comMITTed to Romney!

Strong Support For Romney In St. Louis Straw Poll

I spent this past Saturday and Sunday morning at the Presidential endorsing convention of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies.

My own estimate of the crowd is about 600-700 delegates from around the country.

I was fortunate to get to meet and speak with some of the leading personalities attending the event. Among them were former Majority Leader, Congressman Tom Delay (a very gracious person), the Secretary of the California Republican Assembly, Gwen Dyrud, John Putnam, State Director of the Missouri Fair Tax organization, Janet Renner, Founder of Missourians Against Illegal Immigration, a staff member from Rod Jetton’s office (who was very enthusiastic in his support for Mitt Romney), three staffers from the conservative website VANGUARD.ORG, which I understand has been around for about a year and is currently under construction and several others whose names I was not able to get.

By the way the, VANQUARD.ORG site is touted as some real competition to the liberal site and George Soros surrogate, MoveOn.org.

This weekend was the most fun that I have had at a political meeting in a long time. I entered the air-conditioned tent where they had closed circuit coverage of the speakers as well as space for the vendors and the political booths. I literally was not in the tent 60 seconds before the first of many conversations that day started. The first people I spoke with were two very well informed women from Missourians Against Illegal Immigration. They were also Tom Tancredo supporters. We quickly found out that we were very much in sync with each other on the issues. Their hot button, was, of course, the Immigration issue. What struck me was the perception of both of them that MR was not very strong on immigration. I asked them a few more questions and directed them to this site. I said that one of my more recent posts dealt with the subject and that a 30 second Romney ad that is airing in Iowa concentrated on securing the border. Their reaction was very moving. They had not realized what Romney was saying about illegals in this country and they became very elated by the fact that a top-tier candidate was carrying their banner. I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I think we just may have won two more backers.

From there, I spoke with two members of the Fair Tax organization. I told them from the outset that I was not familiar with the subject at all. So I listened and learned. We then covered a wide range of subjects and had a great time discussing various conservative positions.

As I worked my way around the tent, I spoke to person after person who ranged from respectful to enthusiastic in their reaction to my talking about MR. I was struck by the fact that no one had anything bad to say about Mitt. And believe me, that was not the case when it came to several other candidates. I realize that I am biased in MR’s favor, but I came away from the meeting with the impression that MR is widely respected within this organization.

There were several nationally noted speakers, including Tom DeLay. Speaker DeLay said that he left Congress because his indictment precluded him from holding any leadership post in the House and because he thought he could be more effective outside of Congress, under the circumstances. He said that he “spent five weeks on my knees” praying for guidance after he left Congress.

One passage of his speech that struck me was when he said that we (Republicans) don’t realize the power of the Clinton machine. Democrats believe in grassroots efforts: ringing doorbells, phone banks, etc. He said that although he believes that the best think tanks in Washington are the conservative ones, we haven’t learned to put our ideas into action. “Real people, meeting real people, grassroots organizations on the ground, rather than E-mails and mailers, getting involved down to the local level.”

On a personal note, Speaker DeLay said that “a cameraman follows me where ever I go.” He didn’t say so, but I got the impression that he was referring to “opposition research.”

He left this final thought. “Hillary Clinton has everything she needs to win. She has the money, she has the organization and she has the discipline. If we don’t get our act together, Hillary Clinton will be the next President.”

The highlight of the event, for me, was the voting. As I said in a previous post, I wanted to get a feel for the level of support for MR within the party, the people who can influence hundreds, if nor thousands of other people because of their extensive contacts.

Since I went to the meeting not as a delegate, but as an observer, I was not knowledgeable about the mechanics of the actual voting. It is my understanding the the voting went as follows.

1. Fred Thompson……43
2. Mitt Romney……….20
3. Ron Paul……………18
4. Duncan Hunter…….13
5. Tom Tancredo……..13
6. John Cox……………. 8
7. Newt Gingrich………. 4
8. Mike Huckabee……… 4
9. Tommy Thompson….. 3
10. John McCain………… 2
11. Rudy Guiliani………… 1
12. Sam Brownback…….. 1
13. Chuck Hegel…………. 0

Because their was no plurality, the voting then was thrown into what would have been known on the national level as a “brokered convention”. When I left, my understanding was that Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson were tied.

Summing up, I think it was a very educational and fun weekend. I can tell you that our candidate was very much on the minds of the people that I spoke with. One of the leaders of the convention said that he thought McCain was done. He went on to say, “Mitt Romney is one of the most persuasive candidates that I have ever known. All he needs to do is get into a room and start talking and people become Romney supporters. I wish his schedule had allowed him to be here this weekend. I would have loved to see him work this crowd.”

~~John Cronin~~

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