MUTH’S TRUTHS

First, I wasn’t there.

As an independent, like Nevada, I opted to take my kids to the UNR softball game yesterday afternoon - where the Wolfpack won a no-hitter against Louisiana Tech - rather than attend the Nevada Republican Party convention up the road. So any observations I have are based on published reports and emails from folks who were there. And I have not been able to reach convention Chairman and state Sen. Bob Beers or Nevada GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden. But as best as I can figure out, it all went down like this:

The Ron Paul people showed up for the neighborhood precinct meetings on January 19th. For that reason, Ron Paul came in second to Mitt Romney, and bested eventual GOP presidential nominee John McCain. Many of those folks were elected to attend their county conventions, who were then elected to attend this weekend’s state convention, all in the hope of being elected to attend the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis later this summer.

That’s how the process works. The Ron Paul people followed the rules and did exactly what you’re supposed to do. Bully for them.

What most folks don’t fully understand is that a party convention has the power to do pretty much anything it wants regardless of what party leaders want, or even its Central Committee. If enough people with an agenda go through the months-long process, get and stay organized, and show up at the state convention, they can, literally, take over the party. The Ron Paul folks effectively did that yesterday.

“(The Ron Paul) contingent came to the state convention prepared for battle,” writes Reno Gazette-Journal reporter Anjeanette Damon this morning. “They had a row of printers to print ballots for their supporters to the national convention. They set up a communications network using text messages to cell phones to make sure everyone voted correctly on motions that would benefit their effort. And they scoured the rules for opportunities to level the playing field.”

Folks, that’s an impressive use of grassroots guerilla organizing tactics making the most of modern technology. Whether you’re a Ron Paul fan or not, you can’t help but give those folks a hat tip from a purely tactical standpoint.

“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought,” advises the great Chinese military genius Sun Tzu. “The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand.”

It appears the Ron Paul army made a lot of calculations and the GOP establishment few. As one convention delegate wrote to me, “The Republican leaders screwed up.  They should have been better prepared.  They have no radar for the base and for those who were coming.”

What was at stake yesterday was 31 Nevada delegate seats to attend the Republican National Convention. Nine of those seats were chosen by congressional district - and those elections seem to have gone OK. The results haven’t been announced yet, but the ballots have been hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar which has been stored on Funk and Wagnalls’ porch until further notice.

The subsequent election of the remaining 22 “at large” delegates is where the wheels came off the apple cart.

At this point I think we need to give a little credit where a lot of credit is due - and not just because she’s a close, personal friend of mine. Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden is, to the best of my knowledge, the ONLY state party chairman in the country who had the “stones” to invite Ron Paul to speak at their state convention. Lowden has done her darnedest to welcome the Ron Paul activists in the GOP. So any suggestion on the part of any Ron Paul people that Sue Lowden was hostile to them is just, plain bull-$%&#. Pardon my French. (Or was that Ebonics?)

OK, back to the remaining 22 delegate slots. It is my understanding that the party established a Nominations Committee to cull the list of potential delegates and then, in the interest of time and order, present that list as a slate for an up-or-down vote by the convention. It is also my understanding that leaders of the Ron Paul brigades were consulted in drafting that list and were assured a certain number of delegate seats. I wasn’t involved in this process and maybe that’s not how it went down, but that is my understanding. I don’t know if a “deal” had been struck with the Ron Paul folks in this regard or not. Perhaps those directly involved will contact me and give me a first-hand account.

Regardless, remember that a convention can do pretty much whatever the heck it wants if an organized faction has the votes to do so. As the saying goes, the world belongs to those who show up. And the Ron Paul supporters showed up.

So whether or not there was a deal with the Nominations Committee to put a certain number of Ron Paul supporters on the Nevada slate of delegates, the convention voted early in the morning to throw that whole idea out the window. Instead, nominations would be proposed from the floor of the convention, assuring what has been universally described as “pandemonium” later in the afternoon.

Consider this: 1,500 people in a room, all of whom now have the right to nominate anyone they choose, and then creating and printing up ballots with everyone’s name on it and then casting those ballots. The ensuing chaos was inevitable. As was the reality that the convention would not wrap up its business on time. And that’s apparently when things got ugly.

