Smoke and Mirrors in Louisiana

On Saturday I promised an update into the complex world of Louisiana intraparty politics.  You will remember that the national press proclaimed an upset win by Ron Paul in the first round of caucuses.  But the GOP has worked to take that away.

Here is how events are unfolding.

The Republican Party of Louisiana has a history of protecting the establishment. They have placed a number of landmines throughout their caucus and convention processes to make it extremely difficult for Ron Paul supporters to make it all of the way to the floor of the Republican National Convention.

One simple example is a cleverly written rule, which allowed the LAGOP to abruptly change the date of the caucus. As soon as the state party realized how organized we were, the date of the election was changed from early February to late April. The date change created the unprecedented scenario of putting the Louisiana primary BEFORE the caucus. Something that has never happened before in this state and is unlikely to ever happen again.

Another example is the scheduling of the Republican State Central Committee meeting immediately after the state convention in Shreveport. The Louisiana Republican Party is hoping that the Ron Paul supporters will do something controversial at the state convention so that they’ll have an excuse to unseat some or all of the Ron Paul supporters at their RSCC meeting.

The Louisiana Republican Party is organized differently from many other states. Often, like in Michigan or Nevada, the state convention is the top governing authority of the state republican party. Unfortunately for our freedom fighters in the bayou state, this is not the case. The RSCC is the final authority and it is their bylaws that created the caucus and the convention.

The two examples above are just the tip of the iceberg. I can’t reveal our entire strategy because the establishment operatives obviously read this blog as well.

But I can tell you that we have great leaders across Louisiana who have navigated these paths before. They are working overtime to ensure that the Louisiana delegation gets all the way to the Republican National Convention!

It can be tempting to thumb your nose at the establishment whenever you get the opportunity. And they definitely deserve it!

But in this situation, getting the Ron Paul delegates all the way to Tampa and encouraging our activists to become part of the party structure should be our top priority.