Guest Post: El Paso Ron Paul Revolutionaries in Tampa for RNC

(Editor's Note: As I mentioned previously, I extended an invitation to both Republicans and Democrats that attended their respective National Conventions to write guest posts about their experiences. This is the Republican submission.)

By: Mark Ortega

It has been close to a month since we left El Paso for Tampa Bay, Florida. The Republican National Convention was being held in late August and we didn’t let hurricane Isaac, or the fact that neither I nor my girlfriend Judy were delegates or alternates, stop us from going. The main event for us would be the Ron Paul Rally at the University of Southern Florida’s Sun Dome. At least ten thousand people were there from all over the country to hear Dr. Paul speak. It was a moving speech where he spoke of policy and also about virtue and excellence. These words are in stark contrast to what was witnessed at the GOP convention that officially started the next day.

Judy and I, although we were close to the action and had a friend on the inside, had decided to stay far away from the spectacle of the RNC after seeing how the establishment Republicans and the Romney campaign treated our delegates and our candidate. We had been planning to use the guest pass of a fellow Ron Paul supporter who was an alternate to get into the convention. Of the two Ron Paul supporting alternates from El Paso selected at the state convention he was the only one to make the trip. We spent time with him and his wife, but they are the ones who had the true convention experience. Judy and I were on vacation. This was the culmination of years of learning the political system, teaching and defending the concepts of liberty and the constitution to everyone who would listen, and working to do whatever we could to expose Ron Paul’s ideas and make him president. We spent our time in Tampa with liberty minded people that each had their own story of having their apathy cured, their political views challenged, and eventually determining they would support Ron Paul all the way to Tampa as we had.

When it came time for the actual convention is when we went on vacation and focused more on the beach and riding roller coasters. We didn’t need to be insulted and abused in person by the national Republican Party for our efforts. We heard all the stories of the convention from our friend the alternate and from the internet. We had held out hope that maybe our delegate numbers would exceed expectation or that the Republican Party would follow its own rules, but experience from around the country had shown that they wouldn’t. Even after some of his delegates from Massachusetts and Maine had been removed and replaced, Ron Paul had the plurality of delegates from the required five states to place his name into nomination. This achievement would have given him the chance to speak to the nation without having his speech vetted by the Romney campaign. The Republican National Committee ignored this. In fact they wouldn’t allow Ron Paul’s name to even be mentioned on stage during vote counts. It is clear that the national Republican Party wanted to appear unified, but their plan to silence an entire segment of their party was not the way to do it.

To add further insult to injury, rules changes were passed without amendments being entertained. One of the rules changes allows the elite of the party to change the rules between conventions. They passed a rule change with the help of a teleprompter which had the results of the voice vote already scripted for Speaker of the House John Boehner to recite. The delegation from Texas and other states were very much against the rules changes and although many tried to call a point of order, microphones were off and shouts were ignored. The Democratic National Convention had a similar occurrence when the platform was changed even though it was clear those in favor of the platform change did not have two thirds of the voice vote. If anything both conventions show that leadership in both parties want to give the people and delegates the illusion that they have a voice in the party, but when it comes down to it the votes are scripted and the outcomes are predetermined.

There are plenty more stories like this, but I don’t want to stray to far from our own experience. After Judy and I had heard about some of the things that the Ron Paul delegates were going through and the useless deception in the name of unity, we felt it was right to just ignore the convention. We didn’t try to get in and we didn’t watch many speeches on television. We felt content to spend our time exploring the beautiful city of Tampa, excluding the police state surrounding the convention downtown. Many lessons were learned from our experience at the state convention in Ft. Worth and from the stories we heard from the national convention in Tampa. Although many in the Republican Party would like to see their numbers shrink by kicking the Ron Paul supporters out, we will not leave. The local Republican Party seems glad to have us and willing to listen to our viewpoint. We will continue to work for the liberty of all Americans, not just Republicans or just Democrats. Beyond this election we will fight corruption wherever we see it.

The Ron Paul revolution has had a profound effect on this election and it will only grow stronger as the policies of the two establishment candidates get worse and worse.