It was an exciting weekend in Harrisonburg for the 2016 RPV Quadrennial Convention. There was a little bit of everything at this one. There was parliamentary maneuvering, floor fights, second ballots, a roll call vote for National Convention Delegates, and a razor thin contest for National Committeewoman.
DAY 1
The fireworks began on Friday afternoon. Before the start of the convention the Haley campaign was passing out signs printed with the names of Trump and Cruz on them, with “Yes” on one side and “No” on the other. These signs are used during conventions to inform supporters how the campaign wants them to vote during parliamentary motions. These signs were being held by Haley supporters in an attempt to convince delegates supporting Trump and Cruz to vote the way the Haley campaign wanted them to. The problem was that these signs were not authorized by either the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Representatives from both the Trump and Cruz campaigns took to the stage to state that these signs were not authorized and were illegal, and called for them all to be turned in.
When the convention was called to order, the Haley campaign made a number of challenges to the rules, as well as trying to get a supporter elected as Chairman of the convention. All of these efforts failed. Three specific convention rules were challenged that mainly had to do with the National Delegate race. One of the rules had to do with the list of candidates presented by the Nominations Committee. All challenges to the rules were defeated except for a minor amendment calling for the candidates for national delegate to be listed along with the Presidential candidate they would support on a 2nd ballot in Cleveland.
During this debate, however, the Haley campaign forgot to challenge the specific rule that kept withdrawn candidates from having their names included on the ballot, and that rule was adopted by the convention. When they realized their mistake they tried to reconsider the rules, but that motion was defeated. The only avenue left for Vince to get on the ballot at that point would be if two-thirds of the convention delegates on Saturday voted to allow his nomination to be made from the floor.
With the debate over the rules finished and the rules finally adopted the convention recessed until Saturday, and delegates headed out to hospitality suites and receptions.
DAY 2
On Saturday the convention was called to order around 11:00 AM. There were numerous speeches given by candidates for statewide office next year as well as some videos attacking Hillary Clinton to keep the early arriving delegates occupied so that people driving from farther out would have the chance to arrive before any voting for candidates took place. Voting was scheduled not to start before 1:30 PM.
When it came time for the Nominations Committee report for candidates for the offices of RPV Chairman, National Committeeman, and National Committeewoman, the committee reported the following qualified candidates:
RPV Chairman:Â John Whitbeck
National Committeeman:Â Morton Blackwell and Michael Nelson
National Committeewoman: Suzanne Obenshain, Cynthia Dunbar, and Audrey Dutton
At this point the Haley campaign decided against making the attempt to nominate Vince from the floor, and John Whitbeck was re-elected as RPV Chairman without a challenge.
Next came the speeches.
John Whitbeck calls for party unity
Morton Blackwell for National Committeeman
Suzanne Obenshain for National Committeewoman
Cynthia Dunbar for National Committeewoman
Nobody spoke on behalf of Michael Nelson, and I missed getting a picture of Audrey Dutton, who didn’t actively campaign but gave a good speech that was well received.
While the balloting was taking place for National Committeeman and National Committeewoman, the Trump and Cruz campaigns were busy working with the Convention Committee to work out a satisfactory way to count the votes for the slate of National Delegates. The Cruz campaign was supporting the slate produced by the Nominations Committee, while the Trump campaign was preparing a slate of their own. If the slate proposed by the Nominations Committee was defeated, the floor would be open for competing slates of delegates to be nominated.
At this point the results were coming in for National Committeeman and National Committeewoman. Morton Blackwell was easily re-elected, but then something unexpected happened.  The results for National Committeewoman were announced and Cynthia Dunbar held a slim, 0.3% lead, however, Audrey Dutton took enough votes that nobody had a majority (at least 50% of the vote). This meant that there would have to be a second round of voting and officials scrambled to prepare a new ballot. Audrey Dutton graciously withdrew from the race to ensure that this second ballot would produce a winner.
While the counting for the second ballot was going on, the voting for the at-large National Delegate slate began. After a voice vote and a standing vote were inconclusive, the decision was made to have each unit perform a standing vote count of yeas and nays, then the Convention Secretary called the roll and each unit chairman approached the microphone and announced the results of their County or City. It reminded me of the National Conventions where they call the roll of the states. Cheers would go up in different parts of the room depending on how each unit voted.
After the roll call vote was complete, the votes were tallied and the slate was approved with 53% of the vote. Soon after these results were announced, the final tally in the National Committeewoman race were announced and Cynthia Dunbar edged out Suzanne Obenshain by a mere 100 weighted votes.
