms are still WORTH FIGHTING FOR…Freedom from debt slavery, freedom from tyranny of the majority, freedom from un-warranted surveillance of our private lives by the ruling class just to name a few.

As was the case in Lincolns day, the suppressors of liberty today are not going to give up of their own account; they also must be fought. Fought at the ballot box and on the internet and fought anywhere else a true patriot can find someone else willing to listen to the truth. The time for apathy and inaction is over, now is the time to fight in the arena of ideas for what you believe. Its time to for us to fight to change our local Republican Platform and to fight to get local Ron Paul candidates—like Les White district 45 (Norman)—elected. Its time to give your state and your country just one day in your life this May 3rd to vote for Ron Paul Delegates to the National Republican Convention.

It is not too late to get Congressman Ron Paul elected President (or Vice President since it is the delegates at the convention that pick the vice) Win or lose on the national stage this cycle, we can still certainly take back our local republican party from the neo-cons and then we will see that when the next election cycle comes around it will be Constitutional Ron Paul Republicans who are chairing all the Republican Committees in Oklahoma and picking all the candidates for local, state, and federal positions! Its time to throw out the liberal republicans (rhinos) that have ruined the Party of Lincoln. It is time to take your place in the line of patriots stretching back to the founders and help SAVE THE REPUBLIC!

LET FREEDOM RING!

RJ Harris
Norman Meet-Up Assistant Organizer
rjjharris@hotmail.com

PS Don't forget that in many states if you can take over the party majority, you may be able to vote to unbind your delegates!

PSS Remember also that the National Convention Delegates must approve the presumptive nominee's choice for Vice President. If we get enough delegates to the convention we can have a real voice on this important issue.

PSSS check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DN-fhY96p0 WARNING there is one obscene word in the audio but please listen anyway because if it does not motivate you to take the torch of liberty being offered to you and to help win back your freedom…I don’t know what else will.

PSSSS If you are a Ron Paul campaign official, or the man himself, please come, or send one of your trusted supporters, to this convention. I know Brady Wright and or Kirk Shelly is already talking to you about this and if he has not already said it; I will. We are an inch away from wining this state for you, won’t you help us get that last inch?

More Reports from Oklahoma: Oklahoma GOP State Platform

Members of the Oklahoma GOP Platform Committee are reporting that the 2008 State Party Platform will have drastic changes that were put in place due to the handiwork of Ron Paul supporters who were appointed to the committee in numbers that are greatly disproportionate to the % of the Primary vote, in which, Ron Paul only received approximately 3% of the vote. They are saying that Cheryl Williams (Vice Chair?) is the name of the individual responsible for having appointed so many of these mostly new party members.

Some of the more prominant changes are mentioned in an e-mail:

I forgot to mention to you that they also succeeded in inserting a plank to oppose all foreign aid. Here's what it says, verbatim:
"6. We oppose any transfer of wealth from the US taxpayers to any foreign governments, usually referred to as foreign aid." Page 18

That's in direct conflict with this, which is right above it:
"2. We should support Israel politically, economically, geographically and militarily." Page 18

...and, I would say that it's also in direct conflict, with this one, which is below it:
"10. We support policies that protect all U.S. allies." Page 19

...and of course there's this lovely gem from page 20:
"11. We affirm the other provisions enumerated in the Bill of Rights, including the right to due process and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, nor should private property be taken for public use without just compensation. Therefore, we oppose the Patriot Act and call for its repeal."

Blogmaster: Have a great day, while thinking of the fact that a state GOP managed to get a self-conflicting platform put together which does away with supporting any allies or spying capabilities. Word has it that they also killed a plank that would have supported the Fair Tax, which enjoys the support of both of the state's Senators and 4 of their 5 Congressmen. Apparently, they don't want the IRS, but they also don't want the Fair Tax!

They're saying that the Ron Paul people are intending to show out at the Oklahoma State GOP Convention in Tulsa on Saturday, May 3rd, especially after having seen the outcome of the results in Nevada. By all appearances, these people do not see the STARK difference between John McCain and these 2 socialist Democrat Presidential Candidates who are both greatly in favor of partial birth abortion (which is simply infanticide), or if they do see it, they don't care about the party unity that will be needed by the GOP in order to defeat these most historically liberal of all liberal Presidential Candidates. Perhaps they're too blinded by their zeal to have power of their own, in some fashion, to see that the need to defeat these liberal kooks is great and very serious (an actual life and death matter for many children).