Romney's Agents Stage Coup at GOP Convention

Conservative HQ ^ | 8/27/12 | Richard A. Viguerie

[xzins]

Fresh from the 2010 Tea Party wave that brought millions of new conservative voters into the Republican ranks and restored the GOP to control of the House of Representatives, Washington’s Republican political class is wasting no time in ensuring that the same grassroots conservative voters who have brought them to the threshold of capturing all three branches of government are permanently frozen out of influence in the Republican Party apparatus.

In response, grassroots conservatives have launched an unprecedented Rules fight that threatens to up-end the carefully choreographed coronation of Mitt Romney.

The Rules Committee report, which is set to be adopted Tuesday, includes Rules changes that shift the balance of power away from state and local Republican committees, who elect delegates to the National Convention every four years, in favor of DC’s permanent political class.

The Rules changes would:

•     allow presidential campaigns to, in essence, “fire” duly elected delegates they don’t like and replace them with individuals of their own choosing;
•     allow changes to the Republican Party Rules between Conventions, without a vote of delegates elected by the grassroots of the Party; and
•     undo the rules regarding the primary calendar that were designed to stop the trend toward front-loading the primary season and preserve the opportunity for Republicans across the country to have a say in who their presidential candidate would be.

Principled conservative Republican Party leaders Morton Blackwell of Virginia and Jim Bopp of Indiana are spearheading the drive to gather the votes necessary to adopt a Minority Rules Report and defeat the proposed rules changes on the floor during Tuesday’s procedural sessions.

To read Morton Blackwell’s letter to Republican National Convention delegates go here http://mranalogblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Morton-RNC-Letter.pdf

To read Jim Bopp’s email to Republican National Convention delegates go here:

http://www.conservativehq.com/article/9513-james-bopp-jr-letter

Indiana’s National Committeeman, James Bopp, who also serves as Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in an email to delegates, “This is the biggest power grab in the history of the Republican Party because it shifts the power to select delegates from the state party to the candidate. And it would make the Republican Party a top down, not bottom up party.”

Virginia’s Morton Blackwell, a member of the Republican National Committee’s Standing Committee on Rules and on the National Convention's Committee on Rules and Order of Business said these are “rules changes that could fundamentally change our Republican Party -- and not for the better.”

Blackwell noted that DC election lawyer Ben Ginsberg brought these proposals to the Rules Committee where “he represented himself as the leader on the Committee for the Romney Campaign.”

Ginsberg, Blackwell observed, had earlier this year worked for conservative Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign, “is unencumbered by principle.”  “After working for Bachmann’s grassroots campaign he is advocating Rules that would centralize power, restrain and eliminate grassroots influence and create a top-down, rather than bottom-up Party – the very antithesis of what allowed a candidate like Michele Bachmann to run,” said Blackwell.

RNC Vice Chairman Bopp dismissed any notion that the Rules changes had an ideological motivation, noting that they represent “a threat to both moderates and conservatives who could be purged, depending on who is the Republican Presidential nominee” and that to preserve the bottom-up nature of the Party the issues raised should be taken care of by changes to state laws and state GOP rules governing the selection of their state’s delegates to the national convention.

To oppose this power grab by Washington’s permanent political class grassroots GOP activists must shine the light of day on this behind the scenes power grab; call your Republican National Convention delegates, blog about, email it to your friends and contacts, post it on your Facebook page and social media sites and call your local and national conservative talk radio programs.

[freekitty]

Hey Romney, if we wanted Obama we would re-elect him.

[formosa]

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are not any good guys in this fight for the presidency and havent’t been for a long time. Both parties are attempting to destroy the middle and working classes.

It is time to make it known that we will not put up with this behavior from either side and clean up this mess we’ve allowed them to make by closing our eyes and avoiding that responsibility.

[G Larry]

Obama thanks you for your half vote for him.

Watch 2016 and then tell us how your actions help America.

[ExxonPatrolUs]

If Romney plans to stuff Ryan into a closet somewhere, he sure does not understand that a VP is supposed to be a life insurance policy. I can see kooks on all wavelengths of the political spectrum going Hinkley on Romney to keep the republicans from making any GOP establishment headway. Romney was counting on a GOP majority in the Senate, but we can probably kiss that goodbye now with the whole Akin debacle. The etch-a-sketch is the kind of politician everyone hates because like Obama, he’s all about getting his name on a piece of crap hard to describe and implement big government fluster-cluck.

[SERE_DOC]

Well I guess the best I can come up with is when your done dropping trou for Barack lite (AKA Romney) you can go piss up a rope.

