Category Archives: MO Caucus

The FIX is in

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The fix is in and I’m not talking about Hillary’s garnering most of the New Hampshire delegates while only winning a third of the votes. No, I’m talking about the GOP establishment fix for Rubio. 

I’ve been watching the GOP manipulate the GOP Presidential race for a while. My first inkling was last summer when I received emails asking me to support Jeb Bush for Prez. It gave all the usual reasons—only he could beat Hillary, only he could get the “independent” vote, only he could get the Hispanic vote, only he could, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The emails were from different groups, PACs mostly, but all originating from a common internet address, one that I finally traced back to the RNC.

When Bush tanked, I started getting emails supporting Rubio. Again supposedly from different sources but again from the same internet address—the same address that was used for Jeb emails.

There has been other signs of the RNC selection of Rubio. For instance the despicable spectacle of the South Carolina debate where Reince Priebus packed the audience with establishment activists to boo everyone except Rubio.

Another sign is various establishment officials, such as Sam Brownback announcing their support for Rubio, who need the establishment to remain in office or owe the establishment for their last election.

I’ve also received some emails from Missourians asking me to support Rubio while claiming Cruz is unelectable, citing a number of reasons starting with the false claim of Cruz not be eligible, through all the lies spewed by Trump.

I remember how the Missouri establishment rammed Romney through the 2012 Caucus. I was a Newt support in that caucus. In the end, I was duped into voting for Romney by a friend who later apologized to me for doing so. He was a Romney campaign worker who later regretted supporting Romney.

Cruz seems to have strong support in Western Missouri. Eastern Missouri, however, is the establishment stronghold and Eastern Missouri is pushing Rubio. The southern portion of the state appears to be following the Narcissist.

Missouri’s caucus timing will be after Super Tuesday. It’s possible the overall decision will have already been made and once again Missouri’s caucus will be a futile effort that results in nothing meaningful.

I understand why the Missouri GOP prefers the caucus. It is supposedly to prevent sabotage by libs and third parties. I’m unsure if those fears are valid. I suspect not. If they were valid, why not have the GOP controlled legislature change state law and require registering by party. Then, in a primary, you could only vote for your party’s slate.

No, that would make too much sense. The real reason why the Missouri GOP still has a caucus is control—control by the state establishment to block interlopers—like Cruz.

Yes, the fix is in. In Kansas and Missouri, the fix is in for the establishment candidate, Marco Rubio, the country be damned. Illegal immigration and open borders will be safe.

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Recap: MO 4th Congressional District 2012 Caucus

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This last Saturday, April 21st, Missouri held their 2nd level caucuses to actually select delegates to the Republican Convention this summer.  MO has eight districts with eight separate caucuses being held across the state.

Results by Congressional District (Unofficial)
Congressional District 1                        Congressional District 5
Delegates                                                         Delegates 
Heather Coil (Paul)                                        Mark Anthony Jones (Paul)
Connie Eller (Santorum)                              Ralph Munyan (Paul)
Tom Schweich (Romney)                             Paul Trask (Paul)
                                                                               
Elector                                                             Elector
David Stokes                                                  Stanley Cox
Congressional District 2                       Congressional District 6 
Delegates                                                         Delegates 
Allen Icet (Santorum)                                   Jim Willis (Romney)  
Phyllis Schlafly (Santorum)                          Jim Rooney (Gingrich) 
Jim Talent (Romney)                                    Matt Johnson (Santorum) 
Elector                                                             Elector
John Judd                                                      Matt Gerstner
Congressional District 3                       Congressional District 7 
Delegates                                                        Delegates 
Cody Baker (Romney)                                 Gordon Kinne (Romney)
Scott Dieckhaus (Romney)                          John Putnam (Santorum)
Mitch Hubbard (Santorum)                        Patsy Wilcox (Santorum)
Elector                                                             Elector
Penny Quigg                                                  Layne Morrill

Congressional District 4                      Congressional District 8

Delegates                                                       Delegates
Carla Young (Romney)                               Scott R Clark (Romney)
* Bill Kartsonis (Romney)                           Jason Smith (Romney)
Mary Ellen Snider (Romney)                     David Courtway (Romney)
(* = Caucus Delegate from Cass County)
Elector                                                            Elector
Stanley Cox                                                   Bob Green

“A total of 12 delegates were bound to Mitt Romney, 7 delegates were bound to Rick Santorum, 4 delegates were bound to Ron Paul, and 1 delegate was bound to Newt Gingrich.” — MO GOP.

Each congressional district selected three Delegates, three Alternate Delegates and one Elector.

