Category: Politics

There is a fight going on in the Nevada Republican Party. It is certainly entertaining to watch although it seems rather a tempest in a teapot that doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. 

As I described in my posting about the Nevada Republican Party Convention the April 26 state convention which was abruptly adjourned without selecting delegates to the National Republican Convention. Since the convention was adjourned, two different groups have announced different dates and places for the convention to reconvene. Both groups are claiming to have no agenda other than fairness and both groups are being disingenuous and are insulting our intelligence.

The official call to reconvene the convention comes from Sue Lowden, Chairman of the Nevada Republican Party. The convention scheduled by Lowden, representing the party elected officials, is scheduled for July 26. Nowhere in the letter announcing the new date does she acknowledge that others are also trying to reconvene the convention. I assume that the party insiders are figuring that there will will not be quorum on July 26 and that as a result the insiders i.e. the central committee will have to appoint the delegates. How else can you explain the delay from April to just a month before the convention to reconvene. To give the insiders credit, they do ask in their letter for us (the delegates) to indicate if we would prefer a mail in ballot instead of reconvening.

The other call to reconvene the convention is from a group of people who have sent an email to delegates asking us to attend a reconvened convention this Saturday June 28. They claim that  "This is not about one candidate vs. another; this is about our rights as state delegates to
have our voices heard, and finish the process we started on April 26th."  Give me a break. These people are Ron Paul supporters who are angry at the Republican establishment.  Who can blame them. George Bush represents the party establishment and I am angry at him. If I am representative of Republicans then many of us are angry at the establishment. But I certainly don't support Ron Paul. Others just don't feel represented by McCain and want to make a statement. By claiming to not have an agenda the rogue group  insult my intelligence just as much as the party establishment.

It seems to me that the party insiders have the rules on their side. Sue Lowden (chairman of the Nevada Republican Party) makes her case on her pseudo blog here. I call it a pseudo blog because she clearly doesn't seem to understand that a blog is supposed to be about conversation. Reading the comments on her blog makes it clear that polite dissenting opinions voiced in comments have been deleted. Lowden's argument for the alternative convention being illegal is well stated but she should have just posted it clearly on the web site. Don't start a blog if you want to dictate. Blogs are for discussion not laying  down the law. Lots of companies and groups don't get this. Allowing people to be heard is how you build support for a position. I can get behind a position I don't agree with but first I need to feel that my opinion and dissenting position has been heard. That is basic leadership. Sun Microsystems where I started blogging understood this in spades but my last employer certainly didn't get it and I don't think the Nevada Republican Party understands it at all. Apparently they only understand  laying down the law. I would love to blog for the party and apply the principals of change management that I learned in my corporate life.

Ah well….. the fight is entertaining to watch.  I'm sure there will be a fight in the credentials committee at the national convention but who cares… really what does it matter?? McCain is the candidate.

I haven't decided if I will attend the Ron Paul convention on Saturday. It might be entertaining to watch but I don't want to help them reach a quorum. Unfortunately I will be out of town when the official convention meets at the end of July so I won't be helping them reach a quorum either.

I applied to be a delegate to the national convention but assume that I will not be elected. It is interesting to see how the National Republican Party is handling bloggers. I wish I had applied to be an independent blogger to the national convention but the applications closed May 15 long before I knew whether I would be a delegate. To be honest I never thought I would be a delegate I just didn't get my application in in time. I guess if I accuse others of being disingenuous I'd better be crystal clear myself about my motives.

This soap opera will be continued in a future blog!

Not too long ago I heard Obama talk about the Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals. Recently I read Team of Rivals and loved it. I bet Obama will follow Lincoln's example and bring his rival Clinton into his cabinet. As I was preparing to write this post I Googled Obama and "Team of Rivals" and discovered that my prediction is not an original one. Among others Andrew Sullivan, who publishes The Daily Dish wrote about the same idea.

 Last week I found out that John McCain was going to be in Reno on Wednesday and was doing a town hall meeting. I went and thoroughly enjoyed it. I even got to shake his hand.

I had to wait about 30 minutes to get into the Boy's and Girl's club where the town hall meeting was being held but I think pretty much everyone who wanted to did get in. There were about 600 people there. Before he came out they had all the Republican elected officials and candidates go behind the curtain, I assume to have their pictures taken with McCain. McCain was introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. I wonder if he might be the vice presidential candidate.

McCain spoke for a few minutes before he started taking questions. It was interesting that the two subjects he chose to speak about were pork barrel spending and the war. He had a list of things from the farm bill and the latest emergency appropriations bill that  he used as examples of waste. He said he would veto bills containing wasteful spending. The list included things like 215 million for asparagus growers, 93 million for race horses, and 75 million for commercial fisheries. He said that Republicans allowed spending to get completely out of control and that Obama wants to continue more of the same.

