Marion's Blog: Nevada Republican State Convention

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.”