Posted on 03/30/2008 12:31:03 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
CORPUS CHRISTI — Nueces County Republican Chairman Mike Bertuzzi survived a potential convention takeover.
At the group's county convention Saturday, a man began causing a scene while committees were making reports. Republican county conventions nominate delegates for the state convention based upon the ratio decided in the March 4 primaries.
"We were able to stop that and take care of business," Bertuzzi said. "I don't know what their purpose was. They claim they were Ron Paul supporters. I can't imagine Ron Paul would put people up to this."
Paul, a U.S. representative from Texas and presidential candidate, is far behind presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain. The scene at the Nueces County convention appeared to be part of a larger effort by Paul supporters to gain delegates to the Republican National Convention. The Kansas City Star reported his supporters took over a county convention there March 17 and elected 170 of 187 delegates.
Bertuzzi, who chaired the meeting, said he did not recognize the group to speak and some members were escorted out by the sergeant at arms. Then about 40 members of the faction convened in another room in what's known as a "rump convention."
Rump conventions are a separate meeting conducted by a group that feels it has been disenfranchised. Participants can form their own committees and elect their own delegates, then send a report to the state party, which then decides which convention to recognize from that county.
Bertuzzi said he knew about the potential takeover attempt and how to handle it. A successful takeover of a Nueces County convention in 1988 split the party for years, he said.
"There was no way when I'm chairman that I'm going to let that happen," he said.
About 200 people stayed in the original convention, and 184 were elected to state. Bertuzzi said he expects the other faction to challenge his delegate status at the state convention.
Drusilla Knight-Villarreal, who organized this convention, was county chairwoman during the 1988 takeover. She described the scene Saturday as chaotic.
"I've never seen anything like it," she said. "And I've been involved my entire life."
There was a large group of Ron Paul supporters who tried to disrupt the convention by challenging the credentials of the chair of the Nueces County Republican Party and calling for a points of order during the reading of a report by the credentials committee. The chair ran the convention strictly by Roberts Rules of Order and had the Sergeant at Arms, the Nueces County Sherrif Jim Kaelin evict one of them for being out of order. Immediately about 50 of them left to form their own rump convention. There was nothing spontaneous about it. The whole confrontation was designed so they could walk out en mass. They named their own list of delegates and alternates to the state convention and had a list of resoltions they want to forward to the state convetion. I'm sure they will try to challenge the credentials of the delegates from the official Nueces County Republican Party to the state convention, but they will fail.
Is Ron Paul still running for President?
I am suppose to attend my County Convention next month,I see no reason to go,our candidate has been selected,such as he is.
They’re fighting over a dead body.
Equating the Paulistas with the word “rump” is appropriate.
The ‘Paulians’ disrupted our district caucus here in Wisconsin by attempting to confuse, amend, and oppose almost every resolution. Their disruptive actions appeared to be both coordinated and premeditated and accomplished nothing except to waste everyone’s time and build lasting resentments toward them and their causes.
No, but his organization is trying to take over Repulican party organizations at the grass roots level. A lot of these people have never been involved with the Nueces County Republican Party, but insisted on their people leading the county delegation to the state convention and getting lots of the appointments to the delegate list. Quite a few of the leaders of the Nueces County Repubican Party remember 20 years ago when a bunch of Pat Robertson supporters successfully took control of the county convention and it damaged the party for 20 years.
Regardless of who gets seated at the national GOP convention, party rules that have the force of state law dictate that the delegates vote according to how the congressional districts voted. Every single congressional district gave John McCain an absolute majority. This means McCain won all the delegates under the rules making delegate allocation "winner-take-all for a candidate getting an absolute majority of the CD primary vote. All of the statewide at large delegates also must vote for McCain, because he won an absolute majority in the statewide primary vote.
Interesting, Thank you!
Towards the end of the convention several delegates had questions about what went on. The chair informed us that in 1988, the Pat Robinson supporters took over the convention, and the party organization held the rump convention. It has hurt the party since that time, and they didn't want a repeat of 1988.
Has Paul ever officially pulled out of the Presidential Primary race? I can’t remember reading where he did other than he redirected his focus to the CD race. All said I am not surprised by Paul’s supporters.
Have you heard anything as to how the Democratic cty/sen. conventions went?... I’ve seen bits and pieces in the papers but nothing giving a summary statewide....
EVERYONE I know here in South Texas is FOR Ron Paul. My kids live in Austin and every sign was for Ron Paul. I do not know ANYONE who is FOR Hillary or Obambam or McPain. Ron Paul was the ONLY candidate who wanted to get back to the Constitution. That is why everyone fears him.
NOT EVERYONE you know.
PaleoPaulie got 4.5% of the primary vote. You need a wider circle of friends.
You must not know very many people in South Texas then. I can tell that and I've never even been there.
And I suppose the fact that Dr. Paul crushed his RINO primary opponent escaped your attention, too.
L
For his seat in Congress not for President. McCain still beat Ron Paul with an absolute majority in Ron Paul's congressional district.
He got 2 whole votes in our precinct.
Tell Ron Paul that campaign signs in Texas must be removed within 10 days after the election.
Here’s a blip out of the Chronicle regarding the democrats and their spat..... I hope they continue to fight and cause confrontations like the Paulistas....
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5659260.html
Here is the apportionment so far of presidential caucus delegates to the Texas Democratic state convention based on reports from Saturday’s county and senate district conventions. A total of about 7,300 delegates were expected to be selected in this stage of the caucus process, according to the Texas Democratic Party. Results are from 123 of about 280 conventions.
• Clinton: 933, or 50 percent*
• Obama: 937, or 50 percent*
*Results are not official
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