Republicans preparing for state convention

Jim Camden
Staff writer, Spokane Review
May 26, 2008
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=15063


Hundreds of Washington Republicans arrive in Spokane later this week with their party’s presidential candidate all but chosen. Arizona Sen. John McCain has only to await the national convention in September, where he’s assured of enough delegates to become the official nominee.

But a substantial portion of the delegates to the Washington state convention - perhaps as many as 40 percent, according to some estimates - will be backing another candidate and looking to make their preference known at that national gathering.
Supporters of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas congressman who is still nominally in the race, will control enough votes to claim delegates to the national nominating convention and perhaps make changes in the state platform.

In pockets around the state, Paul’s supporters, some of whom are political novices, worked the arcane caucus system hard enough to control county conventions and legislative district meetings. Nowhere was that more evident than in Spokane County, which will send 114 delegates to the state convention.

Of those, 106 are Paul supporters.

That by itself is probably enough to guarantee them at least one and possibly two national delegates from Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District, barring any procedural maneuvering by state GOP leaders. Late last week, Paul supporters were saying convention rules were being circulated that could shut them out of national delegate spots. Paul also has 11 of 13 delegates from Stevens County, four of eight from Asotin County and two of five delegates from both Lincoln and Ferry counties in unofficial tallies.

‘Basically, in the 5th District, Ron Paul’s got it,’ said Curt Fackler, the Spokane County GOP chairman. Even though the majority of the state’s delegates will be McCain supporters, Paul delegates will have some ability to elect national delegates from the congressional district and could also elect the members of the Electoral College who would cast votes for the president if McCain carries Washington in November.

Paul also has more than two-thirds of the 89 delegates from Clark County and more than 80 percent of Whatcom County’s 38 delegates.

‘It’s not going to be dull,’ Chet Dow, the Whatcom County Republican Party chairman, predicted of the state convention.

Geri Modrell, Snohomish County GOP chairwoman, agreed: ‘It promises to be a lively (convention) and I think that’s good.’

About a third of Snohomish County’s delegation probably support Paul, Modrell said, although many of the Snohomish delegates didn’t state a preference at that county’s convention.

King County GOP Chairwoman Lori Sotelo said she doesn’t have an accurate count of her county’s 320-member delegation, the state’s biggest. Many didn’t commit to a particular candidate in the Feb. 9 precinct caucuses, and while McCain won the Feb. 19 primary, numbers for any particular candidate are “squishy,” she said.

Her main concern is not how the county’s delegation breaks down, but to make sure “it gets there and has a good time.”

In Spokane, delegates to the county convention passed a platform that includes a plank calling for U.S. troops to be brought home from overseas without a declaration of war. Paul supporters say it’s merely a call to obey the U.S. Constitution, but others saw it as a repudiation of Bush’s strategy in Iraq.

In other counties, election of state convention delegates took so long that the meetings lost quorums and had to be adjourned without adopting a platform.

Most political conventions are a mixture of pro-forma business and political intrigue. For decades, by the time the Washington state convention is held in late May or early June, a candidate has usually locked the nomination by winning primaries and caucuses around the nation.

That doesn’t mean the presumptive nominee and his supporters have complete control of the meeting. In 1988, George H.W. Bush was a lock for the nomination nationally, but supporters of the Rev. Pat Robertson, who stormed Washington’s precinct caucuses that year, sent delegates to the national convention. In 1992, although Bush turned back a challenge from Pat Buchanan, his supporters wanted the pundit-turned-politician to address the state convention. State party officials said no, and Buchanan made his speech on the sidewalk outside the convention.

Maureen Moore, the state coordinator for the Paul campaign, is tightlipped about what Paul supporters have planned for the convention, other than “spreading the message of liberty,” which is what the congressman’s supporters say his campaign is about.

“Strategically, it’s just better not to be talking about what we’re doing,” she said.

That could explain why some longtime party members are wondering what Paul supporters will do at the convention that could criticize either the current administration or McCain. But others say the concerns are overblown. Fackler said the new Paul supporters could bring new blood to the party.

Said Snohomish County’s Modrell: “We need some good, lively discussion to get the voters activated again.”

America 2018

The Money Masters - How International Bankers Gained Control of America

Bill O'Reilly's Producer (Unseen Footage) (Caution-Language)

Too funny to pass up.

Ron Paul and the New GOP

We are Ron Paul supporters and we are the new GOP.
by Mike LaChance
Monday, May 19, 2008

If you're an establishment Republican, you might want to sit down and read this very carefully.

We who support Dr. Ron Paul are the new GOP and we're not taking over the Republican Party, we are taking it back. We are working to support smaller government, balanced budgets, individual liberty, lower taxes and minding our own business; ideas you clearly abandoned long ago.