On the war he said that  Obama has only been to Iraq once and won't sit down and talk to General Petraeus. He said that Obama wants to sit down and talk to the leader of Iran but not to General Petraeus. It has always seemed to me that a Presidential candidate going to Iraq is a lot of work for the military with questionable return on investment. But I suppose that hearing form the troops that are on the ground in Iraq is worthwhile. McCain gave an example. He said he knew that we were in trouble in Iraq right after the invasion when he visited Iraq. He said many soldiers came up to him and stressed the need for more troops.

After his brief speech McCain took questions. It is easy to see why he likes the town hall format. He is very good at engaging with people and answering their questions. When asked about increasing the use of nuclear power he pointed out hat he is a straight talker. He said that in Iowa he told the farmers that he is against Ethanol subsidies and although it may be unpopular in Nevada, he is in favor of storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. John McCain does a very good job of building trust. I think that the fact that people believe they can trust him to be honest with the American people will be one of the main reasons that people vote for him.

There were a wide variety of questions. About health care for the working poor McCain emphasized his belief that the government should stay out of people's choices about health care. He said he favors giving people a $5000 annual tax credit for health insurance.

McCain was full of humorous quips. At one point he pointed out that France currently has a pro American president. McCain said it just shows that if you live long enough anything can happen.

Since the event I have been trying to synthesize my take aways from seeing McCain in person. I do trust him. I do believe that he would make a strong president and would not take us to war capriciously. I do worry a bit that Obama might be a weak president like Jimmy Carter.

McCain is quite low key which means he doesn't really build up excitement and enthusiasm in a crowd. But maybe that can work to his advantage. He has a realness that is appealing.

I do worry that McCain would be bad for the country economically. He certainly did nothing  in the town hall meeting to demonstrate his economic credentials.

All in all I am really glad I went. I still haven't decided who I am going to vote for in November but I feel better informed and I had a lot of fun. Oh, and now I can say I shook John McCain's hand. All I had to do was walk over to the ropes by where he was going to walk out and when he walked by I just stuck out my hand.

Bob Beers was the chairman of the Nevada Republican Convention Saturday in Reno. If you are interested in the chairman’s perspective of what happened at the convention and why we adjourned without completing our business you should read Bob Beers blog.  I subscribed to Beer’s blog after the convention. It is very readable. I understand he came second in the gubernatorial primary last time around. I was impressed with him at the convention and would vote for him if he ran for state wide office again,

 

The Nevada Republican convention yesterday started with the
McQueen High School Band Color Guard marching in with the flag. As they played
snippets from It’s a Grand Old Flag, Anchor’s Away, The Marine Corps Song –
"From the Halls of Iwo Jima to the shores of Tripoli" and Sousa marches
like The Stars and Stripes  Forever my
heart swelled and I felt proud to be a small part of our political process. By
the end of the day most if not all of the participants at the convention felt
disappointed if not disgusted by the convention. I suspect the objective of the
party leaders was to have a pep rally for John McCain but it didn’t turn out
that way.

I blogged earlier about the caucuses and being a delegate to
the county convention.  I was looking
forward to attending the state convention and although it was a long shot I
applied to be a delegate to the national
convention.

The state convention did not get off to an auspicious start.
Congressman Dean Heller spoke first. He talked about what he believes that
Republicans believe. His priorities were weird and to me unbelievable. First was
his strong opposition to Gay marriage, second his opposition to illegal
immigration and the need to build a fence, third the need for English to be the
official language.  Next he got to things
like the need for an energy policy, the importance of mining and how hunting
and fishing are much more important than wilderness areas. Finally he got to
the war and not wanting to “cut and run”.  He ended by  saying that someone who can’t
score better than a 40 bowling is not fit to be President nor is someone who
can’t remember if they have been under sniper fire fit to answer the white house crisis phone when it rings at 3 in the morning.

I was disgusted. If he represents  what it means to be a Republican maybe I
should change my registration. I am a conservative.  I am very concerned about the war and how we
are going to get out of this mess. I believe that the economy is in serious
trouble. I believe that tax and spend policies like those of this administration
are a disaster.  I support gay marriage,
I think immigration is what has made this country strong, I am not in the least
concerned about our ‘official language’,  I treasure our wilderness areas, I don’t
think that electing a liberal is they way out but I also don’t think that Dean
Heller represents my views. I certainly won’t be voting for him.

