if bling-bling actually supported restoring our civil liberties which have eroded under bush-obama, reducing spending (especially military) which has spiraled out of control under bush-obama, an audit of the fed (and action against its heads if wrong-doing is found) and a rejection of the executive power grab we have seen under bush-obama than he would have my vote...even though i think he is a total toolbag and a douche...i voted for kerry in 2004 so it wouldnt be that much different. i doubt it would happen though as it would mean a repudiation of what he has been campaigning on the whole time. and conversely, if ron paul joined up w/ romney w/out bling-bling altering his policies i would not support at all.
Republicans cracking on Ayatollah Santorum. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hMIqfTdmZww" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/k7h76BG42_Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> My Saint Charles County GOP Caucus Report 3/17/2012 by Joseph Wetter on Saturday, March 17, 2012 at 3:55pm · I shall first start off this report by saying that Bryan Spencer, the Saint Charles County Repulican Party Central Committe man who was tasked to organize the caucus told my fellow Ron Paul Coordinator here in Saint Charles at the last Saint Charles County Central Committe meeting, that 'if the Ron Paul people come in and hijack the caucus, I will do everything in my power to throw out the entire delegation on a technicallity.' This is exactly what happened, but first, let me clarify what Spencer means by 'hijack'. Typically, there are no rules going into the caucus, aside from Robert's Rules of Order. At the caucus, according to Robert's Rules of Order, the temporary chairman opens the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer. Next, the temporary chairman opens the floor for nominations for a permanent chair in which the entire body of voters votes for. The newly elected chairman opens the floor to nominate a secretary. Then the chairman appoints a parliamentarian, the rules committe, and the credentials committee. The rules are proposed by the chairman and voted on by the body, and the body then selects delegates to go to the Congressional District Convention and the State Convention either by slate or individually, whatever the body decides. So, the key to winning delegates in a big county like Saint Charles is to organize your suppporters into 'slates', which are lists of names of the supporters who wish to be delegates. Ideally, you want to have your slates full, this way, all delegates that go to the conventions will be your candidate's delegates. This is the process of a democratic republic, and is not a new concept. We could have potentially have walked away with all of the 147 of the delegates. So this is what Spencer means by 'hijack'. There is no rule against having your stuff together and taking all of the delegates. It is the name of the game. We knew the GOP rules going in, and intended to follow them. We know that Spencer was encouraging the Santorum Coordinator to take all of the delegates if she had the numbers, so, it seems that he is okay with his guy getting the delegates, but not ours. When we checked into the caucus, we were asked to vote in a straw poll for the candidate of our choice. Bryan Spencer's claimed intent on this was to proportion the delegates by the votes from the straw poll, but I believe different. I believe that the GOP had a plan in case the Ron Paul supporters showed up with good numbers, and throwing out the delegation was it. Before I go on, I want to clarify a rumor: I was one of the three Ron Paul Coordinators who cut a deal with the Romney camp. I will not deny it. I am very proud to say that due to having a great, dedicated team, the Ron Paul campaign in Saint Charles County was the only organized camp who walked into that caucus with a full slate of delegates typed and ready to be voted on. The Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich camps came to that meeting looking to cut a deal because they had incomplete slates. The Santorum camp approached the Romney camp, but the Romney camp refused to deal with them. The Romney camp then approached us looking to deal. Our number one task is to acquire delegates and we figured that we had enough people to get our chairman elected by plurality, but not a majority to get our rules passed. So we needed to make a deal with them. Because of our hard work getting a complete slate of 147 delegates and 147 alternates together, we were in the position to negotiate. Our deal was that if the Romney supporters voted for our chairman, we would vote for their secretary, and they would vote on our rules. If they voted this way, we would take all of their confirmed delegates up to half of the 147, and put them on our slate after removing the bottom delegates from our slate equal to their number. They liked the idea. They liked our rules. The only objections to our proposed rules were the ban on cameras and the erroneous delegate allocation that would be determined by the straw poll at the door that was suggested by the Central Committee. We assured them that as soon as we won the chair, the first order of business