Congratulations go to John Whitbeck, Morton Blackwell, Cynthia Dunbar, and our at-large Delegates to the National Convention: Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia Thomas, Anne Gentry, Cynthia Dunbar, Matthew Hurtt, Chris Shores, Subba Kolla, Bethany Bostrom, Del. Kathy Byron, Del. Tim Hugo, Jack Salm, Ellen Nau, and Leon Benjamin. Congratulations also go to the Cruz campaign as this slate favors Cruz over Trump by 10-3.
41 comments
Indiana Wants Me
R. Dean Taylor
Indiana Wants Me, Lord, I can’t go back there.
Indiana Wants Me, Lord, I can’t go back there,
I wish I had you to talk to.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=lyrics+Indiana+wants+me
This means absolutely nothing after Tuesday night in Indiana. Cheatin Cruz will be sent home by the voters.
Maybe lawyers need to take a look at what happened much like they are in Arizona.
Cruz supporter who also happens to be the chief lobbyist for Dominion was on the naming committee which explains why Corey was left off and Tim Hugo was named.Tim Hugo and Jim Beamer are thick as thieves and Corey Stewart as PWC Chairman has stood up to Dominion’s poisoning of the water of residents on the eastern end of PWC. Hugo was quiet as a church mouse over this issue because he received $50,000 from Dominion. All these dirty, rotten tactics were on display at the convention.
Sour grapes are so unappealing.
Cheating Cruz will be chomping on them sooner than he thinks.
What dirty rotten tactics? Approximately 2500 Virginians cared enough to get themselves to this convention and participate in the process. A whole bunch of them had never been to one of these things before. Lots were for Trump. Even more were for Cruz. But no registered Republican supporting any candidate was barred from participating here as long as they filed their delegate papers before the deadline. Many people who did register as delegates did not show up in the end.
What happened at the convention was above board. When the slate came up for a vote, the Trump campaign had big signs up front and up and down the aisles reading “NO” and the Cruz campaign had big signs reading “YES.” People voted as they wanted. The votes were carefully counted and reported in full view of everyone present, county by county. It was actually a beautiful, if long, process. And if more Trump people had showed up and participated, they would have carried the day.
Corey Stewart (who probably should have been one of the 3 Trump delegates on the slate) not being named to the delegate slate is neither here nor there – the slate won. If people had agreed with the Trump campaign, it would have lost, and perhaps a slate with Corey Stewart on it would have been advanced.
Be careful of accusing people of “dirty rotten tactics,” or perhaps you want to share something about how the vote was taken that the rest of us do not know.
Don’t threaten me! I am simply stating the facts and judging by the emails I am receiving I am not in the minority.
Don’t be a coward like the rest use your real name!
Comment I am hearing which will apply to you is that the Cruz bots have lost all morality.
I don’t see any threat in what I wrote. I am just suggesting that if you accuse someone you should back it up. There is nothing “dirty rotten” about presenting a slate to the delegates that leans one way or another – it is the delegates who get to vote, and everyone in that hall knew that the Cruz team supported the slate and the Trump team opposed it. Completely above board, and if that slate had failed they would have gone to another one.
In particular, if you accuse Cruz of “cheatin’,” you should probably say what specifically it was he did that you consider to be “cheatin’.”
Still waiting what the DC Madam has to say about Cruz? Why isn’t Cruz suing the Nat Enquier if they were lying about the affairs?
Well documented shenanigans on YouTube of the dirty tactics used at the state convention.
Cruz just can’t win ethically. Cruz and his people have their fingerprints in Iowa and Hawaii lying to voters that their opponent was out of the race. The guy really is Lucifer!
This is ridiculous. Hugo was included because he was Rubio’s Virginia Campaign Chair. Corey would’ve likely been included had he not, as he always does, picked a fight with everyone.
You answered my question because you pointed out how corrupt the establishment really is. This will all come to an end pretty soon.
I have received enormous amount of emails stating I am absolutely correct about the corruption and that Ken C and the Cruz supporters are divorce of reality.
BTW which one of Tim’s staffers are you?
Yes Corey does pick fights for all the right reasons he is not a coward,because he understands his first priority are the residents of PWC not Dominion. Hugo doesn’t have the b-$&@@- to stand for anything.
