Grassroot Politics

I have never ben much involved in normal political parties. I did some work in 1960 at the age of nine for Nixon but that is another story.

Yesterday I decided to do something very different and attended the Senatorial Convention for Montgomery County Texas. I have voted in the primary right before the polls closed and since they were having the party caucus right after I decided to stay and see what it was all about. There weren't many people there but since there were more than we were a located for delegates my name got put down as one of the delegates to the Senatorial convention. This was how I found myself yesterday driving up to Conroe to meet in the cafeteria of an intermediate school with almost 600 other people.

The most contentious item was the choosing of people to attend the state convention. It seems that there is a split between the old guard and the new, mostly younger conservatives. The old guard has usually chosen the delegates from among their friends and supporters. The motion on the floor was the let the 80+ precincts choose their own delegates. There was some heated discussion and a roll call vote which we lost 314-271. I was obviously on the side of giving more power to the people but I didn't realize how bad things were until the committee's selections were announced. Some precincts got 10 or more delegates and alternate while some like mine got only 1.
I guess the powers that be in Conroe see my precinct chairman as a part of the opposition which is pretty accurate since all her delegates voted for the motion to let the precincts choose.

After those fireworks things calmed down a bit. We got down to resolutions. The most popular was against gay marriage. I was wondering if this was going to be an issue and it looks like it is even though most talking heads don't think so.

The next most popular were for defunding the NEA and NPR. There were some people who thought NPR should not be defunded but no one spoke in favor of the NEA.

All resolutions were approved.