And now, a little night cap...

Sorry I wasn't able to blog more often today, but my duties as delegate and my efforts toward Jay Esmay winning the endorsement took precedence.

I just got back from enjoying a $135 dinner at TGIFridays with my wife, my eldest son, and his fiancee, and came back home, and am currently sitting back in my easy chair with my favorite brand of beer next to me. Gads.. it's good to have a rest.

I did stay behind after the endorsement. I take my responsibilities as an elected delegate seriously. Not only are elected delegates to endorse candidates, but also vote on resolutions for additions/amendments to the party platform that were decided on at their precinct caucuses and local BPOU conventions. Although all that remained after the endorsement was a mere skeleton of delegates, we did manage to get through all the platform items by 5:20pm.

King has a good rundown of the proceedings here. Since I was in the thick of things I didn't quite have the "birds-eye" view that King did. King did mis-quote me a bit regarding my Esmay endorsement speech (but he still had the gist of it). Basically, I said "I'm conservative, I'm Republican, and I'm a school psychologist--any other school psychologists here? (laughter)" and "Ever since I was a 16 year old Republican precinct captain in Chicago, I've been used to bucking the system in order to make the right choices."

While the outcome of this convention was certainly a disappointment to me, I personally will move on. I may not work personally for the Bachmann campaign for the reasons stated here (at the very least, she has some serious fence mending to do with myself and a lot of the other delegates I talked with).

However, I will work hard for other Republican Candidates.

I did tell Esmay that I would wholeheartedly support him on any future political endeavors upon which he would decide to embark.

He and others like him are the future of the Republican Party. Of that I have no doubt.


Onward and upward.


***UPDATE****

Marty has this information:

So what happened at the convention?

Y'all are going to love this, I heard it first from a friend of mine who works at the capital, then I got confirmation just now from some people at the convention. Bachmann had loaded other delegations with some of their people. So on the first ballot, Bachmann's people vote for Esmay or Krinkie or Knoblach, then on the second ballot they vote for Bachmann, creating the illusion of momentum. Thus, on the third ballot people decide to join the winning team and Bachmann gets the endorsement. Realpolitik? Machiavellian? Sure, but why not? (Okay, Realpolitik is probably the wrong word, but close enough.)

I'm sure that Marty's choice of words in describing this are meant toungue-in-cheek.. but the Bachmann camp's need to manipulate and obfuscate vs. being above board led me to this final observation and response to his post:

"How about manipulation? How about political sleight of hand?

Why couldn't she do things above board? Why the need for obfuscation, especially with fellow Republicans.

Question: If Michelle feels the need to pull disingenuous, sleight of hand games with Republican delegates, isn't there a pretty decent possiblity that she isn't all she seems with regard to her conservative rhetoric? Will she pull a left-shift move to center now that she has received the endorsement?"

If Michelle Bachmann feels she needs to obfuscate and perform sleight-of-hand with republican delegates in order to win, then what is to keep her from performing sleight of hand and obfuscation with regard to her campaign promises? If she can't be above board with her own delegates, who's to say whether she will be above board and true to her conservative rhetoric?

Will the real Michelle Bachmann, please stand up?


(Filed under elections)