Don

Everyone has been enjoying JuanitaJean’s reports from the DemocratIC National Convention (that IS the correct pronunciation Sarah Palin to the contrary not being worth the mention that Senator Kerry made of her in his DNC address). I had a mole inside the RNC. My friend (and cow-orker) Tom was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. Yes, it is possible to have friends who are unrepentant Republicans but Tom is more of a Libertopian and Ron Paul-ite than he is a Republican. In 2004 he ran for Congress as a Libertarian against the otherwise unopposed Republican incumbent. Running as a minor party candidate in Pennsyltucky is no mean feat. Just to get on the ballot requires a herculean effort because the number of signatures required by anyone other than a Republican or Democrat is defined as a percentage of the total vote cast for that office in the previous election. R’s and D’s, in contrast, need only a token thousand or two; the rationale is that everyone who voted in the previous election as an R or D was in effect signing a nomination petition for the next election so the token number is just to keep things looking honest. As a Libertarian, Tom got 100% of the “anybody but Peterson” vote which amounted to about 20% of the votes cast. But he did win the write-in contest for township auditor the following year. (I once won a similar election when I convinced my child to write me in and I got 2 votes which was 1 more than all the other people who wrote themselves in. But then I learned that I wasn’t eligible because I already had an appointed position on the zoning hearing board, so I had to decline the honor.)

After a few years in local government, Tom got the urge to run for another office. This time it was State Representative. The current occupant of the seat was retiring which meant that there would have to be at least one candidate so Tom held his nose and became a Republican, went out and got people to sign petitions to get him on the primary ballot and beat out the choice of the party elders who were forced to pretend to support him but not with money and the Democrat (who, as the former coroner, had better name recognition) won by a handy margin. So this year, Tom decided that he would try for a spot as delegate to the RNC and he circulated petitions, got on the primary ballot and won a spot as delegate which entitled him to as much monetary support as he had previously received as a candidate.

As a Ron Paul-ite, Tom is not beloved by the party hierarchy. He, and several other Paul-ites, attended the convention where they tried to vote against changes to party rules relating to “choosing” delegates rather than the current method where delegates are “selected” by a voting process. “Choosing” allows the party elders (I consider them as brothers-under-the-skin to the party elders in the old CCCP of the USSR who decided what the people wanted and then told the people what they wanted) to replace an elected delegate who doesn’t suit their sensibilities. If that had been the case this year, Tom wouldn’t have been in Tampa at all. But the resolution was enacted on a voice vote and was declared to have been accepted BEFORE the chair called for the Nays who were described as being just as loud, if not as many, as the Ayes.

When it came to the roll call of the states for the nomination, there was another little change to the rules so that instead of announcing that Pennsyltucky cast 206 votes for Mitt Romney and 6 votes for Ron Paul, they only announced the 206 votes for Romney. Minor candidates were not mentioned. This was due to yet another change which altered the number of states required to get a candidate mentioned from 5 to 10. Ron Paul had 6.

While in Tampa, Tom had the fortune to encounter a relatively unknown candidate for President. Vermin Supreme wears a boot for a hat and favors a Federal law mandating tooth brushing. According to the Wikipedia article I consulted Vermin Love Supreme is a performance artist, anarchist, and activist – something like a modern day version of Pat Paulsen. It is of interest to note that Tom’s car now displays a Vermin Supreme bumper sticker. Ain’t democracy wonderful?