While the Ron Paul campaign has basically called the campaign off the fine liberty-minded folks decided to take over the Republican State Convention anyways:
Mitt Romney might be the Republican Party’s presumed nominee for president, but maverick candidate Ron Paul scored the bigger win Saturday at Minnesota’s state Republican Convention.
The Texas congressman’s backers seized control of the state convention, claiming 12 of 13 open delegate slots to the GOP national convention in August. The 13th slot went to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who failed to win it on the first ballot. Her opponent, a Paul supporter, conceded out of respect.
That’s right, we took 12 of the 13 delegate seats for the national convention. I’ve heard several stories regarding the reason the 13th seat was granted to Bachmann. It appears that her opponent didn’t hand in a political resume, which is required in the rules to get a seat. Instead of fighting this with an attempt to change the rules it was decided that Bachmann would be granted the seat as it would demonstrated “good will” to the Republican Party. You can tell I wasn’t running the show because I would have operated a scorched Earth police and went through with a rule change to get the Paul supporter the 13th seat. Either way it’s pretty good to see Minnesota, one of the strangest states when it comes to politics, pulling off another trick. We didn’t stop at the 12 delegates though, we also took most of the alternate seats:
Previously, 27 delegates were chosen. In all, 32 of Minnesota’s 40 delegates are confirmed to support Paul over Romney.
Let me also give an acknowledgment to my friend Nate Atkins:
“Absolutely not,” said Nathan Atkins, a Republican convention delegate and Paul backer from Minneapolis. “I really don’t think he’s that different than Barack Obama. He doesn’t represent change.”
Atkins was wearing a tinfoil hat, a nod to more traditional GOP activists who have ridiculed Paul’s backers as paranoid conspiracy theorists. He said if Paul isn’t on the presidential ballot, he’d likely vote for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.
Most of us in the Minnesota liberty movement fail to take politics seriously. Many of the Paul supporters at the convention wore red fezzes and referred to themselves as the Ancient Persian order of Mystic Republicans. Atkins went so far as to cover his fez in tinfoil to mock those who claim Paul supporters are just a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists. They also had a Hunger Games theme going on:
I could never survive in the Republican Party because the higher ups take themselves too seriously. On the other hand the liberty movement is always quick to mock and ridicule to absurdity of The Party while having a ton of fun as well. I’m glad they did so well, especially considering the fact that the Paul campaign has basically abandoned us.
Let me close by saying it is an absolute honor to call so many members of the Minnesota liberty movement my friends. When reading through all the coverage of the state convention I could only smile when reading about the antics, statements, and other ongoings because so many of the “perpetrators” were personal friends of mine. I am in some of the greatest company living here in the Twin Cities and it makes all of the other crazy shit that happens here worth it.