[xzins]

Actually, Formosa, in the midst of all this stuff about class warfare, it would be easy to be misunderstood when one mentions class as an issue. However, I do believe in the middle class as the blockade that prevents a new feudalism. My army days had me in some 3rd world settings where it obviously was a matter of, not just the "haves and have nots", but of the "have an enormous amounts" and the "have a tin can and a cardboard shack." At the same time, the middle class isn't effective because it's simply there. It's effective because it's competitive. It's millions upon millions of very capable people, who work, save, build, and "do it their way".

They are the exact opposite of Obama's "you didn't build that", a line that absolutely proves that he doesn't have a clue what the middle class is all about.

Even middle class laborers understand that competitive spirit. They go to work every day determined to do more than hold up their end. They go determined to show they can hold up their end better than anyone else. They are team players, but they are fighters. They are the middle linebackers, the guards, the tackles of life. They slug it out in the trenches and prove that the competitive spirit is alive and well. And they're nasty enough to force freeloaders and elitists to see the "don't tread on me" tatooed on their shoulders. That's the middle class, and that's why I don't think Obama and his commie pals can overthrow them in just 4 more years. They are why I think Romney and his other corpo-cronies can push only so far until these junk yard dogs do bite the hand that very wrongly thinks it feeds them. With their bibles, and their guns, and their biting bitterness at jerks, they will rule. You may get them down, but watch out for the 2nd half 'cause they're coming right backatcha!

[svcw]

There is no such thing as half a vote.
There is either a vote or not a vote.
There is only one vote that is thrown away and that is the vote not cast.

[Rich21IE]

Destruction of the party is demographically assured anyway.

[OneWingedShark]

Ok. A few things. There is no independence for the delegates. Their states voted for them to vote a certain way.

That's not actually true; as it stands the delegates could cast their votes differently precisely because "what was sold" was NOT what's there. This could come out, say, during the convention. If, for example, the candidate was presented as a pro-life paragon of family morals and then made direct statements that Roe v. Wade was actually a Good Thing^TM then there would be reason for the delegates to try to back another person.

To do so, should get them fired. They are selected, not elected.

See the above.

I probably would be against the changing of rules between conventions without a vote. But I’d have to see more info on it.

I'd definitely be against it; in such a case what's to stop someone from publishing a set of rules and then, as soon as the delegates are out-of-earshot changing them? Or worse, being changed in secret?

[justice14]

Again. It’s a bad precedent. What happens when a conservative wins the primary and then the delegates “find something out” and choose a RINO? Happy then?

[IM2MAD]

What should the third party be named? I opt for “Grassroots Party” because it opens the door to disgusted people of all parties.

[riri]

All my anarchist friends are for Johnson.

As much as I sympathize with their cause, I don't understand their enabling of the nazi left.

[IM2MAD]

What should the third party be named? I opt for “Grassroots Party” because it opens the door to disgusted people of all parties.

[G Larry]

That’s about the most I could have expected from someone not committed to defeating Obama.

Watch 2016 and then tell me Obama is not on the fast track to destroy America.

[G Larry]

The vote cast in protest for someone who can not defeat the incumbant, is a vote that could have gone for a candidate with that potential.

The protest votes have the effect of a half vote for the incumbant, because they do NOTHING to remedy the situation.

[Aevery_Freeman]

Reagan never whined. He sometimes scolded, often corrected and even scoffed on occasion but always with humor and aplomb.

[SERE_DOC]

"I don't understand their enabling of the nazi left."

Enabling the spineless republican party seems to me to be a waste of time. They have proven over and over again that they are no different from the left/dem/dnc.... socialists all of them.

SFB President passes EO, after EO with no push back from the our representatives that are supposed to be representing "We the People"

I will not capitulate MY vote for some turd that these chicken sh!t republicans throw in front of me.

Come November who ever wins, we loose.

I am sure that the well meaning folks who think that the lesser of 2 evils is OK, I do not. Look at the recent history of what these alleged representatives have allowed to happen (although we are also guilty for not holding them accountable) but record deficits, DHS buying 1.2 billion rounds..., NOAA 46000, Social Security Admin. 176000. And nothing from the precious republicans but silence and acquiescence. Perhaps since they have not said a damn thing about any of the known and unknown they are willing participants in the abdication of their oaths to the constitution.

When I took my oath 30 some odd years ago it is not something that I did lightly, nor does it expire.

[svcw]

Nope, only the vote not cast is a wasted vote.
Voting for the candidate of your choice is the right vote, and therefore not wasted.

[G Larry]

Waste = Not Productive

A protest vote is an non-productive tantrum.

The “message” intended is never noticed.

[SERE_DOC]

Spare me your semantics, and your capitulation to a failed ideal.

You are no better than the Vichy French, or a collaborator.

Let me know how you love so much living on your knees and your savior romney delivers the same crap sandwich as obama.