Playing by the Rules - The RNC Rules Floor Fight

No sane person would ever take Ron Paul to be a Conservative (Legalize pot?  I don’t think so.)  Barring any other Republican candidates, Mitt Romney seems to be the guy.  Yet yesterday’s rules fight - over how delegates may actually vote – also gave sane people pause to wonder whether the Republican National Committee has gone insane.

According to delegate Dean Clancy, whose after-action report from Tampa was posted on Michelle Malkin’s website: 

“At a minimum, the effect of the new rules will be to empower insiders over the broad party electorate [allowing them] to discourage grassroots activists [like the Tea Parties] from taking part in the process.  They will thus have a chilling effect on intra-party debate, including debate over the National Platform and, of course, on future rules changes.  The ‘Inner Circle’ has scared quite a coup.”

Some argue that it was a big fuss over nothing.  Ostensibly, the fight was over keeping Ron Paul from gaining just enough delegate votes to prevent Romney from taking the nomination, thus invoking a brokered convention.  Others say the GOP had a greater agenda of marginalizing the Tea Party.

Ultimately, the GOP announced an amazingly Conservative platform, even opposing abortion.  However, he who presented the platform did so in such a condescending, patronizing manner that it would seem he’d forgotten the 2008 election.  The GOP gave us an inherently unelectable candidate in John McCain, leaving then-candidate Mitt Romney out in the wings, when most Conservatives certainly preferred the young, healthy and sensible Romney to the doddering McCain.  McCain’s nomination cost Republicans the election, with Conservatives and young people (like my nephew) sitting out the election.

They have no right to even expect us to trust them, much less sit down and shut up and let them run the show.  Their incompetence is what gave birth to the Tea Party movement.  We don’t want politics as usual.  We won’t tolerate it, we won’t accept, we won’t sit down and shut up.

The complaints about overreacting come from armchair voters who probably never bother to vote in primaries and never pay attention to what’s really happening.  Their “whatever” attitude is just as dangerous to our federal republic as the RNC’s rule-changing game.  Had they paid attention in 2007, even gotten involved, Mitt Romney might have been the nominee, and Barack Obama would still be weeping on his father’s Kenyan grave.

Since Mitt Romney himself was a victim of this sort of political sleight-of-hand, he can’t be blamed for the outrage in this year’s convention.  Either he wasn’t part of it, or he figured that’s just the way the game is played.  Since the party adopted a Conservative platform and Romney seems capable of the job, most Republicans are willing to overlook this business of rule-changing.

However, the Tea Parties were formed for this very reason:  to let politicians know that we’re not going to let them get away with politics as usual.  We expect more and better from our politicians, and this party with whom we must make alliance (at least for the time being).  The Tea Party activists are their ground soldiers.  They’re the ones going door-to-door soliciting votes, manning the phones, passing out flyers, and donating their hard-earned money for Republicans.

Whether they allow grassroots activists a seat at “the grown-ups” table or not, we’ll still be here, holding their feet to the fire in whatever means are available to us.  They should remember that they need us more than we need them.  Obama is the worst president we’ve ever had and he needs to be defeated.   But not at all costs to honor, integrity, and freedom of speech.  The RNC can just remember that they’re the ones who put us in this position.  Betray us, marginalize us, silence us, and millions of Conservative voters will vote with their “slippers.”

We already have one dictator-in-chief in the White House; we don’t need to elect another one.