Ron Paul wins most delegates in WA caucuseshttp://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11789243-ron-paul-wins-delegates-in-wa-political-games-or-survivor-part-1Tacoma : WA : USA | Mar 25, 2012 at 9:15 PM PDT By Stephanie Ealy
Saturday, at the Pierce County Republican Convention, Ron Paul won a couple of legislative districts, but you will not believe how it happened. First of all, I received an education no college politics class would probably ever address, and I bet the mainstream media has no idea, because they do not have people on the inside for 17 hours, like me, as a citizen's journalist in a delegate position for my precinct in Tacoma, Washington.
Have you ever seen the TV series called Survivor? Well, ladies and gentlemen, that show is not at all far from the reality of what happens in the choosing of delegates, and I now believe, has been happening around the country this year in the GOP Republican Party's delegate selection process. I don't know how many times yesterday, my mouth dropped open, while I asked other delegates, "What is going on, is this legal?!"
Paid campaign representatives, an attorney for one of the candidates and massive grassroots volunteers made up the cast of characters for this unbelievable drama. This whole campaign season, I have been trying to wrap my head around the fact that Ron Paul has thousands and thousands of people who participate in his rallies, he tops Google Trends in social networking over all the other candidates, yet he is not winning? I have been exasperated trying to figure out the math. Was it election fraud? Was the mainstream media just flat out deceiving the world? Or is something else going on behind the scenes? Well, I'm here to tell you, it is all that and more!
The proceedings immediately started with a prayer, a Santorum supporter soloist singing the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance finalized the formalities. With all the corruption and deceit in the party this year, it hadn't even occurred to me that they would even mention God, Jesus or the Bible -- but this would soon prove to be the normal rhetoric on the scene throughout the day. In fact, when someone fainted later that night, a young Santorum supporter said, "Lets stop and pray."
One of the gentlemen, at the mic, shared some impressive statistics about our March 3rd caucus participation. He told us that a historical 6000 people around the county participated, 1100 delegates and 500 alternates won positions that day.
The first major drama erupted when a Ron Paul grassroots leader from the Liberty Ninja's of Puyallup, Nick Sherwood, proposed an amendment to the rules which would cause more integrity in the process. Immediately, a Mitt Romney leader jumped up to dispute it by encouraging all his supporters to vote it down. Then a high-spirited Rick Santorum leader, who made sure everyone knew all her credentials, firmly "told" her group and all the Gingrich supporters to shoot down the idea. The amendment was easily lost, leaving the reality that accountability and transparency would not be a factor in the Pierce County election process.
Due to the animosity toward Ron Paul, we tried to stay on the "down-low" which ended up being for naught, because unbeknownst to us, all the others worked from one unity slate to ensure Ron Paul's defeat in collecting more delegates. Later, before our speeches resumed, one of those in charge even went so far as to encourage the crowd not to vote for anyone who didn't identify who they were supporting. I asked myself, "Can they do that?"
The Gingrich, Santorum, Romney unity slate worked as planned until someone realized after the tie in Legislative District 27 with Romney and Santorum each taking 10, shutting Paul out with 0, that perhaps Santorum and Gingrich better come up with another plan, because if by chance Romney kept winning more delegates and met the number needed to win the nomination, it would mess up the chance for a brokered convention, which would end the race for Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.
After all the speeches were completed, votes counted and only three delegates received enough of the votes necessary to get the positions, some paid campaign representatives from both sides showed up to attempt to persuade Santorum and Paul to form an alliance to shut out Romney so we could ensure a brokered convention.
A couple of people approached me from Paul's and Santorum's camps to tell me I had a great speech and got a lot of votes, and surely I was going to be one of the first to win a delegate spot to go to state, I remembered, "Hmmm, I didn't even specifically say who I was supporting." I was so excited, and quickly puzzled when I saw the unity slate, without my name on it. I thought, "This doesn't even make sense..."
After many huddles, we were given a final list and told to vote only for the people on the new unity slate with Santorum. All the while, I thought, "Wait a minute, I'm not going to be a delegate, after my passionate speech that caused even Santorum delegates to vote for me, and I was one of the people with the most votes?" I absolutely had no idea what caused such an oversight, I thought, "Why did they not go by the votes?"
Instead, later I would find out, they went down the list from their original slate, and chose the people they were well acquainted with, since they didn't know me very well, I wasn't selected. What's the deal? I'm not part of the "Establishment?" I just got a little taste of Ron Paul's everyday dilemma. He gives dynamic speeches, has the most popularity around the country, but doesn't win? "Hmmm, I guess this is why people get so frustrated with politics..." I thought.
When I brought the oversight to the leader, he apologized. I told him it was okay, but not without giving him an earful of my financial contributions to the campaign, all the biased articles I intentionally write about Ron Paul in an attempt to balance out the mainstream media's black-out and the negative comments under each article I have to try to overcome while not taking the slams personally -- and just because he doesn't know me, doesn't mean I don't do a lot for the campaign!
After my friendly little reprimand, we laughed it off, and he assured me I would be able to get involved and be on the inside even as an alternate. So here I am, empathizing with Ron Paul again while being overlooked, ignored and "appearing" to have lost the nomination. But, like my fearless leader, I shall smile and go forward keeping one of his quotes in my mind, "If you're not having fun promoting liberty, you're not doing it right."
Ron Paul went on to win the most delegates in my district, taking 15 to Santorum's 14, Romney won 2 and Gingrich 0.
In Legislative District 25, Ron Paul took 18, Santorum 17 and Romney and Gingrich 0.