Hugo was included because his GodFather at the Va General Assembly is the Chief Lobbyist for Dominion Resources Jim Beamer who served on the naming committee. Chairman Stewart was not included because he chose ethics over campaign contributions and fought in the press Dominion by standing up to Dominion in PWC over the poisoning of the residents water on the eastern end.
Hugo stood with Dominion and not the a people he is suppose to be representing.Don’t be stupid money talks in the Va General Assembly especially when Dominion Resources and that $50,000 given to Hugo in campaign contributions was payment for his silence.
Case closed go to VPAP for further info.
THE BIG LOSERS??? The people that came to participate in the process.
I disagree… the people who came to participate did participate. The majority of those people left either half happy or all happy. The process was disorganized but, in the end, all votes were counted and the people that the majority wanted were elected.
Amy there’s a bigger picture here than Cruz won the delegates. The Republican Party is already a mess. The “keep it small and keep it all” have just shown their butt yet again. As a Cruz supporter I don’t mind having more Cruz delegates than Trump, especially if we had the numbers. It’s the way things were handled and how the people felt once they left.
If you don’t want Trump to blow it up or have his supporters do that for him with these shenanigans, make better choices so everyone walks away with something. Let the fight stay in the districts. The state needs to bring folks together.
If you can’t see that then there is no hope for the future of our party.
That convention was not keeping it small and keeping it all. There were tons of people there who had never been to a convention before. Cynthia Dunbar won against a political dynasty.
As for the national delegates, whatever you may think about the process by which they were chosen, 53% of the delegates there approved the slate. They had the option of at least two other slates if they had voted down the first but they didn’t. Moreover, the vote count could not have been more transparent.
The Trump campaign’s complaints about the Virginia process are no more valid than their complaints against the process in Colorado (that they lied about). As I have said here numerous times, the primary vote in Virginia (and many other states) gets a candidate first ballot votes and that is it. Trump has no right to demand more than that nor is it “unfair” or “ignoring the will of the voters” if he doesn’t get more. He either works for more than first ballot delegates or he doesn’t.
Trump’s whining and complaining, whether he acknowledges it or not, is more him insulting the voters at conventions than it is him insulting Cruz. It is the district and state delegates that he is accusing of stealing from him and it is the national delegates that he is explicitly saying are being bought (never mind that if delegates were actually for sale, Trump would be in a far better position to buy them than Cruz is).
Yes it was Amy. You just don’t have a problem with the nominations committee breaking the deal that was promised.
fill me in on the deal?
We all went to the convention so that our chosen candidate would get as many delegates for the RNC as possible. I would have been happier with an all Cruz slate but, given the late hour, I settled for 10 of the 13. A majority of delegates were at least satisfied with that.
First off, I believe Corey Stewart should have been on that slate giving Trump 4 with Cruz at 9 and said so to the limited powers that be who tried, but obviously was unsuccessful. Now on to you my friend Waverly, who approved of and worked to support the so called “unity slate”. I guess you were in good company (sarcasm) because that’s the slate all the key players in the 7th District were for, you know the ones who are part of that new “conservative” network of people whose tag line is to take “OUR” party back. I wonder why…
First of all my dear friend (no sarcasm intended) I did not work on that slate at all. I was told by both Cruz and Trump campaigns they had a deal that all agreed on that was their “unity” slate, not mine. That is why in the rules it stated to have a slate. Secondly because the nominations committee, we now know had no intentions of keeping; broke that deal. Apparently Corey Stewart does not have many friends on that committee to include Cuccinelli (Cuccinelli was not on the committee). The removal of Corey was personal not political.
If any other group or persons agreed to that slate it was unknown to me. My position was based directly on what both camps conveyed to me and nothing else. So there :)-
“The majority” of the PEOPLE did NOT vote for Cruz…he was third. And no, Democrats did not influence this primary.
The majority of people at the convention voted for a Cruz heavy slate.
Yes they did. My point was that there is no need for a Primary if the party selects delegates who will vote for anyone that didn’t win the primary, or at least by the same proportions. And the point that most voters are not aware of it.
We participated, and we were very tired, but very happy in the end.
we almost agree. The big losers are the people who bothered to vote on March 1.
Well look a here the little peacemaker still hiding behind an alias. No nasty names for me today?? The taxpayers lost a lot of money on March 1 that’s for sure.
You don’t like it when I tell about the “deals”, remember.
OK then.
I asked you a simple question with no attitude. Not that it matters, but I’ve explained my screen name, so I’m sorry if you didn’t remember.
And prior to now, I have not been your primary “name caller”, but you have so many I understand you can’t keep them straight.
