The pictures above were taken at the March 17th Jefferson County Republican caucus. They are photographs of the Missouri Republican Party's Call to Convention; however, there's a problem with that document. It's a draft version, not the
official call to convention issued by the Missouri GOP.
If you click through the photographs above, you'll notice that there are large, faded letters in the middle of each page. The "R" on the first page isn't even recognizable, but on other pages you can usually make out one to three 4" high letters of the word "DRAFT". These pages were obviously photocopied and that process obscured the "DRAFT" watermark.
Before we get to the main question--Why would a draft version of the call to convention be used?--let's recall that
in Jefferson County, as in St. Charles county, the central committee attempted to ban cameras and recording devices.
As you can see in that sign--making some allowance for the spelling of "electronic"--cameras were prohibited. Perhaps part of the reason for prohibiting cameras was because the organizers did not want anyone to know that they were using a draft call to convention.
So, why use a draft call to convention?
The draft document used in Jefferson County included language that would bind the caucus's delegation to the results of Missouri's February presidential preference primary (
paragraphs 3 thru 5). However, the final and official call to convention includes the following language instead of those three paragraphs and specifically precludes the binding of delegates to the February caucus results:
No delegate to the Republican National Convention shall be bound by the results of any
Republican Presidential Primary held before March 6, 2012. Upon being nominated and prior to
any vote to elect national convention delegates or national convention alternate delegates, each
nominee for national convention delegate or national convention alternate delegate shall notify the
chair of the Congressional District Convention or of the State Convention, as appropriate, of the
Republican Presidential Candidate who that nominee pledges to support on the first ballot at the
Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. No nominee shall identify more than one
Republican Presidential Candidate who that nominee pledges to support if elected as a national
convention delegate or national convention alternate delegate. Prior to any vote to elect national
convention delegates or national convention alternate delegates, the chair shall announce the
Republican Presidential Candidate who each nominee will be pledged to support. National
convention delegates and national convention alternate delegates chosen at the Conventions must
pledge their support to the Republican Presidential Candidate who they identified at the
Convention at which they were elected and will be bound to cast their vote for said candidate on
the first ballot at the Republican National Convention.
It stands to reason that a draft version of the call to convention was used in an effort to bind the caucus's delegation to Rick Santorum--the winner of the February presidential preference primary. However,
Hanlon's Razor suggests an alternative explanation: incompetence. So take your pick: 1) disingenuous political maneuvering or 2) ham-handed event preparation.
More to come...
Below the "read more" link is an animation of the photographs of the draft call to convention. It runs through the pages twice. On the second iteration, the word "DRAFT" is overlaid to make the original watermark a little easier to recognize.
Posts
