Primary Elections Concerns!

Welcome Back to Rockwater Reports,

Please allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Ed Rombach. I am an expert in Political Economy, Financial Markets, Derivatives and Monetary Fiscal Policy.

I am a regular viewer of C-SPAN, founded in 1979 by Brian Lamb, with much outstanding support from Susan Swain during the formative years. I am a concerned Citizen of the United States of America, and long standing viewer of Washington Journal program seen everyday on the C-SPAN Networks.

I have joined Rockwater Reports to share my experience about Primary and Caucus election systems using a Long Form Journalism format.

As we all know, Long Form Journalism is not available on most Social Media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, among others. Importantly, many Social Media sites are now known to engage in suppression of their users political opinions subsequent to the hard won landslide Electoral College victory of Donald Trump in 2016 that elected him President of the United States.

Conversely, Rockwater Reports supports wholesome conservative values including full freedom of speech without hate. This is why I chose to post my article “Primary Concerns” here.

My article will primarily focus on my first hand accounts and participation regarding what I experienced during the GOP Primary election process system over the past twelve years.

Back Story:

On the eve of the Election 2020 Monday Iowa Caucuses, I am reminded of my experience in some recent national elections.  In 2007 I was very unmotivated by the GOP anointed front runner presidential candidate, John McCain, but I was delighted to see an alternative in Libertarian candidate Ron Paul in his White House bid. 

Fact of the matter are that after becoming a proud supporter of our outstanding President Ronald Reagan in 1980, I just could not hold my nose and vote for George H. W. Bush in 1988. 

Conveniently, Ron Paul, a Congressman from Texas had the same view and he ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, so he got my vote back then and I registered as an Independent.

Fast forward to 2008, my daughter A.J., who was an undergraduate at Boston University, became enamored with Barack Obama when he was campaigning for president and came to speak at the BU campus.  She told me, “Pa you’ve gotta vote for Obama, because we don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president.”  I told her I thought Barack Obama was a terrific public speaker, and that he looked good in a suit, but that I didn’t care for his policy agenda.  “Well then who do you support”, she asked.  I like this 70 year old libertarian Congressman from Texas  you probably never of, Ron Paul.

A puzzled look came over her face, and I assumed that was the end of the conversation at least for a while.  A day or two later A.J. called me on the phone to say…  “You were right!  This guy Ron Paul is great!” 

Since we lived on the north shore of Boston, I suggested to her that we have a father daughter date and go on a weekend field trip to Manchester, New Hampshire on January 6, 2008,  just a couple of days before the New Hampshire Primary.  Manchester becomes a theme park for political junkies like myself during primary season, and the action on the streets did not disappoint. 

There were banners and pocket sized demonstrations on every street corner from supporters of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, and Senator Fred Thompson on the GOP side. 

SenatorHillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich were on the DNC side. Everyone was turning up the heat with the primary at hand!

Ron Paul was scheduled to address supporters at a Manchester Town Hall, because he had been excluded from a presidential debate to be held that evening at Saint Anselm College.  Accordingly, Ron Paul’s young rabble rousing supporters were full of piss and vinegar and not holding back on their fury.   I was stunned to see and hear the shear exuberance of Paul’s supporters, many of whom once considered themselves liberal Democrat’s who became disaffected with the Democrat Party and jumped ship to support Paul’s whose campaign promise to end the Iraq war resonated with them.  The Town Hall meeting was great, and A.J. took my picture with Ron Paul shaking his hand.

On the way back to the car for the two hour drive home, we ran into a large spontaneous Ron Paul demonstration at a busy intersection, which migrated a couple of blocks over to the Radisson Hotel where the media were staying, so we joined the fray, and it was more fun than I had had in a long time. 

See the alt media video links above and below of Ron Paul supporters taking the Radisson. It was a rejuvenating experience for me and it gave me high hopes that Ron Paul actually had a chance!

Beauty Contests:

To make a long story bearable, Ron Paul came in a distant 5th in the 2008 New Hampshire primary, which took the wind out of my sails and left me feeling down.   However, after a few days A.J. called me to show me something that perked me up. 

