When I went to the Ron Paul rally on the 15th, I heard a lot of conspiracy talk, believe it or not. But the most curious was the guy whom I overheard talking to new acquaintances about how he is a delegate to the Republican convention and how he’s going to cast his vote for Ron Paul regardless of how he’s pledged. I just shook it off as kooky talk – just a smidgen of what I’d heard the whole day.
When I got back and posted my videos on YouTube for the blog, I had like a hundred hits on them before I even got the post finished here. The first comment, YouTube hid as spam, but out of curiosity, I opened it and it read;
fantastic!! BECOME A DELEGATE OR RON PAUL WILL NOT BE PRESIDENT!!!!!!!
You can sign up to be a delegate on
R O N P A U L 2 0 0 8 . C O M
****look for the BECOME A RON PAUL DELEGATE sign up box on the top right of the homepage where Ron Paul’s face is****
YOU can help change the course of this nation for the better! YOU can be a hero!
He still has a VERY good chance of getting the nomination in a brokered convention! This is how Lincoln won!
PLEASE! We need you!
I thought it was a little odd, but shrugged it off. Moments later, another spam comment, by another author, hit my YouTube page underneath that one;
previous message was marked as spam but it is NOT
BECOME A DELEGATE OR RON PAUL WILL NOT BE PRESIDENT!
You can sign up to be a delegate on
R O N P A U L 2 0 0 8 . C O M
**look for the BECOME A RON PAUL DELEGATE sign up box on the top right of the homepage where Ron Paul’s face is**
YOU can help change the course of this nation for the better! YOU can be a hero!
He still has a VERY good chance of getting the nomination in a brokered convention! This is how Lincoln won!
PLEASE! We need you!
A week later, another message hit – this time I marked it as spam;
Get Ron Paul Nominated by:
Become a delegate (of Other candidates),
then vote for Ron Paul in the convention!
Because Ron Paul delegates are being restricted to vote!
That is how we by pass this type of bias and illegal filtering!
Read ronpaulchat(.)net/drpaulwillwin(.)html
Please help to Spread this message.
I didn’t think anything more of it – it all sounds like the ravings of a group of deranged people. but then this afternoon, perusing my usual blog fare, I ran across this from Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy;
I saw this at Digg (where else?) last week, but ignored it after burying it. It seems, though, that Paultards are quite serious about hijacking the Republican Convention. If you don’t want to see the “plan” at the Paultards’ blogs, read it here. Snip:
*The Strategy:*
The strategy therefore must be to get as many Ron Paul delegates selected to represent their states at the National Convention.
That means our delegates need to stay low-key.
Resolutions are a dead giveaway, especially when they are fought over things like opposition to the war, or abolishing the Federal Reserve and the IRS, all signature issues of Ron Paul.
So, the best plan is to shut up, move along, do what you have to do to get selected, sign the pledge to “support” McCain (it doesn’t say you promise not to abstain!) and just get in short of outright lying, of course.
One of Beth’s links go to The Political Divide which has much more information than I want to read on this conspiracy;
As far away as a year ago, I began hearing rumors that the poor showing in the polls, and at the ballot box was going to force the hand of the Ron Paul camp to try and seize control of the National Convention by flooding it with Ron Paul supporters, much in the same way they flooded every single web poll, or IM poll during the debates. Not satisfied with Democracy in action, the Rontards would instead take matters into their own hands. The plan would be to take over the Precinct meetings to elect the Delegates for the Senatorial Conventions and in turn affect the Delegate selection all the way up to the National Convention. For this type of “Rube Goldberg machine” to actually happen, every single domino would have to fall the right way.
While I don’t think it is plausible, there will be some serious repercussions if were to actually it happen.
The only reason I even bring this up, is because I’m tired of all of this political maneuvering – especially when it’s to undermine the voters’ choice. Hillary wants to subvert her own party with the super-delegates vote, Al Gore is still whining that he was cheated out of the presidency in 2000, as soon as he lost in the Supreme Court, Democrats were lining up at the media’s mike to announce that the Electoral process was antiquated and in need of revision (and we were treated to the same whiners again in 2004).
I remember a time when America started paying attention to elections a only few months before the polls and then forgot about it as soon as they pulled the lever. But this poisonous, monotonous two-year campaign cycle, which is about personalities these days more than issues, is killing America. People wonder why voters are tuning out – and this is precisely the reason.
The cry baby whiners who become so emotionally invested in their candidates, who are frighteningly more like protagonists in a real long, boring movie than actual people, and when the movie doesn’t turn out like it should (like the incessant whining after The Sopranos ended) the rest of us have to suffer through the endless conspiracy theories about voting machines, phantom cops roadblocking polling stations and antiquated constitutions.
Just stop acting like you’re all so damn smart because the rest of us (the majority – remember us?) really don’t think you are smart at all – just pompous, arrogant blowhards who relish the sound of your own voices like a baby who enjoys the smell of his own farts.
Look, if you goofballs want to have a Revolution, go ahead and start it so we can put you all out of your misery. But, for Chris’sakes quit talking about it.
UPDATE: A hat tip to concretebob for pointing me to Michele Malkin who reports “the [Nevada] state GOP convention was suspended last night after McCain supporters failed to quell a revolt by Ron Paul’s people”
