“Now it allows candidates to refuse the delegate, requiring another in his or her stead to be selected by the state.”
This is unacceptable.
I am willing to believe that this change was instituted simply to keep the Paulbots and their ilk from promising to vote one way and really voting another. However, the “unintended” consequence of this rule change is certainly to keep out anyone that the GOP-e does not accept. So this is unacceptable to me, and I hope to my fellow FReepers.
Who do we complain to? How can we make our non-delegate voices heard on this issue? (And we’d better do it now before this new rule gets cemented into place!!) Who is familiar with rules & procedures and can tell us what to do about this? Please comment and let us know!
I agree with you on that point, that sometimes the rules we have to put in place to take care of those who would so brazenly abuse the process end up hurting everybody.
You go to a typical convention, and listen to all the people talking about things. What you’ll almost never hear is people questioning whether those who claim to support a candidate are actually lying. It’s just something nobody thinks anybody would do.
So, a guy shows up at a caucus in Iowa, and he says “I’m the Santorum Guy for this caucus. If Santorum didn’t actually find a guy for that particular caucus, who is going to doubt the guy? And so, the guy gets picked by the santorum supporters. And he shows up at the next level caucus, and he’s voting for Ron Paul. Surprise Surprise.
Hey, if the people who show up on primary day, or caucus day, actually WANT ron paul delegates, that’s fine. That’s how the process works. But a LOT of people are shocked to find out that they thought they were voting for some canddidate, and instead the delegate they selected is voting against their interests.