Twenty-five additional delegates will be bound at the State Convention in June. The State Chairman, National Committeeman, and National Committeewoman will also serve as delegates. In total, Missouri has 52 national delegates. — MO GOP

Mrs. Crucis and I, retired and unused to rising early, drove to Sedalia, MO, the site of the 4th District’s caucus, Friday afternoon.  We weren’t sure if we would be delegates or not until after we returned from the NRA convention and found letters from the state and district GOP committees confirming our selection.

The Cass County delegate slate had been protested. I wrote about the Cass County Caucus last month. While we were traveling to St. Louis for the NRA convention, a hearing was being held by the 4th District’s Credentialing Committee.

When the Cass County Caucus was over, the county delegate slate was short a significant number of delegates and alternate delegates.  According to the state rules, a complete slate had to be presented to the District or Cass County would lose votes. The Cass County Caucus Chairman filled the empty slots proportionally with names provided by the Romney, Paul and Gingrich group leaders.

At least two protests were lodged.  One due to the caucus meeting site being moved from the smaller Justice Center to the Harrisonville High School days before the actual caucus date. The second protest was about the Chairman filling in the empty slots in order to present a complete slate to the District and State Caucuses. (According to the rules adopted by the Cass County Caucus, the Chairman had that option in order to present a complete slate of delegates to the State and District Credentialing Committees. After the hearing, the Credentialing Committee dismissed all protests and the Cass slate was accepted as submitted with the empty slots filled by the Chairman.

As it turned out, Cass County with 43 delegates was the second largest delegation after Boone County with 52 delegates.  The number of Cass delegates turned out to be potentially crucial later in the District caucus.

After we passed through registration and credentialing, Mrs. Crucis and I found the area reserved for Cass County and sat in the front row.  I wanted to get as good a view of the proceedings as I could. I have a hearing problem that makes it difficult for me to hear when there is a lot of background noise or conversation.

One of the first orders of business was to seat the delegates. When noses were counted, it was discovered a significant number of Cass delegates failed to show.  Of those delegates present, five were from the Romney camp, four from Gingrich, eleven alternates from the Ron Paul group but only fourteen out of thirty-eight of the Santorum Cass County delegates were present. Because the seats had to be filled or we’d lose votes, the empty seats were filled by the alternates.  In the end, we had enough to fill all our allocated spaces with a few alternates left over to fill-in if and as needed. The seats could not be empty except at recesses.  If someone needed a nature break, an alternate subbed while the delegate was gone.

The caucus went quickly until the Rules Chairman presented the proposed rules.  Immediately, the Boone County delegation (all Ron Paul supporters) moved to amend the rules. They proposed at least three changes. One was declared inappropriate not being within the realm of the District authority and another was later withdrawn.  The primary motion was to delete the use of slates and instead nominate each national delegate and elector individually. Each candidate would be given an up-down vote until a slate of three delegates, thee alternates and one elector was selected. The motion was a complex scheme that would give the larger counties (Boone and Cass) more voting power than the smaller counties (some with only two delegates to the caucus.) The motion was voted down but not by a large margin.

Next was the presentation of the slates.  Two slates had already been prepared—one a Unity slate of Romney delegates and another for Santorum.  One Cass County delegate, Bill Kartsonis, was a member of the Unity delegation slate. 

After the rules discussion, a group from a number of smaller counties presented a “Mixed” slate containing one delegate and alternate each for Romney, Santorum and Paul.  The Boone County group presented a “True Republican” slate of Paul delegates.

The Nominating Committee “vetted” each candidate.  The rules stated that all national delegate candidates and the electors, must be credentialed.  As the names of each delegate from each slate was read, they rose and spoke their name and county thus eliminating any doubt who would be our delegates.

This was the same procedure that was attempted at our Cass County caucus last month.  The winning Santorum leadership refused to have their delegates stand to be recognized.  I still don’t understand that reasoning.  Being recognized before their caucus peers should have been an honor and may have imposed a sense commitment to the delegates.

Perhaps if that sense of commitment had been imposed, more of the Santorum delegates would have appeared at the District caucus. Instead, only 1/3 of the Cass County Santorum delegates actually made the trip to Sedalia.

The voting began.  I don’t remember the exact count but the rules required the winning slate receive a majority of the votes, 50%+1 vote.  In the first round, no slate had a majority.  The Unity slate had the largest number of votes followed by the Ron Paul slate with the Santorum slate in third.  The “Mixed” slate was a distant fourth.

