An Important Aaron Russo GOP Experience For Ron Paul Organizers

August 28th, 2007 by Steve

Here’s some advice to Ron Paul activists working at the state level: Beware of your local GOP machine. Aaron Russo’s death reminded me of his experiences with the GOP machine when he lost the Nevada Republican primary to Kenny Guinn. While I can’t imagine Ron Paul supporters breaking the rules in state GOP conventions, I can easily imagine Romney, McCain or Giuliani backers doing exactly that. If you don’t believe they are capable of such behavior, simply check this out.

During the Nevada race, Russo’s campaign kicked off a bit late, catching the establishment off guard. Suddenly he was raising money and running Jack Nicholson ads across the state. Then things turned ugly. Here’s one version of what happened:

Aaron Russo was apoplectic — it seemed like a constant condition for the California carpetbagger — about what he saw as Guinn trying to buy the convention. But as the Clark County faithful convened the weekend of March 27, the Guinnites weren’t worried. They had left little to chance. Sure, a few party crazies, a few Russo rabble-rousers, would attend. But they would get their people elected as delegates to the state convention, so they could control that gathering, too. Everything was under control. Or so they thought.

On Friday night, the convention erupted into bedlam as Russo and his backers complained about a vote on a key parliamentary measure involving the seating of delegates. Guinn backers accused Russo’s adherents of pushing and shoving, even spitting.

When Guinn’s top advisers heard about the scene late that night, they were mortified. They were supposed to have had the convention wired. “When you’ve got the presumptive nominee for governor not having control of his convention, that’s pretty bad,” political consultant Billy Vassiliadis remembered.

At about 6:30 on Saturday morning, Vassiliadis’ phone rang. It was Guinn, telling him that he’d wanted to punch Russo in the mouth, he was so incensed. Vassiliadis advised Guinn not to return to the convention and forgo his speech. Guinn fretted that he would appear to be timorous, intimidated by Russo. Vassiliadis said that he would rather see news stories about Guinn not showing up than about a physical set-to between the governor-to-be and Russo or his supporters. Fifteen minutes later, Sig Rogich had joined the conversation. He immediately agreed with Vassiliadis’ assessment. Vassiliadis advised Rogich to attend in Guinn’s place to keep an eye on the proceedings.

The scene Saturday was even worse than the previous evening. Russo gave a 15-minute speech lambasting Guinn as a “counterfeit Republican” and intoned his rhyming campaign mantra: The choice was between “the status quo or Russo.”

Guinn campaign operatives marched around the convention floor, wearing Team Guinn T-shirts and hats, along with headphones. They looked like an army trying to quell a popular uprising. The Guinn delegates sat passively in rows in the back of the banquet room, waiting for orders from the floor generals. Eventually, Clark County Chairman Milton Schwartz threatened to evict Russo. After his acolytes surrounded Russo, making a human wall, Schwartz called for security.

Here’s another report of what happened:

In late March the Clark County Republican convention was the occasion for one such display. Supporters of gubernatorial candidate Aaron Russo and some other observers contend that delegates who had followed party bylaws to get elected at the precinct level were scorned by the Republican establishment. Instead, party officials chose to wink at a bogus “self-nomination” process used by operatives of gubernatorial candidate Kenny Guinn and illegally seat hundreds of Guinn partisans without credentials.

While I wasn’t there, the way I heard the story (someone please inform me if you have more accurate details) was that Russo supporters clearly outnumbered Guinn’s supporters and were dominating the convention. Anyone who has seen Ron Paul supporters at recent GOP events will be able to get the mental image pretty easily. At some point, a vote was cast to suspend the rules so that the votes could be delayed until the next day, which gave Guinn enough time to bus in paid (another familiar GOP machine tactic) delegates.

Why this happens is explained in the second article:

“That machine is very happy about the absence of strong grassroots organization in either party,” she says. “If you know that you are part of a group that can reliably benefit and achieve its interests in a situation where maybe only 34 percent of the registered voters turn out to vote, why should you change?”

In Hawkins’ view, the absence of strong organization at the grassroots in Nevada stems from the state’s unique situation.

“Nevada is going through some tremendous changes,” she says. “A lot of people are coming into the state—many of them turned off from politics and dropped out.” Also, the state’s transient population, she points out, has handicapped efforts for activists to organize their neighbors.

But the absence of grassroots organization at the base of each party also appears to result from the specific hostility of the powerful. Because political power at the grassroots would challenge the machine’s control, the growth of rank-and-file activism in either party is routinely subtly undercut.

One way this is done, Hawkins argues, is by machine efforts to discourage attention to hot political issues—and lull folks into passivity. She uses the analogy of the frog in the pot of water to describe the tendencies of voters in general. Because most people are busy earning a living, observes Hawkins, it’s only “hot” issues that will mobilize them. And in the absence of such stimuli, most will more or less ignore whatever is going on and attend to their personal livelihoods. Therefore, she says, those whose power rests to some degree on public inattention “have a tendency” to discourage anything that might get people stirred up at the grass roots—such as hot issues.

The GOP machine does not like Ron Paul or uncontrollable grassroot movements — and they control the convention process in most states. They certainly don’t like most things libertarian (or even fiscally conservative, in this case). Be prepared: The GOP machine has the means, opportunity and motivation to win using less than scrupulous methods.

Posted in Ron Paul, Alabama Politics, National Politics, Libertarian Movement




5 Responses to “An Important Aaron Russo GOP Experience For Ron Paul Organizers”

  1. Robert Milnes wrote on 08/28/07 at 11:25 pm :

    Steve, this is precisely an argument for libertarians to not feed into republican politics.

  2. Dan wrote on 08/29/07 at 12:10 am :

    I think the Paul movement has proved resilient when the GOP have attempted to exclude him from events. I would think that if this kind of thing occurred, at the very least it would shed mainstream light on the antics.

    I am NOT trying to be over-dramatic about any of this, but if this kind of thing is exposed, what you get is a martyr. “You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. “

  3. Paulitician wrote on 12/5/07 at 1:52 pm :

    Let me tell you, the Nevada County party is still trying to control things sneakily and there are some real concerns for grassroot supporters about this rule: 8.1

    ” With the opening gavel of the 2008 CCRC, the members of the CCRC shall become the registered and paid delegates to the 2008 CCRC and the previously elected officers. No Voting action shall be required for this action; however, the Political Director must certify the new list of members prior to any meeting of the CCRCC.”

    What does this mean?

  4. GordonUnleashed » Blog Archive » GOP Shot Fired at Ron Paul Revolution wrote on 12/6/07 at 1:25 pm :

    […] August, I wrote the following: Here’s some advice to Ron Paul activists working at the state level: Beware of your local GOP […]

  5. Third Party Watch » Blog Archive » Ron Paul vs. the Nevada Political Machine wrote on 04/28/08 at 4:26 pm :

    […] For some additional insight into how the Nevada GOP machine has treated libertarian-minded candidates (in this case, it was Aaron Russo’s failed gubernatorial bid), you may wish to read this article. […]

TrackBack URI

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

« Older entry Newer entry »