Just A Bunch Of Disorganized People

The buzz about the Ron Paul delegates from the Republican CD conventions is still coming. Today, the Star Tribune had this report:

Ron Paul remains the longest of long shots to win the Republican presidential nomination, but his Minnesota supporters aren't going quietly.

Over the weekend, they captured six of a dozen GOP national convention delegates elected at congressional district meetings. The rebellion has left local party officials crying foul, even as state leaders downplay the importance of the unexpected result.

"They'll be national delegates, but at the end of the day, that doesn't change anything because John McCain is going to be our nominee," said party spokesman Mark Drake.

But Marianne Stebbins, who has headed the Texas congressman's Minnesota campaign for several months, called the victories a tactical triumph designed to bring Paul's libertarian message to the broadest possible audience.

"If we get enough delegates," she said, "we'll be able to get [Paul] speaking time at the convention."

Delighted about what was something of a coup over the Republican establishment, she added, "We're just a bunch of disorganized people who happened to get lucky. At least that's the impression we want to leave."

Um, not really. The Paul supporters are anything but "just a bunch of disorganized people who happened to get lucky". The Paul campaign deserves high praise for systematically working the web, having dedicated and organized people at every possible opportunity for promotion and finding ways in to the process.

I would question why Marianne Stebbins wants to leave the impression of just getting lucky by having just stumbled into this? The Paul Campaign utilized many ingenious, innovative techniques with new media, viral marketing, true grassroots campaigning, web meet-ups, systematic focusing on BPOUs.

The nominating process is a serious one, one that credits people who have shown a long period of dedication and hard work within the party in the business of advancing conservative principles and getting Republicans elected. Stebbins seems in her comment, shall we say, intellectually dishonest.

One of my team leaders in our SD said this to me in an e-mail this morning: "I am waiting for the rest of the country to report in...I can't believe only MN is having this phenomenon." Of course the reason is our non-binding straw poll as opposed to most states that use either a combination of caucus and primary or just a primary. Hopefully this will be changed before next cycle, our primary is meaningless in September and should be done ahead of our caucus. I see no down-side to having a formal primary. Imagine Minnesota being as important as Iowa, but I digress.

Paul ran far behind most of the GOP field in most primaries and contests.

Paul also won only 15 percent of the vote in a nonbinding preference ballot at Minnesota's caucuses, but he was a prodigious fundraiser and grass-roots organizer.

And Minnesota isn't the only state where his supporters have refused to give up. According to news accounts, they've won county or congressional district delegates in Missouri, Texas and Washington.

We'll see. And if Congressman Paul does earn speaking time at the convention, so be it. And hopefully with an optimistic lesson on fiscal conservatism, that he is capable of — and if I might add, the same sort McCain is famous for upholding, being one of the best pork busters on the hill. No, for those of you taking notes, this does not mean I have stopped having issues with Senator McCain on his many positions over the last several years.

As I've said before, the majority of what Ron Paul is in favor of — massively cutting back spending, looking at the bloated government bureaucracy, reforming the tax system — most conservatives have and always will been behind. Had he changed his unbending stance on foreign policy and the military, we may have had a very different story now.

So the hubbub continues. Cheating, winning majorities, working the system, joining in and taking part to change the party for the better. Different reasons are given in the different Congressionsal Districts. In the 6th...

We knew they were coming and they were willing to lie, cheat and steal -- maybe not steal, but they were willing to say anything," Andy Aplinkowski, the district's vice chairman, said of the Paul supporters.

The delegate candidates were asked to answer whether they supported John McCain. The Paul supporters were elected under false pretenses, Aplinkowski said.

Not so, said Rob Baert, a part-time teacher from Sauk Rapids who was elected a delegate. "McCain's not even nominated yet," he said. "But if he is, I'll support him, and that's what I said."

And in the 5th...

"It wasn't dishonest," Crawford said. "My presumption would be that Minneapolis and its western suburbs would be one of the highest areas of Ron Paul supporters in the country and definitely in Minnesota, and that among the delegates attending the convention, the majority was Ron Paul supporters."

Juliette Jordal, a Minneapolis producer who was one of the three delegates elected for the Fifth District, said she ran to help steer the party back to its quintessential Republican roots: rugged individualism, fiscal conservatism and individual liberty.

Hard to argue with Juliette Jordal's principled statements, unless of course you are in the DFL. The GOP needs more people like her, not fewer. Come on in, the water is warm. But one thing we can be sure of, this was not "just a bunch of disorganized people who happened to get lucky."