{"id":7408,"date":"2012-03-18T15:21:36","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T22:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=7408"},"modified":"2012-03-18T15:21:36","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T22:21:36","slug":"gop-misery-in-missouri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/18\/gop-misery-in-missouri\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Misery in Missouri"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019ve been watching the Republican Party campaign clown show with a growing sense of amazement that any group could be so thoroughly disorganized.&#160; The largest caucus in Missouri will have no representation at the Republican convention, because the Republican Party of Missouri could not bring the caucus to order.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"18missouri3\" border=\"0\" alt=\"18missouri3\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/18missouri3.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"210\" \/>Voters here in St. Charles County did not get a say on Saturday in who will be the next Republican presidential nominee after a disorderly caucus caused organizers to adjourn before delegates were selected<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The unrest began as the caucus at Francis Howell North High School was called to order <strong>more than a hour late<\/strong>, then delayed again when a member of the crowd refused to put away a video camera, as required by the rules outlined by the local Republican Party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople attended the meeting with an agenda,\u201d said Eugene Dokes, chairman of the St. Charles County Republican Central Committee. \u201cWhen that happens, it\u2019s really hard to accept the authority of the room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Members of crowd began shouting, \u201cWe make the rules!\u201d among other chants as organizers tried to regain control, which they did briefly. But the shouting quickly escalated when it came time to appoint a chair of the caucus.<\/p>\n<p>The police were called in, and two people were arrested on trespassing charges after being asked to leave when the meeting was then called to an early close.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe police officers were worried about people\u2019s safety and asked us to shut it down,\u201d the event coordinator for the caucus, Bryan Spencer, said.<\/p>\n<p>But some supporters of Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, who said they previously worked out a deal to nominate someone to chair the caucus, claimed that organizers broke procedural rules and that Mr. Dokes was \u201crailroading the caucus\u201d by closing nominations for the chair too quickly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>St. Charles was supposed to select the most delegates of any single caucus in the state<\/strong>, and turnout was much higher than expected\u2026 [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com\/2012\/03\/17\/disruption-closes-a-missouri-caucus-before-vote\/\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Here\u2019s the video.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I9__0im5kQk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">If this was the only example of Republican incompetence, it might be excusable, but in state after state, the Republican Party has repeatedly demonstrated, beyond contention, that they are not fit to run a caucus or primary, let alone the United States.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been watching the Republican Party campaign clown show with a growing sense of amazement that any group could be so thoroughly disorganized.&#160; The largest caucus in Missouri will have no representation at the Republican convention, because the Republican Party of Missouri could not bring the caucus to order. Voters here in St. Charles County <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/18\/gop-misery-in-missouri\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}