Per the rules, the slate with the least votes was dropped and voting began anew.  Here is the important fact of Cass filling all its seats.  Cass County was the second largest delegation present. The vote differences between the top three slates weren’t far apart. As I remember, if all the Cass Santorum delegates had been present, it could have been sufficient to bounce the Ron Paul slate from second to third putting the Santorum slate in second place. Or, had the Santorum delegates aligned with the Boone County contingent, they would have had enough votes to make the Ron Paul slate the winner over the Unity/Romney slate.

It was also possible that the Santorum slate might have won.  Many of the Santorum supporters, including many from the Cass County, switched to the Unity slate.  A number stated they felt “abandoned” by Santorum’s suspension of his campaign and questioned whether he was still a candidate.  If there had been more Santorum supporters present, perhaps they could have been in the majority and the district would be sending Santorum delegates to Tampa instead of Romney delegates. The difference between the winning Unity slate and the slate with the next highest votes was half of the number of missing Cass Santorum delegates.


All that is speculation of course.  The absent Cass Santorum delegates did not appear. The Unity slate won a clear majority on the second ballot.

I congratulated Bill Kartsonis on his selection as a delegate to Tampa. He was the only Santorum leader from Cass County to be present.  He was also the only Cass County Santorum leader to represent their side at the protest hearing before the Credentialing Committee.  He didn’t win his case but he had the fortitude to stand up for his convictions.  


Kudos to you, Bill. You deserve them and congratulations for being one of our delegates at the Republican National Convention. I know you’ll do us proud.

Caucus Review – Part II and Other Items

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Yesterday, I proposed some planning changes for the next caucus whenever that occurs.  The St. Charles caucus was reported in just about every news outlet in the state. Here is a recap of that meeting by an attendee.  I urge you to follow the link and read the entire article.

I was at the St. Charles County caucus held in St. Peters, MO, on Saturday, March 17, 2012, which I now affectionately refer to as “The Raucous Caucus”. I’m not really interested in putting a particular political spin on what occurred. Rather, I’d like to state what occurred as just matters of fact and go over the major points of contention that led to it being brought to a close with no delegates and alternates being designated. So, as much as is possible, I have left out the names of the camps of supporters involved in the events of the Raucous Caucus. Source material and links provided are a different matter: they can and do name names and I didn’t take it upon myself to edit them. Where I do interject my perspective while delineating the points of contention, it’s for the purpose of logically connecting the sequence of events, to provide an explanation for why there appeared to be a conflict on a particular matter or specific event, or to provide a reasonable range of possible objectives or motivations.  –– The Blog Czar, March 20, 2012. 

The article documents the source of some of the confusion and presents more lessons learned to make future caucus planning and operation move more smoothly.

***

Obamacare goes before the US Supreme Court next week.  Oral arguments will be heard, briefs submitted, if they haven’t been already, and in a few weeks, or months, a decision will be rendered.

From some reports, it’s beginning to appear that Obama and his liberal cronies are preparing for a loss.

Obama will avoid healthcare defense during court review

By Amie Parnes – 03/21/12 05:00 AM ET 

President Obama will not mark the two-year anniversary of his signing of the healthcare law — which takes place days before the Supreme Court offers a decision on the constitutionality of his signature legislative achievement.

Senior administration officials said on Tuesday that Obama will not be offering a vigorous public defense of the law, holding events or even making public remarks in the lead-up to the Supreme Court case.

Obama will instead leave arguments to the Justice Department, which begins defending the law on Monday.  Likewise, Obama is not expected to hold an event around the two-year anniversary on Friday, said officials who labeled it a faux milestone and off the radar of most Americans. 

In the mean time, HHS Secretary Sibellius is pushing full steam to implement the worst elements of the bill—violating the 1st Amendment on religion for one.  It makes one speculate whether the Obama left hand is fully communicating with the Obama right hand.

Oh!  Silly me. There are no Right hands in the Obama administration.

***

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) presented a proposed federal budget and the screams of Washington liberals were heard clear to the left coast. The democrats have refused to submit or pass a budget since Obama took office. They prefer stealth spending that keeps their attempts to transform our country into a “dictatorship of the proletariat” as secret as possible. 

Paul Ryan submitted a budget last year what was blocked by democrats. Once again he is proposing a budget that cuts trillions from the budget over the coming years and impacts heavily welfare spending.