The party had rented the convention ballroom until 5 pm. By 6 pm the election of delegates still hadn’t taken place. Delegates were tired. People had planes home to catch. And surely some party leaders and McCain supporters were concerned with the possibility of sending a state delegation to Minneapolis dominated by Paul supporters. Tempers rose and patience waned. By the time Sen. Beers announced that the convention had to be suspended and would be reconvened at a later date, the lid was ready to blow off the cauldron.

Here’s how one experienced eye-witness described the day’s action:

“I think the McCain/establishment and Ron Paul people were both guilty. It was like all these people were playing chicken with each other and they crashed. The McCain guys were trying to ram their delegates through for obvious reasons, and the Paul people were trying to get theirs in. The Paul people passed an impossible-to-do voting method. It was insane and it killed everything.”

Now this is where all the credit you had to give to the Ron Paul supporters for getting themselves organized and turning out evaporates. By all accounts they got ugly and assumed the demeanor of a mob - including physical threats against Sen. Beers who, Hillary-like, had to be escorted out of the hotel while under sniper fire (at least that’s what he’ll tell his grandchildren 30 years from now).

The inexperienced Ron Paul folks simply out-thought themselves. They were too smart by half. By flexing their muscles with the early morning rules change they set themselves up for what anyone who has ever attended a state convention knows is going to happen: The clock will run out before all of the convention’s business is completed. It happens at EVERY convention. Usually this results in a consensus platform being adopted; this time it resulted in the final delegate selection process being postponed.

The Ron Paul folks thought, incorrectly it turns out, that if they just stretched things out long enough the McCain/establishment folks would go home and they’d be free to elect their folks to fill every one of the 21 remaining delegate seats. Sound idea…in theory.

But what they failed to take into consideration is that if TOO MANY people left, there wouldn’t be enough folks remaining to constitute a quorum. So even if they HAD been able to strike a deal with the hotel to continue with the convention into the night, there weren’t enough people left to transact any official business. Tactically, the McCain/establishment folks out-maneuvered the Paul folks by, essentially, picking up their ball and going home.

Or put another way, and taking another page from Sun Tzu’s playbook, “If (your opponent) is in superior strength, evade him.” And that’s exactly what the under-manned McCain/party establishment folks did. They lived to fight another day.

What happens from here is a bit murky. It’s been suggested that the GOP reconvene to wrap up its business at the Cox Pavilion at UNLV in a couple of days. But whether or not you can start the convention in Reno and then finish it a week later in Las Vegas is problematic. I don’t know how you can do that.

Regardless of where the convention is held, both sides have much to lose and little to gain from another free-wheeling, out-of-control meet-up like the spectacle yesterday. Cooler heads should now convene and prevail.

It’s both expensive and time consuming to arrange and attend a state convention where a large number of delegates have to travel great distances. This is particularly true for the Ron Paul folks, a vast majority of whom would have to again travel from Las Vegas and rural areas to Reno. The odds are many who were there yesterday won’t be back again for the follow-up continuation. So the power and strength they exhibited yesterday probably won’t be there the next time.

And the party establishment, caught unprepared yesterday, won’t make the same mistakes twice. They got caught with their pants down once. It won’t happen again.

But even with a fall-off of a significant number of delegates to the follow-up convention, there’s still the very real possibility that the Ron Paul folks could retain control of the agenda. For that reason, it’s in the party leaders’ interest to put this matter to bed quickly and quietly, as well. This is EXACTLY the time for an old-fashioned smoke-filled backroom deal.

If both sides continue to take an all-or-nothing attitude, one side is going to get it all and the other side nothing…which ultimately means both sides will lose in the long run. Instead, the party needs to give some additional seats to the Ron Paul folks and the Ron Paul folks need to abandon their effort to gain complete control over the entire delegation.

The follow-up convention shouldn’t be scheduled until a hard and fast deal is struck which the leaders on both sides can live with. Then you call for the convention simply to ratify what has already been agreed to in what will be a 10-minute meeting - and then off to the bar for Bloody Mary’s and margaritas. Everyone will be happy because no one will be completely happy and we can all get back to watching Hillary and B.O. slice-and-dice each other.

All in favor?

Posted on April 27th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada