Convention Circus

I was at the Republican Convention as a Delegate. I have been at all of the conventions this year and at each one the Ron Paul supporters tried to take over the convention. They started with trying to take over the prescient meetings. At the prescient meetings they had so many people there they had the power to have a closed prescient. I was told that they had the power to do that but with a closed prescient meeting they could prevent people who were going to vote for Santorum or Romney from being Delegates. It was perfectly legal but didn't seem very inclusive to me. They claim the regular Republicans are not inclusive.

At the District and County Conventions they would come at the last minute and claim to be Delegates. They would come into the Convention and cause many delays and want to be recognized as Delegates even though they weren't on the list of Delegates. The Convention voted to include those who walked in at the last minutes as Delegates and gave them the opportunity to vote. After that they introduced an amendment to exclude some of the real Delegates who were registered.

At the State Convention in Norman the Ron Paul supporters signaled each other on how to vote by holding up both of their hands with their thumbs pointing up. They did this over and over. It wasn't one of them using this to signal, most of them were doing this. Then a Ron Paul supporter tried to prevent the Romney supporters from holding up signs.

I felt a little irritated and decided that if it's good for the Ron Paul supporters to use thumb signals I held up my hands using the opposite signal they used. Then one of the Republican Delegates started doing the same thing I was doing but she was walking around the Oklahoma County Delegate section. Then one of the Ron Paul supporters, Porter Davis, started walking right behind her, very, very close, holding up his hands with his thumbs up. He followed her to where her seat was and he sat down right beside her or in her seat. She told him to leave and he did.

The fiasco of someone hitting someone else I saw but from a distance. The part of this I saw was a man standing up and yelling at someone. Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy was sitting directly behind them and I thought this man was yelling at Dana Murphy. Finally a security guard came and escorted an elderly man, maybe in his 70's or 80's, out of the Convention. A Ron Paul supporter sitting beside me said the old man hit the security guard. I don't know if that really happened.

When the explanations about what we were voting for was going on there was so much noise from the Ron Paul supporters that I couldn't hear was was being said. They did this to cause confusion. They would constantly interrupt the proceedings with "point of order" or "amendments". One man wanted an amendment voted on and he actually threatened the convention saying we would not be leaving the convention anytime soon if his amendment was not voted on. Others threatened that the meeting would be held up for hours. They managed to cause everyone who had purchased lunch tickets to miss their meal. The lunch break was to be at 1:00 p.m. but with all the craziness it was 2:30 when we were allowed to leave for lunch. We were given until 2:59 to find food. Many people were not familiar with Norman and had no idea where to find anything to eat. The hotel had to throw away all the lunch they had prepared because of health issues. The food had sat out for 1 1/2 hours and it had to be thrown out.

The hotel hall was only rented until 5:00 p.m. At 4:55 p.m. the hotel employees started to divide the hall with large room dividers. The Ron Paul supporters claimed it was the Republicans that had done this on purpose. There was a graduation event taking place around 6:00 pm so they had to begin to clean the room.

When Governor Fallin was speaking someone turned out the lights. The lights were turned out different times when there was a high official speaking. They turned them out during the voting too. The Ron Paul supporters booed Mary Fallin when she mentioned that we should get behind Mitt Romney. The booing continued for a long time.

After the Convention is over the Delegate are to turn in their badges at the door. The Ron Paul supporters took their badges out with them. They said the meeting was not over and would meet in the parking lot. This presents many problems. The one that I understand is that it is possible then for them to copy the badges and claim to have more Delegates at the next Convention.

There are many problems with the proceedings but a lot of them are caused by the Ron Paul supporters. They don't support any of the Republicans who are running for office. If their candidate, a Ron Paul supporter, doesn't win they won't help the one who won. They said they plan to go to the National Convention and cause the nominee to lose. They only want one person to win and that is Ron Paul. They want to take over all Delegate and vote for Ron Paul only. When the state voted in the primary and Santorum won they said they would not vote for him if they were Delegate to the National Convention. I don't think they would vote the way the state wants them to vote as a Delegate.

They may have some legitimate complaints but they act like childish rednecks. If something doesn't go the way they want they have a fit. And I mean a FIT. The Conventions they are in are like a Zoo or Circus.

Lee Matthews

Tuesday

Thanks for your story. Since I wasn't there and the only accounts I had read were from Republican organizers who didn't want to be on record saying anything negative, you confirm my suspicions the Ron Paul people were indeed trying to "hijack" the convention, the party, and ultimately the candidacy.