Ryan, Obama budgets offer radically opposed visions of America

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin did something Tuesday that President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democratic congressional leaders refuse to do — propose a 2013 federal budget that makes the hard choices needed if America is to regain its economic vitality and avoid becoming Greece. At least Obama did propose a 2013 budget earlier this year; Reid and his Democratic colleagues in Congress haven’t done that in three years. Unfortunately, the president’s approach makes all the wrong choices, opting to increase spending, taxes and debt without regard to the consequences. Worse still is the fact that the Obama budget, if adopted, would add immensely to the difficulties facing his successors in the Oval Office, to say nothing of the children and grandchildren of today’s taxpayers.
On spending, for example, the Obama budget increases federal spending every year, for a total of $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” decreases federal spending by $3.5 trillion. On the federal deficit, not only does Obama propose the fourth-straight year with a federal deficit of at least $1 trillion, his budget projects oceans of red ink as far as an accountant’s eye can see. The Ryan budget goes in the opposite direction by progressively reducing the deficit by $3 trillion over a decade, compared with the Obama proposal, and puts the government’s ledger on the way to being balanced thereafter. (Go here for the full article.)
The democrats are already spewing horror stories about Ryan throwing Granny out in the street—stories reminiscent of the famous cartoon from last year showing Ryan pushing an elder in a wheelchair off a cliff.
The democrats have no solution except more taxing and spending.  The tax well is now dry. It time to attack the other end, cut spending.  Spending cuts will hurt.  I’m retired, receiving Social Security and this month was forced to sign up for Medicare. (I had to sign up or lose my Social Security payments.)
If we don’t cut spending, the economy and quite likely the nation will collapse.  What emerges from that collapse may be something none of us will like.
We’ve come to a pivotal point in the history of our country.  It’s sink or swim.  I prefer to swim…to a reformation and return to the original concepts of the Constitution.

Missouri Republican Caucus, Cass County Style

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My wife and I attended the Cass County Republican caucus Saturday.  It was our first caucus and we looked forward to the experience.  To say it was a learning experience is an understatement. From beginning to end, the caucus was five hours of instruction.

This year, the ‘Pub caucus was specifically designed to give all counties, rather than a populous few, representation.  Delegates selected at the local caucuses will go to caucuses for each congressional district on April 21st, and to the state caucus on June 2nd.  The congressional caucuses will select delegates to the national convention. The state caucus will select some state-wide delegates and alternates for the national convention.  (Note: I’m relying on memory and the state caucus may select some other delegates not mentioned here.)

The Cass County caucus started at 10:30am.  It was moved late in the week from the New Justice Center to the Harrisonville High School when early estimates indicated the Justice Center would be too small. As always, there were some who did not get the word.

The process was straight forward.  We arrived, filled out an affidavit showing our name, address, attesting that we were registered voters and that we were Republicans.  We then showed our photo IDs and were credentialed.  This process would come to be important later in the session because the state rules and the rules adopted later stated that all delegates and alternates had to be credentialed. We were each given a numbered red card that we would present to have our vote counted and to be allowed to re-enter the caucus if we had to leave.

Everyone who attended and signed the affidavit was credentialed allowing anyone attending to be qualified as a delegate or alternate.  The final count was 342 credentialed attendees.

The meeting open with the Pledge of Allegiance and a Prayer.  The first order of business was the selection of a caucus chairman.  Two candidates were submitted, Bill Kartsonis by the Santorum faction and Ron Johnson. I’m unsure who nominated Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson won the vote on a 51% to 49% spread.

The Rules Committee Chairman, presented the proposed caucus rules. These were the same as the proposed rules issued by the state.  After discussion, one amendment was added to require the delegates to be bound for the first ballot to their candidate. Thereafter they would be released to vote their conscience.

Under these rules, if no one candidate acquired more than 50% of the votes, delegates would be selected proportionally from the four candidate groups.  The initial assumption was that no one group had than 50+% majority.  It was supported by the fact that the Santorum faction, recognizably the largest group at the caucus, had failed to get a majority of votes for their candidate for caucus chairman.

Two and a half hours had passed and we were just getting to the meat of the caucus—the straw poll to determine the distribution of supporters for the four Presidential candidates.
 


Group          Votes      %      Delegates   Alt. Delegates
Santorum:     162      51%         22                 22
Paul:               88      28%         12                 12
Romney:         37      12%           5                   5
Gingrich:        27         9%          4                   4
Total:            314                      43                 43

As a full disclosure, my wife and I were in the Newt Gingrich camp.  Frankly, it was a close choice for us between Gingrich and Santorum. I could live with either but I liked Gingrich’s aggressiveness, intelligence and his scoring points on Obama rather than on other ‘Pub candidates. I had hoped to be a delegate for Gingrich to the District and State Caucuses, but that was not to happen.

After the straw poll the Santorum faction had sufficient votes to block the proportional slate.  As the session continued, it was apparent the Santorum leadership intended to seize control of the caucus from the beginning.  It was only by a narrow vote their chairman candidate was defeated.  The initial agreements supporting proportional representation was tossed aside and an alliance was made between the Santorum and the Romney camps to acquire a clear majority.

