dirtier politics

national political conventions have long been becoming precarious mutations of an age-old and improvised smoke-filled-room tradition, morphed into a scripted and now fully hash-tagged made-for-tv infomercial. yet they have always been, at least, somewhat honest affairs at their core, which would be the state delegations in significant part chosen at the grassroots level from those who put the most skin into the press-the-flesh game.

until (maybe) now. check this out.

mittington obamney's lawyers have proposed a rule change to the republican party convention, which the rules committee is inclined to endorse, that would allow a national candidate to hand-pick state delegates to suit him or herself. what, might you say, is the real problem here, since convention delegates are committed via their state's caucus or primary selection process to cast their (first) ballots for that candidate. (the proposal is only to be able to replace those already committed to that candidate by caucus or primary election). but, see, there's the point.

ron paul, though unsuccessful in capturing a plurality of delegates that would otherwise require a protracted nomination process at the national convention, has been exceptionally successful (as in exceptionally successful) in recruiting active and loyal convention delegates from his supporters who, though honor bound to vote for mittington on that fateful first ballot, would otherwise be free to plump for their boy should things ever get to a second ballot. (you know, that old smoke-filled-room dinosaur thing). and that's something that absolutely terrifies the party apparatchiks--imagine! a convention actually reflecting the opinions of its delegates! so they want to make sure that everything sticks to the script they will be dutifully tweeting non-stop from tampa, and give national candidates the imprimatur to replace whomever they fear might become guilty of thinking for themselves and nip that whole "democracy" thing in the bud.

yup, they want to make sure that the only smoky room that chooses their nominee is the one which is already properly bought and paid for by their super pacs and other big money donors before the convention even begins. (your democracy dollars at work, and mine, too, observing that me and everyone else pays for private party primary elections out of the public purse, which is something that is long since overdue for redress--if you want to use public resources to elect a private candidate, then you ought to have to pay for it. period. right?)

anyway, i'm not trying to suggest the democrats would be any different under similar circumstances. i'm trying to suggest that this is dirtier politics than ever from the republican wing of the single party system under which we are now being robbed and raped, and that if i had a vote to give, i'd give it to the texas delegation rising up as one to fight the power where they can.

earning your way to a national political convention should not be something that can be confiscated.

then again, i'm not a republican...

i wonder what cliff thinks...

edited to add that compromise language has been agreed today that specifies penalties for not voting as otherwise bound by a state caucus or primary election, but successfully averts the power of a national campaign to select individual state delegates. seems like a fair compromise to me, but, like i said, i'm not a republican...