In April of this year, neocon pundit David Frum wrote an article titled "Why the GOP Lost the Youth Vote." Here's the money quote:

"Today's Republican Party is associated with a wave of disappointments and embarrassments: Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, congressional corruption scandals, the mortgage crisis."

While I agree with the preceding statement, there's an important point that has been lost on Mr. Frum and many others in the media. The GOP did not lose the youth vote, they have so far chosen to ignore it.

In all the places where anyone can see the youth vote in action (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook) the clear GOP hero for young Americans is Ron Paul. Yet still, establishment neocons and their supporters look around and ignorantly ask why no young people are supporting them. Anyone with a brain knows this is either total idiocy or a blatant attempt to ignore Ron Paul.

If the youth vote really mattered to the GOP, they would not only support Ron Paul, they would be setting up Republican voter registration booths in every American city encouraging college aged people and 20 somethings to support Ron Paul. John McCain has made no effort to reach out to Ron Paul supporters. Why?

The Republican Party is in serious trouble. Republicans are losing seats in Congress and John McCain is trying his best to differentiate himself from President Bush. Why then does the GOP pretend it has no youth support? Why is the GOP in denial over its roots? Why have so many young people started watching and posting YouTube videos of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley?

Word on the street is that almost 75,000 people showed up for an Obama rally this weekend in Oregon. It's not that amazing when you consider Senator Obama's blind support from the liberal mainstream media. We Ron Paul supporters could give Republicans that kind of turnout too, if only the establishment GOP would acknowledge us and our admiration for the true principles of our party. Instead, they play the violin like Nero did as his empire crumbled and burned around him.

We support Ron Paul and we're the new GOP. We're here to help you and we have a state of the art lifeboat that's worth millions. Will you really turn us away and choose to drown?

Ron Paul on the Alex Jones Show 5/19/08

Part 1


Part 2

Online gun dealer Eric Thompson debates Paul Helmke

Protect your right to defend yourselves. Vote Ron Paul.

To disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
-George Mason

Ron Paul publicly names neoconservatives

Ron Paul Supporters, What Are Your Plans?

By Sarah Lai Stirland
May 13, 2008 2:36:02 PM
Wired Blog Network

Ron Paul's supporters have used technology and online networking tools to blaze multiple new trails in the worlds of both online and offline political campaigning during this election cycle.

Their remarkable energy, passion and enthusiasm catapulted Paul onto the national stage and brought him a level of advertising, attention and media coverage that would not likely have happened without their efforts.

What's happened to this rolling fireball of energy and enthusiasm? Threat Level would like to know.

If you're a Paul supporter, please e-mail me at: sarah_laistirland@Wired.com to tell me what your plans are, if any, for the rest of the presidential election.

Will you let your electioneering skills waste away?

Or will you start campaigning for someone else?

Meanwhile, take our poll: How do you plan to vote in the general election?

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This is what the results were when I voted. Who in the hell is voting for McCain and Obama or any of the others for that matter!? I was expecting to see close to 100% in the write in stat.

Fox commentator: Ron Paul revolt could be 'disaster' for Republicans

David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Raw Story

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Rep. Ron Paul is still in the GOP race and even drew 16% of the vote in the recent Pennsylvania Republican primary. Now his supporters are planning to stage a "revolt" at the Republican National Convention in September, possibly with the aim of securing Paul a prime time speaking slot.

Conservative radio talk show host Mike Gallagher told the hosts of Fox and Friends on Tuesday, "There is no question that this could be a major headache for John McCain."

"John McCain would be well-served to kind of reach out and give him an olive branch at the convention," Gallagher continued. "Let him speak, give him a role, because if these people are disrespected -- you know, this, combined with Bob Barr's announcement that Barr now is running as a Libertarian, is going to just take votes away from John McCain and could be a disaster for the Republican Party."

Bob Barr recently cited Paul's success as having helped inspire his own candidacy, pointing to "what Ron Paul has tapped into in terms of reaching an awful lot of young people in particular and illustrating very clearly that in this day and age it is possible to reach a lot of young people through the Internet."

Democratic political consultant and commentator Bob Beckel then joined into the Fox discussion, saying of Paul, "I think he ought to get a prime time speech at the convention. This is the only guy that has a bobble doll made for him that his head doesn't move."

"They're nuts," Beckel said of Paul's supporters, hastening to add, "I don't mean nuts in a bad way. They're nuts about their guy."

"I think they ought to do it, Mike," Beckel concluded, laughing. "I think it would be great for you guys to have Ron Paul at your convention."

"It'll show some diversity at the convention," Gallagher acknowledged.

"That's the kind of diversity you need, brother," Beckel affirmed.

This video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast May 13, 2008.

