Republican National Committeeman from California, is a well known fixture here at the FlashReport. He’s already in Tampa in advance of next week’s Republican National Convention, and will be “live-blogging” from on the ground… Here’s his third update from Florida. This should have been posted last night, but I got distracted. My apologies to Mr. Steel.
Yesterday morning began with a bang at 7:30 am with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie whipping up the large California delegation into a frenzy! He fired bromides against President Obama, Jerry Brown, Liberals, Democrats and other freaks of nature — and Christie was as entertaining as ever.
Christie told a great story about being invited to a White House ceremony once — as he approached his reserved seat, he noticed that it was occupied by none other than Barbara Streisand. The Marine Corpsman who was escorting the Governor to his seat saw Streisand’s affront. The Governor stopped, not wanting to create a sensation. However, the marine instructed Christie he would take care of the matter. He strode over the Streisand and touched her on the shoulder, politely explained that she was sitting in Governor Christie’s chair and that she would have to move on. Christie said that moment was one of the best of his life. The crowd roared!
Hours later the great RNC power grab mushroomed like an atomic bomb among the 168 RNC Members. A minority report was issued condemning a dramatic role change. The change would have taken away the power of the state parties to say how delegates are selected in their states for Presidential nominations. The change would have given election winners a “veto” over potential delegates. No one remembers a role like this before that would give a presidential nominee such an obnoxious amount of power.
Conservative Members began endorsing a minority report –to take this fight to the floor — a public floor fight didn’t appeal to the Romney forces.
Below is some of the language that both sides agreed to thus preventing what could have been an ugly turn of events for the future of the RNC…
Subject: Resolution of Controversy regarding Rule 15/16
“To the Members of the Republican National Committee and the Convention Committee on Rules:
The undersigned are very pleased to announce that the leadership of the Republican National Committee and the Romney for President campaign has heard the concerns of the conservative grassroots voices in our party and has crafted an amendment to the Rules adopted on Friday to address these concerns.
At the same time, the revised language closes a loophole in our party rules, which previously failed to include a penalty for delegates who break their promise to vote for a particular Presidential candidate as required by state law or state party rules.
We are pleased that our party has come together to fashion this compromise. This will allow Republicans of all stripes to come to the Convention united and focused on defeating Barack Obama in November.”
With every member of the conservative coalition and all other Republicans are passionate about defeating incumbent Pres.—sideshows which reveal deep philosophical fissures are dangerous .
Fortunately cooler minds prevailed and today we will have many exciting speeches with hardly a bleep coming from the floor.”