Posted on 06/12/2010 7:33:35 PM PDT by mdittmar
DALLAS — Fired-up Republican activists in no mood for compromises threw out their party chairwoman Saturday, then bucked Texas Gov. Rick Perry by pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration similar to Arizona's new law.
Some delegates at the Republican state convention also called for a nonbinding resolution calling on House Republicans to oust their own speaker, Rep. Joe Straus of San Antonio, considered too moderate for many of the bedrock conservatives meeting in Dallas this weekend. Convention organizers ruled the Straus resolution out of order.
While the convention began Friday with scripted unity and Democrat-bashing speeches, its final hours were marked by division and heated debates over GOP policy priorities.
In a sometimes chaotic and raucous roll-call vote, delegates overwhelmingly decided to ditch their firebrand leader, conservative activist Cathie Adams, in favor of Houston businessman Steve Munisteri. Munisteri had focused his campaign on the party's $500,000 debt, saying Republicans should be in better financial shape since they control both houses of the Legislature and all statewide offices.
The immigration proposal, a hard-line approach that Perry has said isn't right for Texas, was one of several initiatives debated as delegates wrapped up the two-day convention. The Republican Party platform is a blueprint of the policies that GOP activists want elected officials to pursue.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
It was a close vote for chairman with Munisteri taking 13 senatorial district caucuses to Adams' 12. The floor vote was about 4,200 to 3,000 with Munisteri gaining a lot of support after the 3rd candidates endorsement.
pretty interesting day ,kinda discouraging, get the feeling that true conservatives/christians are just barely tolerated..big $$ is being sought, although there is a strong, almost unanimous no amnesty whatsoever concensus at state level.... the acting chair...don't know who she was, not Adams.. was not the best at keeping ball rolling ...
it was rather haphazard and a bit out of control at times
but.. we have a LOT of solid conservative officials and candidates State wide
What is your take on how things went today...I’m from SD 1
Ah fixdit.
Tell that to people who are getting their vehicles stolen (by ILLEGAL Mexicans) for car parts. They sell them to certain body shops who are in on the crimes.
We had a vehicle stolen and it took Dallas police four hours to take a report. They were 'too busy'. It was found two weeks later on the side of the highway. They tried to charge us with abandoning a vehicle (even though they had a police report).
Exactly. Politics before enforcing the law.
Exactly, that is what has to be done.
“I will not vote for Perry !!!”
It’s either Perry or the dimocrat- are you voting dimocrat?
#25,,,typical ‘’piss on the victims’’ police work,,,so common in America nowadays.
TX GOP is getting it right.
Time get tuff and people get angry and serious about a continuing Mexican invasion when the economy stinks and the jobs are gone for illegal aliens and for citizens and for legal immigrants. Somethings gotta give and it must be the illegals. Get the ____ out!
It has nothing to do with cowardice. Most people I know, particularly people who have worked for the GOP at different points in their careers, do not think Adams has the chops to run the party. With his experience (he helped found and grow the YCT), it was my own opinion that Munisteri has the tools to do what the party needs to do: support candidates, raise money, build the grassroots of the party, etc. Once the platform of the party has been determined, these are the things the party has to do, and these are things the party has not done very well in the past few years (and yes, I know Adams was only in there for 7 months), particularly supporting candidates. They’ve just been throwing money away. They don’t have good metrics for determining what they should be doing. Munisteri will hopefully be able to turn that around. If not, people can vote him out in 2012.
Our Gov is playing it safe on immigration for political reasons. (lots of businesses in this state use illegals and he ddoesn’t want to pis them or the Hispanic voters off)
I say bring on the AZ law!! Screw these cheap bastard business owners and Hispanics who don’t like it!
If the Leg. puts an anti-illegal immigration bill on his desk and he vetos it, he’s a gonner.
I’m not enamored of Governor Good Hair, either. I wonder if there’s any chance that we could come up with a good conservative to run against him.....
Im writing in the New Republican chairman
Thanks for the inside view...
I’m not as into the Republican party as you seem to be—but that sounds like a wasted vote to me.
I think even Perry is better than the guy from Houston—and from what I’ve been reading, that guy stands a real chance of becoming our governor.
Overall, I think folks are somewhat dissatisfied with what the State Party has done lately(financials and losing state house seats) and wanted a change.
Are there two threads, here?
The usual suspects - the clueless young, the Libertarian-leaning, and the rabble-rousers - that want to take power from the establishment backed Munisteri.
Munisteri must have spent hundreds of thousands on his signs and literature. It’s a shame the power play was more important than the finances ** according to their actions.**
Expect scandals if he continues tactics - and spending - like those used at the Convention: claiming to have worked for prolife laws before Cathie Adams even became involved, supposedly (and promised) delegates to the Nominations Committee voting for Munisteri on the second ballot, cheering when he took the lead.
Then, having Mechler come out to introduce Munisteri smacked of collusion or pay off.
And then, who *did* pay for all that specialty printing for signs, literature, name tags, etc?
Supposedly, the major objection was the “wasted time” caused by not having the election for Chair and call to order on the first day. (Of course, they stalled the meeting an hour on Saturday night for their own victory speeches.)
Of course, that would simply mean the clueless would be more clueless, more likely to follow the demagoguery and blatant emotional attacks that we heard and saw all week.
It would also ignore the fact that Credentials met most of the morning on Friday, that the Permanent Committees aren’t elected until the first Senate District Caucus on Friday, and that the Convention is about the only time most of us have to meet State elected and candidates for office.
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