GOP Convention: Fear of Ron Paul

Though narrowly defeated by Romney in the Maine primary, [Ron] Paul supporters were able to claim into 21 of the 24 delegate spots to the national convention. But RNC muscle stripped Paul of half his delegates and all of his alternates. New party rules were adopted, giving the RNC the power to change party rules between conventions. [Maine Republican National committeewoman and delegate Ashley Ryan], who won’t assume her committee seat until after the close of this convention, attempted to submit a minority report challenging the change, but session chair John Boehner refused to recognize calls from the floor for the report's consideration.

Charlie Pierce

[On Tuesday afternoon there] was what passes for an uprising […] The immediate casus belli was something called Rule 12, which was passed by a voice vote that, to these ears, was a lot closer than the chair indicated.

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[The] people supporting [Ron Paul] got pretty well screwed this time around. They got screwed at the local level and at the state level and, on Tuesday, they got rogered good and proper by their national party.

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There was a compromise on one rule that allows the Republican National Committee now to revoke the credentials of delegates who fail to follow the binding rules set down by their state committees. (This brings the authority of the national party into a function heretofore exercised by the state committees.) And there was the passage of Rule 12, the one that got John Sununu hollered at from the floor, which allows two-thirds of the RNC leadership, rather than the convention as whole, to change any party rule. "I really don't believe that most of the people who voted here today realize exactly how much of their own freedom they voted away," said Rob Bybee of Nevada, who was fielding the questions that went past Lake. "The committee can change anything midstream.”

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This was all bound to happen. This is what always happens to people who live in a world of strict construction, whether that is a strict construction of something as important as the Constitution, or a strict construction of something as seemingly trivial as local party rules. They are always blindsided by compromise, struck dumb by the simple human impulse to power and how effective it can be when it is wielded by people who are not overly afflicted by conscience.

Charlie Pierce

This is a two-party game, and they mean to keep it that way. When someone outside those two parties begins to garner a large enough following that it threatens the possibility of an upset, they'll do whatever it takes to stop him. Just ask Ralph Nader, who wasn't even allowed to be in the audience of a debate, much less participate.