It turns out that the primaries and caucuses are nothing more than beauty contests and only determine how many delegates each contender gets, if any, for the respective Democrat or Republican conventions ahead of the general election. The Beauty Contest is even worse in the DNC where Super Delegates override the will of the voters as was done in 2016 to Bernie Sanders.  

Subsequent caucus elections held in each Congressional district determine who actually goes to the convention, and Ron Paul was recruiting people to run for delegate and alternate delegate slots with hopes of winning and then going to the convention.  Would be delegates and alternates must declare which candidate they wish to represent at the convention, but the rules stipulate that they only have to vote for that candidate on the first ballot. 

If none of the candidates get a majority of delegate votes on the first ballot, the delegates are then free to vote for some other candidate of their choice.  Since I was still registered as an Independent, I had to change my registration to Republican by a specific cut off date to participate in the delegate caucus.

2008 Primary:

The Massachusetts primary took place on February 5, 2008, with 30 district level delegates up for grabs and 10 at large delegates consisting of existing Massachusetts Republican Party leadership.  Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney took 51% of the popular vote, and John McCain garnered 41%. 

None of the other candidates including Ron Paul was able to breach the 15% popular vote threshold to pick up any delegates.  Therefore, Romney and McCain were allocated delegates proportional to the popular vote.   In late April, district level caucus elections were held to elect three actual delegates and three alternate delegates from each of the ten Congressional districts who would go to the convention in St. Paul.

I ran for a John McCain delegate slot along with two Ron Paul stealth delegates who declared for Mitt Romney and three alternate delegates.   Most people have never heard of these post primary caucus elections, and it really is inside baseball and very much off the radar. 

For example, in 2000 when George W. Bush ran for president, the 6th Congressional district where I ran as a delegate held a Republican caucus election that drew a mere 50 party hacks and activists.  By contrast, when Ron Paul’s stealth delegates showed up in 2008, they increased the caucus turnout to 93.

Everyone who is competing for a delegate slot makes a two minute speech to everyone attending the caucus to introduce themselves and make their case for why he or she should go to the convention.  Afterward, a vote is held by paper ballots and counted and the winners are announced.  I narrowly missed being elected as a delegate, but the woman who beat me, a McCain activist, liked my speech so much that she asked me to be her alternate.   I agreed and sailed through the alternate delegate election, and that’s how I became an alternate delegate at the 2008 Republican Convention, which was an eye opening experience, not to mention a lot of fun!

The 2012 Primary:

Fast forward to 2012, and Ron Paul’s supporters in Massachusetts and across the country were no longer neophytes.  They were well organized and won two out of three contests in the state wide caucus elections for delegates to the convention in Tampa, FL. 

Don’t forget that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was the Republican establishment presidential candidate and it was a major embarrassment for him to have the Ron Paul riff raff take so many delegates away from him in his home state.  I ran again as a “Liberty” delegate from the 6th Congressional district and the turnout for caucus goers rose sharply to about 250. 

Below is the speech I gave at the District 6 caucus…

Although I was technically declared as a delegate for Mitt Romney, in fact I was in Ron Paul’s corner that Primary season.

Here is how we did… 

However, the campaign managers for Romney could not let those caucus outcomes stand and took measures to thwart our efforts.

Click here to read how they screwed us…

Election 2016 and 2020:

Meanwhile, the establishment resistance to Ron Paul was only a harbinger of how the establishment would pull out all the stops to sabotage Donald Trump ever since he came down the elevator, including the complete failure of the Impeachment Hoax. 

As the old Chinese curse goes…  “May you live in interesting times!”

Rockwater Reports will be back in the future with analysis of the Caucus and Primary process corruption known to exist at The Democrats headquarters at the DNC. The cheating perpetrated by the DNC is far worse than anything the GOP has ever done.

Thanks to Kenn for adding images to my article. In the meantime, feel free to share this article with your friends, co-workers and or family. We thank you for visiting and express our sincere gratitude for doing so!

Feel free to visit me on Twitter by clicking the text links or images avatars in this news story. I and the Rockwater Reports Team look forward to sharing more Patriots Real News with you in the future!

Thank you.

Warm Regards,

Ed Rombach