Ron Paul on Iraq and Iran dropping the dollar

Ron Paul supporters: Would you move to Paulville?

Monica Guzman

seattlepi.com

Washington stood out earlier this primary season for residents who gave more money to long-shot candidate Ron Paul than they gave to Republican front-runners Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain.

So you Ron Paul supporters might be interested to know that there's a movement out there to create gated communities where only Ron Paul supporters are welcome.

It's called Paulville, and its mission, according to its Web site, is to "establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty."

As political blogger Ben Smith reported this morning, the group has apparently already made its first land purchase -- 50 acres near Dell City, Texas. For future sites, members are recommending New Hampshire, South Dakota, Wyoming and Alaska.

Local Ron Paul supporters -- would you consider moving to one of these communities

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Make sure to click on the seattlepi.com link above and read some of the comments.

Deadly Cyclone Puts Terror Hype In Perspective

Equivalent of seventeen 9/11's reminder that control freaks' obsession with inflated fear of terrorism to implement police state a contrived fraud

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The deadly cyclone that has hit Burma could eventually claim around 50,000 lives - the equivalent of seventeen 9/11's - and yet in the face of such tragedies that befall the planet on an almost monthly basis, we are constantly lectured that the contrived fear of terrorism - a threat less dangerous to Americans than peanut allergies or accident-causing deer - is reason alone to let control freaks completely re-engineer society and change our way of life.

Listening to the steady drumbeat of government proclamations, you'd think that there were terrorists lurking around every street corner ready to slit our throats or detonate suicide bombs, yet in reality the only "terror attack" directed against westerners in the past near-three years was the comical 'dumb and dumber' "Glasgow airport attack," as it was billed by the corporate media, which consisted of two semi-retarded morons setting fire to a Jeep Cherokee, driving it into a window, and hurting only themselves in the process.

This has nothing to do with any success on the part of the Bush administration or the British government in "fighting terror" since 9/11, the same pattern can be observed throughout the latter half of the 20th century, when the notion of "terrorism" first began to take on its modern incarnation.

The truth is that we are a trillion times more likely to die from a heart attack, a road accident or even a freak weather event, yet we don't spend all day worrying about it or changing our way of life to accomodate for it, as the control freaks that use the contrived fear of terror demand we do to combat the hyped threat of Al-Qaeda.


The menace of global terrorism has been labeled the greatest threat to western civilization since communism and yet swimming pools, peanuts and lost deer kill more Americans every single year. Why are our governments facilitating the terrorist's agenda by hyping a peril that simply does not exist?

The number of Americans killed as a result of international terrorism since the 1960's gives us a benchmark from which we can correctly identify and target other dire dangers to our very way of life.

- Allergic reactions to peanuts

- Accident causing deer

- Lightning strikes

That's correct - all of the above have killed an equal number of Americans since 1960 as terrorism. One could even categorize M&M's, lost deer and the weather as an "axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world," as George Bush famously once said.

Enemy Combatant: Fear the deer.

As Ohio State University's John Mueller concludes in a report entitled A False Sense Of Insecurity, "For all the attention it evokes, terrorism actually causes rather little damage and the likelihood that any individual will become a victim in most places is microscopic."

The much vaunted August 2006 transatlantic terror plot, a facade that has since collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity, led to ridiculous measures in airports banning any form of liquids in carry on luggage and mothers were forced to drink their own breast milk. Yet there has not been a bomb planted in a piece of checked luggage on an American carrier since the 1988 Lockerbie disaster, of which the culprits are still in question. Since that time Americans have been routinely interrogated millions of times about the contents of their luggage while cargo remains completely unchecked.

To equal the danger that Americans place themselves in every day by driving their car down the highway, there would have to be a September 11 every month. To reach the same level of risk that one undertakes in boarding an airline, you only have to travel eleven miles in a car.

The principle goal of terrorists is to terrify populations and governments into acquiescing to their political demands. The only way they can achieve this is by generating a substantial amount of fear and making people believe the lie that their life is significantly threatened by potential terrorism, when in reality the swimming pool in their backyard poses more of a danger.

As soon as we lose the fear, the terrorists lose their power over us to control our behavior. If western governments were really trying to win a war on terror as they claim then they would downplay and sideline acts of terror, pointing out that an individual has more chance of being struck by lightning than being killed in a terror attack.

And yet what do we see? George Bush and Dick Cheney frothing at the mouth predicting mushroom clouds over America, and Fox News telling us every day it's not a matter of if but when we're attacked again.

















Mueller elaborates,

"What is needed, as one statistician suggests, is some sort of convincing, coherent, informed, and nuanced answer to a central question: “How worried should I be?” Instead, the message the nation has received so far is, as a Homeland Security official put (or caricatured) it, “Be scared; be very, very scared — but go on with your lives.” Such messages have led many people to develop what Leif Wenar of the University of Sheffield has aptly labeled “a false sense of insecurity.”

By making these statements and continually recycling the hysteria, these entities are facilitating the goals of terrorists, driving forward an agenda that could not be energized alone by relatively minor, rare and inconsequential attacks that take few human lives in comparison to the real dangers that we face every day - mundane things like car accidents, cancer and heart disease.

In that context, western governments are staffed at the very top by rhetorical terrorists who are openly espousing the creed and statecraft of terrorism.

Should we concerned about global terrorism? Undoubtedly. Should we let it be used by governments as a pretext to completely eviscerate our freedoms and alter our way of life? Certainly not - the notion that terror is a fundamental threat to the very foundation of our civilization, as some have claimed, is simply not supported by reality.

Only by coming to the understanding that terrorism is such a limited threat to our livelihoods and communicating that to others can we disarm the alarmist propaganda that governments utilize in order to enlist our obedience for the construction of the prison planet and the total control freak policies being imposed under the justification of the hyped terror threat.

RON PAUL 5-2-08 CNN - I'M NOT DROPPING OUT

My favorite part is where Paul says that unity in the Republican party is secondary to what we believe in, in terms of getting back to what the party originally started as.

HOW TO STEAL ELECTIONS by Ron Paul

Here is the link to the video if you would like to refute his claims.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6vfDR3-5UQ

A Western Front Article

Stop campaigning after candidate's loss
by Jon Sayer
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

So I was walking around the Viking Union the other day eating a hot dog and talking to the Associated Students (AS) Election candidates. It was a day like any other. The sun was out, and I was in a good mood.

That was until I saw a sign that said RON PAUL on it.

I always spell his name in capital letters because this is how it is pronounced, that is to say at a high volume in a crowded public place with little context provided. RON PAUL is one of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

Although he is registered as a Republican, he is more of a Libertarian than anything. That means his political beliefs can be summed up with the phrase, “Everything the government does is bad.”

Now, I have no problem with people campaigning for their presidential candidate of choice. It’s one of the most important rights — and responsibilities — an American has.

What I have a problem with are people who keep playing after the game is over. RON PAUL lost. The Washington state primary and caucus were in February and John McCain clinched the Republican nomination nearly two months ago. Yet like the Energizer Bunny, RON PAUL’s supporters keep going and going into infinity.

Continuing to campaign after your candidate lost is like rooting for the Seahawks at a Yankees versus Mets game. They’re not even playing, let alone the same sport.

So I have a message to the people who keep coming to campus with RON PAUL pamphlets and signs, as well to the people who keep littering our highways with giant RON PAUL signs:

Please stop. You’re only embarrassing yourselves.

I supported John Kerry back in 2004. After he lost, I took the Kerry/Edwards poster out of my dorm window. I didn’t keep parading around for weeks trying to convince people that he still had a chance.

Every time I see these guys on Vendors Row, I ask them, “Why are you still out here? Ron Paul lost.” (I don’t yell his name. I purposely mispronounce it)

The answers I get vary. One guy told me they aren’t out there promoting RON PAUL anymore but his ideas, which include such great ideas as withdrawing from Iraq (not a bad idea at all!), legalizing drugs (okay, a little bit out there, but I can see your point), getting rid of the income tax (um, how will we pay for things like financial aid for college students?) and eliminating financial aid for college students (oh...).

RON PAUL’ers, if that is why you are still out there, you need new signs. Perhaps they could read “Western Libertarians” or perhaps “RON PAUL-ism.”

Heck, basing your political ideology off of one individual is still creepy. Give them a couple of years and they will form a personality cult like Lyndon LaRouche or Mao.

Other RON PAUL followers suggested to me they do indeed think it isn’t over for him. Some suggest we write-in RON PAUL in November. I prefer to stick to Colonel Sanders and the Hamburgler for my throwaway write-in votes, thank you.

Others suggest they need to subvert the democratic process to get him elected. RON PAUL supporters around the country have been finding ways to screw with the caucus system to get their candidate more delegates.

Aside from the inherent undemocratic nature of this, there is no way at this point for them to amass enough stolen delegates to overthrow McCain.

So RON PAUL supporters, just do us all a favor and stop this nonsense. You’re only going to force more people like me to make fun of you.

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There is so much that can be said about this article, so I'll just try to sum it up. Jon, if I were you, I would ask for your college tuition back because you got hosed.

If you feel the need to respond to this individual, you can comment to the article here:
Western Front Article

Or drop him an email here: jsayer622@gmail.com

Or add him as a friend on Myspace: Jon Sayers Myspace