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Washoe County GOP Chair Heidi Smith was the guest of Incline Village/Crystal Bay Republicans earlier this week at their monthly luncheon at The Chateau. She came to cast some light on a subject about which confusion reigns ... the 2008 Nevada Republican Convention.
Local broadcast and print media reported that last month’s GOP meeting at the Peppermill was chaotic and maddening. In fact, as Smith told her audience, it was not much different than previous Nevada Republican conventions ... organized chaos is the nature of the beast. The big difference this year was that a lot more people showed up so it looked much more chaotic and maddening. The significantly improved attendance was the result of two factors: Nevada held its first presidential preference caucuses this year bringing out a whole bunch of new activists, and the Republican-Libertarian message of Dr. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has motivated a phenomenal groundswell of young supporters.
Congressman Paul knows that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will be the Republican nominee but he is urging his supporters to stand for election as delegates to the national GOP convention so that his message (small government, lower taxes, strict construction of the Constitution) can find its way into the Republican platform. I don’t mean to criticize President Bush but there are times those principles get lost in Washington.
At the Peppermill Dr. Paul’s supporters were super organized, got their people elected as delegates and flexed their muscles on the convention floor. Smith’s message was: What happened is what’s supposed to happen at political conventions ... the best organized folks with the most votes win. As it happened the parliamentary maneuvering took so long that the convention had to be adjourned because the contract with the Peppermill expired. That caused some unfounded suspicions resulting in a “we-they” feeling between McCain and Paul supporters. Heidi’s advice: Forget it!
Here’s the key, fellow Republicans. Don’t listen to what candidates say; look at what they have done. The American Conservative Union rates every member of Congress based on their voting history. The ACU gives McCain a lifetime rating of 83 and Paul 82 so both have a broad appeal to independent voters who swing the tide in every presidential election. In marked contrast Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama. D-Ill., both earned identical ACU ratings of 7.
McCain and Paul both voted “yes” on bills to tighten our borders and extend the Bush tax cuts and “no” on a bill that would subsidize health insurance for kids of above median income families, two bills that would put a timetable on pulling troops from Iraq and a bill to tax oil taken from the Gulf of Mexico. They both bucked President Bush and the GOP by voting “yes” on a bill to restrict military interrogation techniques and “no” on not voting on GOP bills to expand CIA surveillance and increase the authority of the Homeland Security Agency. Paul and McCain voted opposite each other on bills to increase the minimum wage (McCain “yes”, Paul “no”) and to save $40 billion by changes to welfare, child support and student loans (McCain “yes”, Paul “no”).
So there’s hardly a dime’s worth of difference between them. It’s notable that both have earned the label “maverick” by putting the Constitution ahead of the president and the GOP leadership when they thought that was the right thing to do.
These facts accentuate Smith’s message: Let’s finish the work of the GOP convention and all come together behind the party’s candidate for the November election. Either McCain or Paul would be light years better for our country than Hillary or Obama (a 7 rating ... ughh! Karl Marx would score higher than that!).
Jim Clark is president of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee. His columns appear in Sunday’s Bonanza.
Local broadcast and print media reported that last month’s GOP meeting at the Peppermill was chaotic and maddening. In fact, as Smith told her audience, it was not much different than previous Nevada Republican conventions ... organized chaos is the nature of the beast. The big difference this year was that a lot more people showed up so it looked much more chaotic and maddening. The significantly improved attendance was the result of two factors: Nevada held its first presidential preference caucuses this year bringing out a whole bunch of new activists, and the Republican-Libertarian message of Dr. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has motivated a phenomenal groundswell of young supporters.
Congressman Paul knows that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will be the Republican nominee but he is urging his supporters to stand for election as delegates to the national GOP convention so that his message (small government, lower taxes, strict construction of the Constitution) can find its way into the Republican platform. I don’t mean to criticize President Bush but there are times those principles get lost in Washington.
At the Peppermill Dr. Paul’s supporters were super organized, got their people elected as delegates and flexed their muscles on the convention floor. Smith’s message was: What happened is what’s supposed to happen at political conventions ... the best organized folks with the most votes win. As it happened the parliamentary maneuvering took so long that the convention had to be adjourned because the contract with the Peppermill expired. That caused some unfounded suspicions resulting in a “we-they” feeling between McCain and Paul supporters. Heidi’s advice: Forget it!
Here’s the key, fellow Republicans. Don’t listen to what candidates say; look at what they have done. The American Conservative Union rates every member of Congress based on their voting history. The ACU gives McCain a lifetime rating of 83 and Paul 82 so both have a broad appeal to independent voters who swing the tide in every presidential election. In marked contrast Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama. D-Ill., both earned identical ACU ratings of 7.
McCain and Paul both voted “yes” on bills to tighten our borders and extend the Bush tax cuts and “no” on a bill that would subsidize health insurance for kids of above median income families, two bills that would put a timetable on pulling troops from Iraq and a bill to tax oil taken from the Gulf of Mexico. They both bucked President Bush and the GOP by voting “yes” on a bill to restrict military interrogation techniques and “no” on not voting on GOP bills to expand CIA surveillance and increase the authority of the Homeland Security Agency. Paul and McCain voted opposite each other on bills to increase the minimum wage (McCain “yes”, Paul “no”) and to save $40 billion by changes to welfare, child support and student loans (McCain “yes”, Paul “no”).
So there’s hardly a dime’s worth of difference between them. It’s notable that both have earned the label “maverick” by putting the Constitution ahead of the president and the GOP leadership when they thought that was the right thing to do.
These facts accentuate Smith’s message: Let’s finish the work of the GOP convention and all come together behind the party’s candidate for the November election. Either McCain or Paul would be light years better for our country than Hillary or Obama (a 7 rating ... ughh! Karl Marx would score higher than that!).
Jim Clark is president of Republican Advocates, a vice chair of the Washoe County GOP and a member of the Nevada GOP Central Committee. His columns appear in Sunday’s Bonanza.