Governor Jim Gibbons spoke next. He was much more
impressive. He talked about the challenges of the state economy and how he will
handle the state budget problems while not raising taxes. He talked about
living within our means,  his commitment
to no tax and spend fiscal irresponsibility and that we have a spending problem
not a revenue problem. He got a lot of cheers  when he said we can just turn to California to
see “What a tax and spend Democratic State will get you”. He said “businesses
can just keep on coming to Nevada as an alternative”

Then  Mitt Romney
spoke. He addressed what he sees  as the
major problems facing our country. His priorities were in stark contrast to
those of Congressman Heller and were much closer to mine. First was Radical
Violent Jihadism, second was the economy which he said is the worst since World
War II, third was the need to solve our energy challenges and the fact that we
send over a billion dollars a day to other countries for energy. Finally he talked about culture. He referred
to the book “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” which he quoted as saying that “culture
makes all the difference”.  Romney and I
don’t agree on what is necessary to nurture and protect our culture but
otherwise his priorities are right on. His
ending was inspiring as he talked about his optimism about the future. It was a
good speech.

While all this was going on the credential committee was
doing their work. They took a really long time to total up the numbers of delegates
and seat the alternates. Until the Credential committee’s  report was completed and accepted no real
business could be done. Finally they reported that there were 1,347 delegates
present and we could get down to work.

But first Ron Paul had to speak. He received  by far the biggest ovation of anyone at the
convention. His statements like “The Republican party needs to stick to its
roots and be a conservative party” ,  “The
purpose of government is to secure and preserve liberty”,  and  that the “constitution is meant to restrain the government and not government
to restrain the people” are why he is so
popular. But when he gets  to his kooky
ideas like we need to get rid of the Federal Reserve System, we should have no
income tax or IRS, We should quit having military bases abroad to “maintain our
empire” he loses any credibility.  Even
though he was wildly popular with many at the convention he is just too much of
a nut for me.

OK,  now we could get
down to business. The objective of the convention is to elect delegates to the
national convention and elect a platform. It quickly became clear as the rules
were debated that the Ron Paul supporters were staging a coup. After wild debate and several votes,  the establishment of the party was overruled. The
most vocal and time consuming speaker was a guy names Mike Weber. What a jerk.
He sure loved to hear himself talk. The convention voted to not  accept  the
slate of delegates to the National convention recommended by the nominating
committee and instead take nominations  from
the floor.

Apparently many people never got the form to apply to be delegates
and anyway people really wanted to elect Ron Paul delegates. To make the
process workable it was suggested that we each vote for 5 and the top vote getters would be delegates.
But that was overruled and the majority wanted each of us to vote for 34 delegates
and  34 alternates. Given that there were
at least 300 people who were going to nominated either from the applications or
from the floor the whole process was controlled chaos. Just to vote on the
three delegates that had to be elected from each congressional district took
over an hour. For our district the vote counters had to count  over 700 ballots, each with  three hand written names from a list of over
100 candidates.  By 6:00 the results were
still not in and we hadn’t even started selecting the  delegates at large.

Meanwhile the platform was presented. It was a compromise document
and contained a little bit of everything of what any and all Republican’s in the state want. We
didn’t even start considering it until after 5:00. The option to consider the
platform plank by plank was voted down. Out of what I think was shear fatigue the
platform was accepted as a whole with virtually no debate. To me the platform
is an embarrassment. It includes things like “livestock grazing shall be increased
immediately on federal land”, “We support the withdrawal of the United States
from the United Nations” ,  “We support
the repeal of the Federal Reserve Act” and “We demand a return to a gold and/or
silver backed currency”.  But there was no way the platform was going to
get fixed and of course it has no impact and will never be used for anything –
it doesn’t matter. So I’ll admit I voted
to just accept it and move on.

I figured we would be there well into the night to choose
the delegates to the national convention. I couldn’t even imagine how the logisitics
of getting it done were going to work.  Then
abruptly at about 5:55 the chairman announced that we were going into overtime for
the Peppermill contract and with a bang of his gavel the convention was
adjourned to be reconvened at a future date and time to be announced by Monday.

The delegates were dumbfounded “What the Hell??” was the most
common statement I heard as I was leaving.  So, the  bottom line is that the convention is to be
continued…  Maybe this will give the
establishment of the party time to figure out how to get control back. I wonder
how many people will show up for the reconvened convention. How many people will
travel to Reno or wherever. I know I
have plans for the next few weeks so I don’t know if I will be there. It will
be interesting to see what happens.

According to the Reno Gazette Journal this morning I
guess I left too soon. Ron Paul supporters led by the obnoxious Mike Weber
tried to reconvene the convention but didn’t have a quorum. It sounds like there was a lot of shouting
and heckling.

My big take away from the convention is that the rank and
file of the Republican Party is fed up and disillusioned with where the current
administration has taken the Republican Party. To paraphrase Hess, the guy who
sat next to me –  “ McCain is the nominee
of the party.  I know that Ron Paul doesn’t
have a chance and I can’t support some of his weirder positions but,  voting for Ron Paul is making a statement that
we are fed up and disgusted with the  where the establishment is taking this party.
This is our way to stand up and be heard.”