State Senatorial Convention

State Senatorial Convention

DW and I spent most of Saturday at the SD6 convention - Republican style. This is a weird year. The major comment is that the Ron Paul delegates worked hard to disrupt things. Our little old district, run by a saintly Christian man, usually gets us out by noon. But this year we had a credentials fight to start with. The nominations for the state convention became a donnybrook. Then the resolutions segment was dragging on. About 3:30 I got tired and DW and I left. It looked like that it was going to be another hour anyway. I think they were done but for the technical problem of have to do a re-vote. Each precinct was supposed to vote it's strength but we had been using "one man one vote" as a matter of convenience. (Is that clear as mud?) There were several men and one woman too, dressed well, who seemed to be trying to be very literal about the rules. No one asked, and it didn't really matter, but everyone in the room knew these people were Paul obstructionists. They were well schooled in the rules and how to manipulate them.

The Republican party has always run a grassroots convention. We have since Reagan anyway. But to make this manageable we have to respect one another. If people are going to act as the Paul delegates did, they might ruin it for all. But hopefully this is going to be isolated. It is not worth changing rules over.

I hope that these delegates were not trying to drive people out so they could try to pass their agenda. This has certainly been done before but I hope the convention chairman would recess the convention first. That is why you should stay until the very end, to protect against that. But I was supposed to take youngest daughter to a Rice baseball game. I was already two hours late. We got there for the last three innings then went over to see the football scrimmage. DD got to see some old buddies from Bellaire. We left after the first half so she could get up to Huntsville to visit with middle daughter.

All four of our precinct delegates showed up. That's a first and it has got to be rare. The man who volunteered to be an alternate did not come. I guess that was good. He would not have been seated as we thought he would. (I called him last night and his duplex mate said he spent the night at the UH Law Library. So I knew there a good chance he would sleep in.) We would expect at least one of the four to not show. But we would have been wrong. Slightly less than 50% of those who signed to go actually came. So we did really well to get 100%. I am proud of them. One of the women is new to our precinct. She dropped right in, helping to secretary the nominations caucus. She is quite confident while doing that. DW helped with credentials. I helped with resolutions. It was a busy day. I was asleep by 9 PM.