The News Tribune

More on the alleged McCain walk-out
Posted by Niki Sullivan @ 04:45:40 pm

I got my first e-mail from a McCain delegate about the alleged orchestrated walk-out at the state Republican convention last weekend. I've posted a few comments (and videos) from Paul supporters (scroll down), so I'm glad I've now got at least one commentary from the other side.

Here goes:

Well, there are a lot of ways of looking at the "walk out."

It happend in that there eventually wasn't a quorum, and the convention had to adjourn. But was it an orchestrated "walk-out" or were people just tired? I'm not sure I can say for sure. On one hand, it was orchestrated in that some folks were urging others to leave. On the other hand, it was not orchestrated because plenty of people were leaving on their own because it was late and the Paul people were dragging out the convention.

I'm going to say it was not orchestrated. Because if it was orchestrated, it was orchestrated very poorly.

Plenty of counties stuck around during the quorum call, including McCain counties. Even some McCain whips (the folks carrying the giant YES and NO signs) stayed on the floor. The McCain people were pretty well organized considering the Paul people were incredibly organized and the McCain people were able to beat them back on most of their motions. Since the McCain people were so organized about everything else, it would make sense if they were organized in regards to a "walk-out." But based on how many McCain people stayed during the supposed "walk-out," I'd have to say that the walk-out was not actually planned or orchestrated.

People get tired of these things. In fact, that's how Paul won the counties he did. Paul never had more than about 30% of the delegates at any county convention, but they would drag the business along while supporters of McCain and other candidates would slowly leave. In Clark, Spokane, Thurston, and Whatcom counties, by the time county conventions would finally vote on delegates, enough folks had left that Paul delegates made up a majority. So it's ironic, not to mention petty, that Paul folks are now bemoaning the WSRP convention when they used the same tactics (assuming there WAS an organized walk-out, a sentiment I don't agree with) at county conventions.

Lastly, it's also unfortuante that Paul backers are saying the McCain folks cheated by walking out or passing the set of rules they did. At the open of the convention, Paul delegates tried to remove the entire Skagit County delegation from the floor. They lost at least a dozen procedural votes while trying to make this happen. They never once explained why Skagit County should be expelled (they only said there were "questions" and "abormalities," but never explained what they actually meant), they hoped to just generate enough confusion on the floor to get their way.

If all it takes is more than half of the convention to remove a delegation, the McCain camp would have had easily enough votes to take out Spokane, Whatcom, and Clark. But the McCain folks played very fair and never used parliamentary procedure to unfairly exploit their majority. So to answer your last question, I'm not sure I do see anything wrong with an orchestrated walk-out, if that's really what happened, given how the Paul people were trying to play the game.