- See comments regarding two compelling issues not directly addressed in the proposed platform below
As this is written the 2020 Republican Party of Iowa (RPI) state convention is about to convene. I was without delegate status this year because I chaired a precinct caucus not my own at the request of the local Chair due to the shortage of operatives. So while I attended the caucuses I was in effect disqualified from delegate status (I really presume it was a misunderstanding and not the intent) because I was not in my own caucus even though the tables were in the same room. So be it, rules are rules.
I attended the county and district conventions as an observer and facilitated platform resolutions going into the caucuses (see V’PAC postings from the period) including a successful amendment to the platform at the later by circulating the appropriate paperwork and arguments. That is how I know at least one of the matters I refer to herein was addressed downstream. Making the trip to Des Moines with Biden gas costs, food costs in part driven by farm acreage devoted to inefficient ethanol production, the ugliness of wind farms along the way and other factors — weighed more heavily than the practicality of helping organize appropriate amendments (to a pretty could state platform) in the face of the frustrating by design amendment process.
With todays technology and appropriate discipline there is no reason the platforms with amendments (including district conventions) could not be essentially settled (with improved timeliness) as to content prior to the conventions. The conventions could then be more reliably structured as to time allowing more for presentations by candidates for party office and winners of the concluded primaries. The overall process should still be representative and disciplined.
Platform development is what makes the caucus system unique, truly grassroots. Without that feature the caucuses are just a clumsy primary in Presidential years because the other feature, election of county central committee is actually emphasized as a perfunctory function of electioneering activities focused on the general election — volunteer efforts from people who could volunteer anyway.
Hopefully others a little more conveniently positioned will take up the cause this morning on these and any other appropriate amendments. Here are a couple of things I think heavy on the minds of the rank and file that should be addressed.
- There ought to be a resolution calling for investigation into what most Republicans believe (in increasing numbers due to the documentary 2000 mules) was the fraud of the 2020 election.
- There ought to be a resolution better emphasizing the scandal of Zuckerberg money in Iowa
- I find it hard to believe that something akin to these did not come up through the process.
- Obscure or unpointed “going forward” resolutions do not do justice to the harm caused or the guilty or censurable regarding the above matters.
- The platform is replete with matters actually already past business so that is not an excuse. The matters deserve attention.
The BIG question I have is why have the powers that be sh*t-canned specifically addressing the fraudulent acts affecting the electoral college in the 2020 election at least calling for investigations and the issue of the influence CTCL — the Zuckerberg money scandal. Why is the platform so shy on those matters? OK I think I know why — could it be because Iowa’s Republican federal delegation rubber-stamped the election without even calling for hearings while accepting the Biden residency in spite of extensive evidence, gargantuan anomalies, and profound questions without raising them whether or not they felt compelled to do the rubber-stamping? The ruination we are facing started without a whimper or a constitutional fight from them at that key time.
While the Republican chief election officer Paul Pate has implemented some important election security features (fine, praise him for that) not addressed is that Pate encouraged counties to apply for grants from CTCL knowing or incredibly indifferent to the pedigree of the grantors. The grants were obviously a Democrat GOTV effort under color of official county activity, amplified by tax money, and freeing up Democrat resources for the worst they could perpetuate.
One quick aside, I believe the platform is generally good, even profound in some areas but the idea of not being more pointed is a weakness, the sort of thing that helps make platforms dismissible as exercises in platitude writing. The proposal has (actually longstanding over the years as approved) hornbook conservative proscriptions “against distortions of the free market through subsidies bailouts and mandates” [See Commerce at (1)]. Also one stating , “oppose all government mandates and efforts associated with alleged man-made global warming or climate change” [See Commerce at (4)] And what do the Republican powers that be in and out of Iowa do about this — propose and vote for mandates for ethanol marketing, tax breaks for E15, tax favors for wind (which according to the main owner of such makes no sense other than for the subsidies and green mandates).
If the platform is not more pointed, more demanding “incentivizing” through the party process, the party is easily ignored and the “do nothing” disgust held by many toward it sticks.One might at a close reading offer that Government @17 covers “Zuckerberg money” — First of all how pathetic a rendering but even at that if it is intended to cover it, it is mistakingly written. The rendering “private interference in US elections” ought not be an issue. People privately, publicly advocating that is not “interference’ that is what elections are about. Zuckerberg can spend all he wants doing his own thing “interfering” as a PAC or 501 -C-4 or C-3 or however. It is inducing officials and offices to do his bidding that is the issue. Receiving and executing such grants through neutral public offices is the issue.
This post may be revised or extended as the day goes on
