Indiana Civics Lesson

I was a delegate to the 2008 IN GOP State Convention yesterday. Here’s my report.

The State GOP Convention by the numbers:

1700 - There were approximately 1700 delegates in attendance.

9 - The nine Indiana Congressional Districts ‘caucused’ in the morning then the actual State Convention met in the afternoon.

4 - All convention business was conducted in four hours.

3 - Three delegates to the national convention were elected at each congressional district caucus in the morning. Those to be considered were nominated by the chairman and no other nominations were considered. That’s because....

1 - One big rule change was magically enacted by the State Convention on SATURDAY, MAY 30TH, two days before the convention, stating that there would be no nominations for any office ‘from the floor’ of any meeting. How long has the IN State GOP been in existence? Somehow this rule is rushed through here in 2008? Why? Could it be that there were a lot of new faces at this year’s convention and those currently in charge got spooked? Holding on to power is an interesting instinct to observe.

250 - There were about 250 “Ron Paul” delegates at the State Convention.

2 - Two men ran to be the GOP nominee for Attorney General. John Costas, the mayor of Valpo, was endorsed by Gov. Daniels. Greg Zoeller, the current Deputy Attorney General and past Chief of Staff for Dan Quayle, was endorsed by current AG Steve Carter and nominated by Prosecutor Brizzi. The Ron Paul delegates were organized in support of Greg Zoeller. Zoeller won by 250 votes.

All in all, it was an interesting experience but of little value. People I have spoken with have said, “oh, yea, I did that in year X.” One time is enough because there little actual participation by the delegates other than affirming the pre-determined slates of candidates and nominees. It was interesting that the “party platform” committee gave a brief report about their arduous efforts in putting together the 2008 IN GOP Party Platform. The presenter made mention that the platform “had been distributed’ to the delegates. None of us had one or saw anyone else that had one. So, “at least 250 people” voted against the platform. We asked various seemingly official people if there was a copy but those people didn’t know where to find one. We asked at the Lt. Gov. Beck Skillman’s well-staffed booth in the lobby, no idea where to find party platform. Have any of you seen one? No. We asked at the Governor’s table. No, haven’t seen the platform. So, we voted on adopting a platform that nobody has seen, including the candidates that supposedly will be running on said platform. Wow.

The one bit of good news was that Gov. Daniels gave a good speech and assured us all that life is much better in Indiana than in Ohio, Illinois or Michigan - all because your Indiana GOP has brought 'change that works' to the State government.