Day Five at the RNC 2008

The last day of the convention and the night John McCain gets the official nod from the party. I had hoped to make it downtown for the UP Whistle-stop event which was supposed to include lunch. But since I didn't make it to the Burlington Northern breakfast I missed the bus to the UP Whistle-stop lunch. Ugh. That's the problem with not staying at the hotel.

Instead of going to the events, I walked downtown for some souvineers and other merchandise. The Civic Fest is still going on and found some trinkets there. I then made my way over to Nicolett Mall looking for a place to eat. Found a Panera Bread for lunch and used the Wi-Fi to get caught up on the world.

This was picture day so we had to make our way over to a photo studio that was about 5 blocks away from the Xcel Center. This was outside of the secure area but we had no problems. Plenty of police support around there. They had moved up the time of the transportation to the Xcel Center so that we could avoid a protest that was scheduled to be done at 5:00 PM and it was expected that when that time hit (they didn't have a permit to go later) that there would be problems. None were there that we saw.

On the way down to the Xcel Center I came aware of a report by the Wall Street Journal that said in regard to Wednesday night's vote for John McCain that "Twenty delegates—from Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina and Pennsylvania—declined to cast votes." I checked with my state Republican Party Chairperson, Mark Quandahl, who said he reported our 2 Ron Paul votes to the RNC. Now, I know he didn't say over the loudspeaker that Ron Paul got 2 votes from Nebraska, but what he is saying is that he told the RNC that Nebraska had 31 for John McCain and 2 for Ron Paul. So, if that is true than the RNC is holding back some information or giving out misinformation. Not sure about that, and I don't see anything yet on the convention website for an indication of what happened with the vote.

As for McCain's acceptance speech, I have to say this was the McCain of 1990. The one that is quoted in the book Adventures in Porkland which is about the 1990 Budget Bill where George HW Bush raised our taxes AND the democrats got their increased spending too. He was against the way Washington worked then, so maybe, just maybe he's back to that idea and will change it as President. We'll see, I suppose.

Well it was a fun week. I got quite a few nasty looks from the Nebraska party regulars all during the week and I hope that the few I talked to have figured out that not all Ron Paul people are the crazy disruptive people they see on the Internet. I'm not here to take any fun away from the NEGOP, but instead re-educate some on what it means to be a conservative. I think they need to be reminded and I'll try to do that in a friendly and respectful way. I don't control the lives of other people (and will never be able to do this) so who I may associate with on our journey back to conservatism may seem "controversial", but rest assured, these people do actually believe in conservative values. I hope my fellow NEGOPs understand that. Keep reading the blog as I will update my future political activities as they come up. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment.

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