For some reason I am reminded of the movie "Rudy". If you haven't seen the inspirational flick about a Notre Dame football walk-on it is worth renting. The subject of this post is the process of vetting candidates at Congressional District Conventions for the coveted position of National Convention Delegate/Alternate.
(from a press release circulated by Rudy Takala)
Minnesota’s 8th Congressional Republicans held their convention last Saturday, electing three delegates and three alternates to attend the national conventions in September. Local candidates included former State Representative Judy Soderstrom of Mora, Rudy Takala of Pine City, and Ben Wiener of Finlayson.
Things became livelier when many people were denied from running by the district Nominating Committee - including Rudy Takala, the chair of the Pine County Republicans. Ron Niemala, the chair of the committee, declared that he was too “young and inexperienced” to be permitted to run for delegate.
Dr. Michael Monte, secretary to the Pine County Republicans and a member of the committee, objected, saying, “We have some very qualified, enthusiastic candidates who have put a lot of time into running, and they should be allowed to compete.”
Niemala responded, “This is not up for discussion. We [the committee] are going to vote and go along with the vote.”
The civility of the discourse diminished when Christina Wilson, the vice-chair of the committee, held a copy of Takala’s Facebook page on display and pointed out that it described his political views as “libertarian,” arguing that it was inconsistent with the values of the Republican Party. Dr. Monte, a Baptist minister, attempted to continue the discourse but was told to “shut up” by Wilson.
The battle spilled on to the floor of the convention, where Monte described the committee to the more than 200-member assembly as a “travesty.” Takala continued, “This is what turns people off of Republican politics. They show up and are told that the decisions have already been made. Leadership tells the delegates what to do rather than the other way around.”
A motion was made to change the rules in order to allow for nominations from the floor without the consent of the committee. It passed, allowing eighteen people in all to run for national delegate. In order to win, candidates needed to obtain fifty-five percent of the votes. Candidates with less than twenty-percent were eliminated from the running.
Of the eighteen people running, five remained after the first round of voting, including Soderstrom and Takala. Soderstrom won on the second round. Takala continued to compete until the fourth round, where he was finally eliminated and thereby placed fourth overall.
The election for national alternates went considerably more smoothly. Ben Wiener won on the fourth round of balloting.
Takala praised the process, observing, “In most years, there are not enough freedom-minded delegates to overrule leadership. That so many were present this year is a big difference, and I can only hope that all of the new people will remain involved.” He offered his congratulations to Soderstrom and Wiener, “It encourages me that we have so many high-quality members in our area of the congressional district.”
Takala plans to run for national delegate again at the state level. The Republican state convention will take place in Rochester on May 29-31st and elect ten delegates to the national convention.
3 comments:
Alright Rudy! Way to go.
Congrats to the delegates of the 8th CD for taking control of their convention!
REASON: Governor Reagan, you have been quoted in the press as saying that you’re doing a lot of speaking now on behalf of the philosophy of conservatism and libertarianism. Is there a difference between the two?
REAGAN: If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.
Rudy ran a good campaign and was right to congratulate two of our elected national delegates.
Of course we elected three delegates at the 8th CD.... On the final ballot Rudy went head to head with Jennifer Wilson. A long time Republican activist in the 8th, Jenny won the vote handily.
Not only did he fail to congratulate her but attacked Jennifer's daughter in his press release. I know it hurts to lose, but maybe Rudy should learn some maturity before running for such an important position.
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