What is the definition of much ado about nothing? Every four years, during the nominating conventions of both major parties, the rules are changed last minute to avoid turbulence once the nominee has become apparent. In plain speak, When it became obvious that Mitt Romney would be the GOP standard bearer this time around, the Republican Party did its usual job of eliminating floor fights so that a small group made up largely of non party members would not be able to sabotage the effort of using the convention as a spring board towards getting Mitt Romney elected President.
It wasn’t just the Paulbots this year, there were other groups as well. After a long process in which Republicans in every state cast ballots that overwhelmingly stated that they wanted Mitt Romney to represent their party in the fight to remove Barack Obama from the office of the Presidency, a small group of narcissists took it upon themselves to attempt to replace those results with something that they wanted instead. Make no mistake about it, this was never about including conservative values into the meaningless party platform, (meaningless in that Mitt Romney will be running on his message regardless of the party platform.) This was about removing Mitt Romney from the ballot completely and replacing him with a candidate that a very small minority wished to see run instead. Just like every other nominating convention in American History, once the will of the party establishment became clear, the rules were changed last minute to shut down the agitation of the fringe.
There has been, for as long as I have been active in politics anyhow, a separation between the Republican Party Establishment and a large portion of its voting base. At the same time though, it is called the party establishment for a reason. That reason is that more often than not, they are going to get their people nominated, and more often than not, opposition groups will not be successful at this. Before anyone accuses me of being a Romney shill, bear in mind that I voted for Newt Gingrich during the primaries, and indeed wrote an impassioned plea for others to do the same, as the previous link indicates. After the dust settled, Mitt was left standing, and other candidates had fallen short. That does not mean anything beyond this, Mitt Romney garnered more votes amongst the party faithful than others in the field, or not in the field. He won this opportunity to represent the Republican Party, and any attempt to replace him with candidates who failed in spectacular fashion to garner similar support is beyond selfish, it is down right narcissistic.
The claim that a convention where delegates are replaced despite the express will of those who voted is somehow more open than a convention which manages to follow the overwhelmingly expressed will of those who took the time and energy to actually make their wishes known is beyond asinine. After getting into spats over the past few weeks with Sarah Palin Stalkers who wanted to have the convention nominate her rather than Romney, despite the fact that she never bothered to campaign, debate, deliver her message, develop specific policies or theories, I pointed out that the effort to do this was at best moronic. I was pointed to a website that told of the sure to succeed grass roots effort that included bill boards in four whole cities and a form letter asking the elected delegates to voluntarily forfeit their positions in favor of Palin Delegates. Ignoring completely that Sarah Palin had not even once asked for this support, the draft Sarah movement sulked like spoiled children when their efforts failed to even register as a blip on the radar screen of possible outcomes.
Side Note to Sarah Palin: You may wish to seek several hundred personal protection orders as this group of dolts is showing real signs of unhealthy obsession.
I’ve mentioned Paul and Palin so far, because their supporters seem to be making up this year’s contingency of annoying side show distractions. Usually, I wouldn’t be worried about it, but the stakes are bigger now than they have been for a long while. Only the very survival of our nation as a free society with any semblance of limitations upon a federal behemoth lies in the balance. To the Paulbats, you were never Republicans in the first place. The vast majority of your contingency was always populated with left leaning social Democrats, albeit those with at least some semblance of economic literacy. To the Palin supporters, your gal did not run, debate, declare herself a candidate, and as such had no chance of winning. I did not consider Sarah, because she never asked me for my consideration, and that’s important to me. Throwing a tantrum and demanding that we place your candidates at the top of the ticket despite the fact that they did not win anything does not endear your cause to me, and I suspect to very many people at all. If you wish to take you toys and go home, I don’t want you in my party anyhow. We are better off with those who are willing to work for America first for the good of our country, and willing to set aside their selfish desires once those desires were defeated at the ballot box.
I was all in favor of the candidates, all of them, continuing to fight on, right up until the convention but that time is now past. Your candidate lost, and trying to inflict them upon a party that has clearly and overwhelmingly expressed a desire for another will only help Barack Obama. Get a grip, deal with it, or go and form a third party. In either case, leave me out of it, I mostly find your protestations of self righteous indignation to be simply crap.