would be to put the camera ban up to a vote. Again, our goal is to get delegates, and if we have to make an alliance to get them, so be it. All is great, but half is better than none. There was nothing against the GOP rules or Robert's Rules of Order with what we were planning to do, or the agreement made between the two camps. Moving on, when it comes to a caucus, the body chooses the rules, not the GOP central committee. Before the temporary chairman (Eugene Dokes) opened the meeting, a set of rules was not proposed to be voted on, but was unilaterally made binding by him. One of the rules included was the ban on recording devices. I believe this 'rule' was put in for the reasons of raising a ruckus and to make sure that their shenanigans described below would not be recorded. When that rule was read, it was very clear that everyone, not just Paul supporters, in that room opposed the rule. Boos ensued while Bryce Steinhoff, myself, Brent Stafford, and countless others tried making motions to overturn that rule, and to put it up for a vote. Eugene ignored all of the motions, the shouts of 'point of order', etc. After around 15 minutes of deadlock and an eventual submission of the camera owner to turn it off, Eugene Dokes opened the meeting by appointing a parlimentarian, appointing the credentials committee, and the rules committee, which are all appointments made by the PERMANENT chair whose has been elected by the body, not the temporary chair. He completly went around Robert's Rules of Order. This is why the GOP did not want the process recorded. Again, they completly ignored parlimentary rule to usher in their chairman. Next, Dokes opened the floor for nominations for the permanent chair, in complete opposite order than what Robert's Rule of Order states. At this time, the whole gynasium errupted in the call and chant for Brent Stafford to be nominated, which Dokes ignored. Dokes then made his own nomination for chair and then called for a voice vote. The entire gymnasium erupted again with the call for 'division', which is the term that calls for a standing or ballot vote, which was utimately ignored by Dokes. Dokes's voice vote result was that the "I's'' have it, which was clearly not the case. Dokes then motioned to close nominations, called for a voice vote, and nominations were closed without any recognition of motions from the floor. After some time of disorder in the meeting, the new 'permanent chair' Matt Ehlen made a motion to adjourn the meeting, it was seconded, he swung his gavel, and it was over. No delegates were awarded. Next, we tried to amass the people outside in the parking lot to have our own stump caucus to pick the delegates for the conventions. But the Saint Peters Police came over and arrested Brent Stafford for ''tresspassing", as well as Kenny Suitter, the man with the camera. I go back to what Bryan Spencer said to Bryce at the Central Committee meeting: 'If the Ron Paul people try to 'hijack' the caucus, I will do everthing in my power to throw out the entire delegation.' My questions are: did Ron Paul have a strong showing, if not a majority in the room according to the straw poll at the door? Did the vote counters see this and fear that the Ron Paul campaign would be able to elect their chair and walk away with all of the delegates? Did the sight of the Ron Paul Coordinators and the Romney Coordinators brokering a deal on the floor worry them that Santorum would not get any delegates? I know for sure a few people on the Saint Charles GOP Central Committee are Santorum supporters. The news media is focusing on the guy with the camera who was arrested, but I can assure you that there was more behind this caucus than is being reported. This is plain corruption. Joe WetterSaint Charles County CoordinatorRon Paul 2012
Let's lighten the mood, courtesy slim shady! <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bxch-yi14BE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I think they were confused about the question. 39% of people voting for Romney had reservations at a white-table-cloth restaurant later that evening.
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Romney's camp says he will hit "reset" on all of his conservative positions once the primaries are over: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/mitt-romney-as-etch-a-sketch.html
Yahoo is projecting Santorum as the winner of the Louisiana primary. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ Gingrich has got to be wondering, if it's time to quit.
im tired and exhausted from being amazed at this country and who they would actually think would make a good president. if the country had a majority of bassos everything would be perfect
I listen to a lot of political talk on the radio and living in the Birmingham, AL area as you can imagine its all ultra-conservative. I don't know if this is true everywhere, but here the shows have all pivoted from not quite bashing Romney to falling in line behind him. It's pretty interesting to hear from an "outsiders" perspective and tells me this race is over. Anyone else noticing this?
Entirely predictable. By July, Romney will be the best candidate ever and the only one that can save America.