I sincerely apologize for asking you a question that maybe you can’t answer. It won’t happen again. As for a “name” for you…one hint. Starts with a “B” and ends with “itch”.
Now there’s the coward I know. I know nothing of your secret name. Furthermore, what I said before still applies. “Let the others be warned”! Send up a flag when you sprout some figs and stop hiding behind the mask.
No, you don’t know me or you would not make statements void of intelligence. But at least I understand that, in addition to a GREAT number of 7th CD folks who have told me they thought you were (and I’m paraphrasing, and being very kind here) the “problem” with the party, everything Brian S. has ever said to you is justified IMO.
And you still can’t answer a simple question. Ha. You Just resort to attempted insults because you can’t remember what you have been told. Go learn something about politics then come back and try to act like an adult, or at least a little less like you know absolutely nothing. YOU should use a screen name, seriously. Bye-Bye now.
I’m soooo crushed.
Sticks and Stones! Nana boo boo, I don’t have to tell you.
You can read it first here – the epitaph of the VRP as it is currently enabled along with the death of the clueless, self appointed conservative leadership in the state to effect any further change (not that they had accomplished much of that anyway) or for that matter hold on to such future positions among the base. For what? A delegate statement that will have no political effective at the nominating convention what so ever, as it becomes certain Trump will secure the necessary delegates prior to Cleveland, and to fight on in a lost cause that has been clear to all but the most unsophisticated and politically naive to be the case since Super Tuesday, because of a personal distaste for Donald Trump that often borders on a psychosis. The irrationality of it all is mind boggling and the open contempt displayed in the face of the popular choice of the Virginia voting base is unfathomable hubris.
Trump’s 2016 “unguided” ascent (avoided by those on this fruitless holy quest) has and will continue to lead to the spread of nationalism and secularism among many in the voting populace. The long-term impact on the GOP will be profound, reshaping it’s creed, policies, ideas, and polarizing it’s politics for a decade or more. To celebrate having abrogated any attempt at input, control or influence over that process up front by a mindless, slavish commitment to an unpopular and unelectable candidate such as Ted Cruz is unforgivable. When you look back at what this outright rejection of party responsibility will create in the months and years ahead here in Virginia you will be able to place the black bunting around this self congratulatory article and it’s ridiculous celebratory tone as the black wreath on the party’s future and opportunity for expansion and growth. If I were a Virginia Democrat I would be up voting this with unbridled glee.
Yeah. That is the only place that Cruz can win….is these catered conventions. What a rigged, crooked system. The man got 17% of the primary vote and yet emerges as “the big winner” in the convention, which is attended by only a small, political-junkie segment of the GOP rank and file. What you anti-Trump types do not realize is that Hillary is a weak and flawed candidate. Trump, with all of his bravado and blunder and bloviating, can win over disaffected Democrats, and actually win the presidency.
No Trump can’t because the Democrats that voted for him in the primaries are not disaffected. They were just trying to mess up our nomination process.
The conventions are open to every registered voter who bothered to sign up and who would be able to pledge that they support Republican ideals (closed process) vs the primaries where anyone can ask for either ballot (open process). It should tell you something that the people who bothered to pre-file and go to the convention were mostly Cruz people.
What about this?
http://m.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/trump_41_clinton_39
What you are complaining about, in essence, is that our representative republic is working exactly as it was set up to do by the founding fathers. Their concern was not falling to the mob rule of pure democracy and the election of insurgents.
I pray we have not fallen so far in character and moral dignity to allow your gilded orange toad to trash the GOP with his utter disregard for the principles the party was founded upon and built – limited government, state’s rights, adherence to the Constitution. Nothing that Trump has said or done indicates he has the least understanding of or respect for these things, likewise for his supporters. If this is what you want, we’d do better to drag some poor unknown boob in off the street and crown him/her the nominee.
Trump 41%, Clinton 39%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/trump_41_clinton_39
4 of the last 5 polls have Clinton ahead of Trump and the average has Clinton winning handily. If you are going to use these polls this far out, at least don’t cherry pick.
One is better than none, don’t you think?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_cruz_vs_clinton-4034.html
Not when even with that one, Trump is still doing worse against Hillary than Cruz is.
At least The Donald is going in the upward direction! He has just started to focus on Mrs. Cankles. I wonder what the polls will show when The Donald wins Indiana and California.
Indiana, the last nail in the Cruz/Kasich delusions of grandeur!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/in/indiana_republican_presidential_primary-5786.html