Understanding politics, this was acceptable.  The Santorum group had the votes. They could now present their slate of delegates and get them approved. Cass County was allocated 43 delegates and 43 alternate delegates for the subsequent District and State caucuses.  

What happened next is where the controversy arose.  The Santorum faction failed to present a complete slate.

Initially when delegate lists were presented for the proportional distribution, the Santorum faction submitted only twenty-two names—their percentage of the 43 delegates. However, they did not submit any names for alternates.  The other three groups did submit people for their allocation of delegates and alternates.

As the Chairman read the delegate counts submitted by the leadership of each faction, the Santorum shortage was revealed and the Santorum group erupted.  It took some time for the Master-at-Arms to quiet the room.  The Chairman recessed the caucus for fifteen minutes to allow the Santorum group to present a full list of 22 delegates and 22 alternates.

At the end of the recess, instead of submitting a complete list of names—delegates and alternates, the Santorum leadership called for an up-down vote of the proportional slate “as presented”, that is short 22 alternate delegates from the Santorum faction.

During the recess the leadership of the Santorum group made an alliance with the Romney group to vote down the proportional slate.  With that alliance, those two group could control the slate and leave the Paul and Gingrich groups out in the cold.

And that is exactly what happened.  One Santorum leader was heard to say that since Santorum won the primary in February, it was only right that he receive all the delegates from Cass County.

Yes, it was within the rules.  Combined, the two groups had the votes to sweep the slate. They did so.  And, truth be told, while it was unexpected, I can’t argue against that tactic.  It was within the rules.  What followed next, however, was not.

The rules voted and accepted at the beginning of the caucus, stated that ALL delegates and alternates had to be credentialed, i.e., be a Cass County resident, be a registered voter and attest to be a “good Republican.”  Each of us attended completed and signed before a witness an affidavit attesting to those conditions. Therefore each attendee had been credentialed.

The Chairman asked the Santorum leadership to present their slate and for each delegate and alternate to stand and be recognized.

The Santorum leadership refused.  They claimed that the rules stated that proposed delegates and alternates did not have to be present to be qualified.  That was true as I read the rules.  The Chairman agreed.  Already, according to the vote counts, thirty people had left the caucus some time between the beginning to the caucus and the time when the initial slate was voted down.

But those thirty people had been credentialed.  By refusing to present the slate before the caucus, how could those of us there, those of us who would vote for that slate, know if the slate met the requirement to be credentialed.  It could happen, as one attendee stated, the Barack Obama’s name could be on that list.  

Again, the Santorum leadership refused to reveal their slate and they had the votes to force an adjournment of the caucus. One excuse was that it was getting late and some attendees wanted to attend the St. Pat’s parade in Belton.  Politicians love to get their face before a crowd.

After five hours, the caucus adjourned. No one, outside of the Santorum faction leadership knew who was on the slate of delegates and alternates.  It was a prime example of the tyranny of the majority. Democracy in action.  For all we knew, the slate was filled with democrats although I say that tongue-in-cheek.

After the caucus, I spoke with a number of people who attended. Many, like my wife and I, were neophytes—and to an extent, naive in local politics.  We received a good teaching experience.

I am very curious why the Santorum leadership refused to present their candidates to the caucus body.  They had to provide the names to the Chairman so he can forward them to the GOP state organization.  The consensus of those whom I spoke at the caucus was that the list was filled with the cronies of the Santorum leaders. I’m not that familiar with the county’s internal politics to know if that’s a possibility.  

Another attendee said that the slate contained names of some who were not present and had not been credentialed.  The Chairman offered to give the Santorum leadership time to acquire credentials for any on his slate who had not been credentialed that morning. Again, the Santorum leadership refused.

I had several conversations over the weekend about the results of the caucus. I was curious about the refusal to reveal the slate by the Santorum leaders.  I have since been told, by more than one attendee, that the slate contained names of people who did not attend nor were credentialed and that in the end, the slate will be short by 4 to 8 delegates.  The number varies depending on the source.

Since the Santorum leadership refused to present their list of names, we don’t know what the real motivation was.  Inexperience? Perhaps. Poor planning and leadership? Perhaps.  Chrony politics? Perhaps.  All of the above?  Perhaps.


The Santorum group won…but in the end, the county lost.  I don’t mind that Santorum will get our votes at the next caucus.  I do mind that in their pursuit of seizing control of the caucus, the Santorum leadership lost track of the purpose of the caucus—to provide Cass County with full representation.  An apparent personal agenda won with little regard for others.

Regardless which faction you favored in the caucus, I can guarantee the experience will be remembered for some time to come.