Charm Offensive, or if that fails, Break Fingers

All over the nation, supporters of Texas Congressman Ron Paul are showing up at state conventions.    One of their goals is to get their own folks elected as delegates to the national convention in Tampa.    The are succeeding in that goal by following the proscribed rules.   They did not make the rules, but they are abiding by them.   As a result, hundreds of delegates that are bound to vote for Romney on the first ballot nevertheless are actually Ron Paul supporters who will be allowed to vote their conscience on all other issues, including who the Vice-Presidential nominee will be.    Mitt Romney is inspiring so little enthusiasm that he cannot even get enough people who really want to be his delegates enough to jump through the hoops.  Paul has no problem filling in the commitment-deficit.

But this is going way beyond the narrow question of delegates.  In some states, the Paul supporters are actually electing their own to state party leadership positions and effectively turning out the old guard.   Remember they are doing this by following the rules made by the very people they are turning out.   

The response has fallen into two broad categories, depending on the strength of the effort.    If the Paul people are not strong enough to take over, then the preferred technique is a charm offensive.   As long as the Paul people help the establishment people win it will be all smiles and intimations of future rewards.   Should the Paul people actually get in position where it is the other sides turn to help them then I predict the result will be, well, what it has been when the Paul faction has won.....violence, cheating, and lawlessness.

In Louisiana the establishment forces tried to change the rules at the last minute so that no matter what the delegates wanted, the outcomes were pre-determined by the insiders.   When the Paul people simple turned their chairs around and held their own convention (because the establishment guy would not yield the floor or follow the rules) some rent-a-cops came in and broke one Paul delegate's fingers and dislocated the prosthetic hip of another one.    See the video for yourself here.

But Louisiana politics are known for being dirty, right?  True, but other sorts of outrages are occurring whenever the establishment guys don't get their way.   In Nevada, Romney supporters had hundreds of fake badges made and tried to flood the convention floor.  When the Paul folks called for credentialling, they vanished at the first break.   The Paul folks took over the Nevada GOP, so the national GOP just collaborated with Romney to start a shadow party in that state and shut out the legitimate state GOP.

The Paul factions that showed up big but not big enough to win are being disarmed with a charm offensive.   They will wind up working to help Mitt Romney and somehow think they are making progress building a team.   If they ever take control of the "team" they will find the smiles will turn into snarls and those folks will work with the national GOP to burn the house down on their way out the door.     If you want to know the truth about political parties, not just the GOP but basically all of them, read this article.