The dearth of posting is from my mind being elsewhere. I’ve written partial posts, but they dissolve into nothing that i want to complete.
Just so you folks know that my obsessive fear of a grassroots groundswell for Ron Paul was not completely unfounded, it’s worth posting this story to explain how that came to be. From Business Wire:
Yesterday, the Ron Paul presidential campaign filed a letter with the Louisiana Republican Party to contest the credentials of delegates to the state convention.
Under state party rules, campaigns have 72 hours from the end of the caucus to file such a contest. This contest was filed in response to multiple problems with the caucus process.
“The initial failure of the Louisiana GOP to properly determine who was and wasn’t eligible to vote threw this entire process into disarray,” said Ron Paul campaign manager Lew Moore. “However, voter eligibility was just one of many irregularities with the caucus process. We are filing this contest to ensure that we can challenge the results if it appears that delegates were improperly selected.”
The Louisiana State GOP changed the rules at the eleventh hour to allow other candidates to file more delegates, even though there were plenty of delegates to compose full slates in each congressional district. At the time of the original January 10 deadline, Ron Paul had the largest number of delegates pledged to him. The party then changed the rules to give other candidates until January 12 to file more delegates.
In addition, due to mistakes by the Louisiana GOP, hundreds of voters were forced to file provisional ballots, including nearly 500 that could change the outcome of the election. According to the LA GOP, caucus locations relied on a voter list from November 1, 2007 or perhaps earlier despite the fact that under the caucus rules, voters need only have registered Republican before November 30, 2007.
There were even instances at the caucuses where state-certified Ron Paul delegates appearing on the ballot were forced to file a provisional ballot despite the fact they were pre-approved as delegates.
Essentially, Ron Paul’s support here is so strong that the Louisiana Republican party had to rewrite the rules at the last minute to block him from taking all 30 delegates. Ron Paul scares the hell out of me, but that’s bullshit. If he wins legitimately, he wins. Rigging the caucus is disgusting. I confess that i rarely watch the local news on television, but i saw little mention of the Louisiana caucus in the local papers.
It’s unlikely that Paul supporters will be able to overcome the way that the Republican party has rigged Louisiana, in my opinion. The entire mess gives me a nasty, oily feeling. However, although no one has actually called me out on my paranoia of Paul, now it’s documenting why i saw something very different locally than what was happening nationally.
Tags: Louisiana, politics, Republican, Ron Paul