Paulians disrupt Minnesota Convention

Rurik is a regular fountain today. He sends along an email report he got from a friend named Ferg who attended the Minnesota convention this weekend;

Well, in my opinion the convention was a disaster.  Much anger and bitter feeling on many peoples part, we ended even more divided and more bitterly divided than we were before.  The Paulites were treated unfairly to be sure, but they themselves were obnoxious and obstreperous using all the liberal tactics and displaying the typical liberal attitudes. They would bring up a resolution, it would be voted down by a large or even huge margin, and they would bring it right back up again with slightly different wording and it would be defeated again, and they would bring it up again.  This went on far too long, and cost much valuable time.

[…]

On the other hand, the Paulites seemed to think they could just walk in and make the rules, bring up resolutions out of order, seek special treatment and consideration, not respect the orders of the chair, and on and on and on.  It was the pits.  I have been going to these conventions since 1993 and this is the worst I have ever been to. I will not stay at another one like this, as it is I left early out of disgust for the Paulites and for the party apparatus.

In the final analyses it would have made no difference how the Paulites were treated.  […]

The Paulite message was not selling to ANYONE other than the Paulites themselves.  That is all there was to it.  And the more they obstructed convention business, the less anyone wanted to listen to them  My people were yelling at them to shut up, even my newest delegate who herself was on the National Delegate ballot.  […]

One of the first things I learned was that you don’t force your way in.  You spend several years working your way in, and then stay by working with the party not against it.  Just the way it is. People don’t like others coming in and telling them they have been doing it wrong for the last thirty years. Makes them get defensive. Now we are going into a bad election year with a hopelessly divided party, and many bitter losers. And not a real leader in sight.

Rurik’s response to Ferg’s email made an historical reference;

The behavior you describe, and which we have seen elsewhere, would be fully consonant with Leninism. No, not the Lenin of the Communist Party in 1918, but the Lenin of the Russian Social Democratic Party in the 1890s, before Lenin forced the split into Bolshevik & Menshevik factions.

Rurik continues by saying the Paulians behave more like “libertines” than Libertarians, and I agree completely. They’ve disregarded the process that has been set in place and pretend they can dictate to the rest of the Republicans who our candidate should be – the tyranny of the minority. The tiny minority. (I remind them that before McCain became the nominee, Paul never pulled in more than 3% of any State’s Republican primary) Paulians disrupt the proceedings just to feed their own huge egos and to make them seem more important than they really are. Spammed internet polls don’t count as the will of the People. The only people the paulians are fooling are themselves.

Rurik also wonders if Paul isn’t just a dupe of his own movement, but the Twin Cities.com reports that Paul, himself was there in Rochester to stoke the crowd;

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was barred from the Republican state convention at the Mayo Civic Center here, but he addressed a rally outside the hall to encourage his fiercely loyal supporters to carry on the campaign for his anti-tax, small-government, market-based, anti-foreign intervention principles.

Paul told his backers that while he won’t win this campaign, they have sparked a “freedom revolution that will last a long time to come.” He said they should be encouraged because their movement is spreading their principles of sound money, balanced federal budgets and “bringing our troops home.” Paul said he didn’t want to disrupt the Republican Party, but “we’d like to disturb them a little bit.” With polls showing that 90 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, he asked, “What’s wrong with the Republican Party that they haven’t figured out we’re on the wrong track, and we need to change course?”

I think the dupes are those hardworking Americans who’ve been fooled by Paul into pouring their hard-earned cash into his ever-increasingly failed campaign. I suspect that sooner or later some Federal agency will find malfeasance committed on the part of the Paul campaign, and, of course, Paul and his lieutenants  will scream they’re being victimized by the “Empire” again. If they were truly more concerned about the fate of the nation, they’d work within the system to change the culture instead of just bullying their way to the stage.

As I’ve said countless times on this blog, there’s very little I disagree with Paul on his message, but the Goobers and Gomers on his campaign are too much to bear.

Category: Politics, Ron Paul