This last weekend was the Republican District Convention. We foolishly made it a family affair, as Dad, Uncle Dean, David, and I were all delegates. Carpool! We spent the car ride up discussing the platform. I am more or less indifferent on the platform, as when I am not a delegate or voting in the caucus, I tend to not be a Republican.
I'm just waiting until this delegate business is over and I'm switching my registration back to NP. I think that means No Party, but I could be wrong. It's whatever party you get when you say you aren't part of a party.
Could I be part of the Libertarian Party? Well, yes, but I think libertarian ideals and philosophy stand by themselves, and having a party subscribes to their version of it and I don't always agree. If the party ever gets big enough to be a threat to our two-party system, maybe I'll reconsider.
The convention was at a high school. I always look around to take in the foreign sights. High schools look just like the movies!
Anyway. The guy credentialing us, or giving us our name tags, whatever, commented jokingly, "If you go into labor, do it quietly." I stammered that I had no intention of going into labor. Apparently, sometimes when people don't know what to say, words still come out. Also, that makes second person who knew without asking I was pregnant. I really must be showing these days.
We had folding chairs this time. A downgrade from the cozy theater seats from the county convention. Also unfortunate is that apparently some people from the last convention were also delegates.
One guy in particular. He's the guy who proposed in the county convention to replace the party platform with the junior delegate platform. We thought it was a joke, but actually had debate about it, I think because a bunch of us wanted to forgo the platform discussion. But the discussion on that took way too long for what most of us considered a joke.
So anyway, this guy had his moustache waxed into points and was wearing a suit. But he's the type who talks out loud, loudly, talks to and looks for approval in anyone who will listen to him, and argues points of rules just to win, not because he cares. Kind of reminds me of that guy from The Island who tried to calculate the lottery winnings. This guy also would not pay attention, and then assume that he didn't know something because it wasn't said, not because he missed it.
And then, in a move that made pretty much all of Story County facepalm, he recommended we replace our platform with the junior delegate platform.
A bright spot in the day was the chairman, Matt Windschitl, apparently a state representative. He had this great deep voice, efficient command, and enduring sarcasm. "Is that a serious motion?" He asked. "You seriously want to replace the entire platform with the junior delegate platform?"
Some bozo seconded it, but thankfully, nobody spoke for it. It was voted down with a resounding no.
Moustache guy was heard saying loudly something about how the junior delegates were the future of the party and we should honor them. David tried to talk him down, telling him it was an admirable sentiment, but probably not the right move. Unfortunately, moustache guy now knows our faces.
Another highlight was clickers, those little electronic remotes that can record and post responses from a lot of people in a matter of minutes. We only had to take one paper ballot, which took us like an hour and had the ballot counters threatening the county heads that they would have to read their own county's handwriting next time.
Moustache guy asked loudly what amendment we were voting on, and was about to call "point of order" to ask. The woman the row behind us was trying to get his attention to explain and when he started talking, she audibly smacked one hand on the other. I think the rest of Story County was losing patience as well, with one gentleman commenting to moustache guy's neighbor that he needed to "reign in his dog."
I got to see what Trump supporters looked like. Oddly enough, they look like Trump. Or act like him. The guy selling t-shirts gave off a used car salesman vibe, and one of the women running for delegate yelled "Trump Trump Trump!" while pumping both fists into the air at the end of her speech.
Someone called the people voting for Cruz supporters (informed by text messages) sheeple... Look, I'm not here for democracy, I'm not here to "represent the district, " I'm here to win. I think anybody following Trump is a sheeple. So just tell me who to vote for to get Cruz. I can't soundly vet everyone in a two minute speech, so I rely on someone else who supports Cruz to do it.
And that's another highlight: I think we won this round.
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