First Principles

This weekend I attended the Washoe County Republican Convention, and I have to say it was the smoothest, best organized one I’ve ever been to yet.  Once again Dave Buell, the Washoe Party Chair, proved he knows how to plan, build a great team, and put on a tremendous event.  The turnout was phenomenal – nearly 1,000 delegates were in attendance (which delayed the start – the one scheduling “problem” that’s awfully nice to have).

Virtually every state-level Republican elected official was in attendance and spoke, along with a really quality slate of candidates for open or Democratically held seats.  They were unified and optimistic – it’s clear they did not fail to learn what made them successful (even in the minority) this last legislative session.  I have never seen the county party so directly engaged with our local elected officials, and vice versa.

We adopted our agenda and rules quickly and easily.  Other than a single jackass who opposed a very nice resolution thanking the Peppermill for being phenomenal hosts and supporters (apparently showing some class and gratitude are “inappropriate” in a business transaction), our resolutions passed without controversy.  No one tried to “take over” the party with impromptu elections or rule changes.  Everyone who wanted to be a delegate to the state convention was able to go, and the members of the county Central Committee were confirmed for the next two years.

The only aggravator was the platform discussion (always the most annoying part of any convention), but even that gave me cause for optimism.  The Platform Committee had done a great job on the draft – so much so that the entire preamble was adopted by the convention with only the addition of a comma.  The minority position on foreign policy was heard, debated, and properly rejected.  And the majority of delegates ultimately decided relatively early to allow time for debate, but to not allow that debate to go past the time when most people needed to leave – thus avoiding a situation where a minority could re-write the platform by outlasting their neighbors’ will to hang out at the Peppermill endlessly.

The biggest disappointment with regard to the platform discussion was that there was no chance for additional planks (some of which address local concerns which may have been overlooked by the committee) to be discussed and potentially included, because a small minority of jackwagons wanted to argue over the specifics of the theology of the Founding Fathers, or that a bunch of Republican activists shouldn’t acknowledge the exceptionalism of the United States of America (literally!)

(I’d still like to see this part of the conventions get streamlined.  The platform is important, but not critical.  It is impossible to “improve” directly via a committee of 1,000, at least on the micro level. It’s good to have a clear mission statement that reflects the prevailing views of the party rank-and-file.  But a platform is just that – it is not legislation, it’s not binding, and getting into a shouting match in a county convention over whether America should help promote liberty around the world (no method specified) won’t suddenly make a majority of Republicans into Isolationists.  Spending hours as a committee of a thousand trying to hone the finer grammatical details is just silly, and I for one demurred from that process fairly early.  Fighting over every tiny detail of the platform does nothing to get Republicans of any stripe elected, and since that’s where the rubber meets the road, that’s where the focus needs to be.)

Jim Clark has more post-Convention details, in case you missed it yourself.

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Apparently Clark County wasn’t so lucky, and a contingent of Ron Paul supporters “took over” the county party there.  Solidly conservative elected officials were hectored for not being Paul enough.  And there are rumors of an attempt to repeat the Ron Paul delegate packing debacle of 2008 at the State Convention.

I would urge my Ron Paul supporting friends to consider a couple of problems with their plan of attack, if indeed that’s what’s on the agenda.

Ron Paul has not won a single state’s primary or caucus process.  He is unlikely to.  A significant majority of voters have heard – and rejected – his foreign policy ideas (no, there is no conspiracy).  Sending a Ron Paul delegation to the national GOP convention won’t change that, nor will it change the fact that Nevada Republicans who cast a vote in their caucuses deserve to have their preferences honored by the people claiming to represent them – as they were promised.

Even if the convention procedures were manipulated in a way that got Ron Paul to the head of the ticket, does anyone honestly think such an end would be viewed as legitimate by a majority of Republicans nation wide?  Do you think such a betrayal will be followed with a shrug, and folks just falling in line behind the Texas Congressman?

And if you continue to attack every other Republican in sight as insufficiently pure (purity they will never be able to achieve short of signing a blood-oath to Paul, I suppose), what makes you think they will listen to you at all?

If you alienate a majority of right-leaning voters and elected officials, you will push the country further to the left.  Play the long game, fellas, and practice the politics of addition.

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There were a lot of reasons our convention went so well this year, but the common denominator to all of those reasons is the leadership of Dave Buell, the county party chair.  And it comes on the heels of a successfully organized caucus in Washoe County and a hugely successful Lincoln Day Dinner, where again, the planning and execution was driven by Dave.

Dave is now running for State Party chair – a much more difficult task, given the dysfunction that has plagued our state party of late.  But if anyone can cut through that dysfunction and make our party as effective state-wide as it has been in critical Washoe County, it’s Dave Buell.

Considering Dave’s opponent for that seat is a guy who can’t even talk about his past associations or money-handling experience because of the fear of inviting criminal charges (the lefty blogs are already having a field day with it), Dave’s selection by the state Central Committee should be a no-brainer.

Our success as a party in Washoe is the template for a successful party state-wide, and hopefully a sign of things to come.  If self-preservation and increasing relevance are attributes the Nevada Republican Party still have, the Central Committee will elect Dave next month.  If not, well, at least we’ll still be on the right track locally.  Either way, I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of my party.