Hands across the Convention

The day started and ended well.  It’s just the in-between that made you bite nails.  Steve and I attended the Walk For Life that began in the park.  He was the Send-off speaker and we had a great time visiting with many of the folks.  8 pastors were there for a great fund-raiser.  Salvation Army Chaplain Mike had a wonderful story about a small boy trapped in a high window of a burning house.  No one knew what to do until a man climbed an iron pipe up the side of the wall and rescued him.  But the pipe was so hot he burned his hand.  Moral: Love is costly.  I was reminded of the interconnectedness of Christians by all the fun we had visiting. 

Then we were off to the Republican convention in Norman.  Steve had called the day before and asked if we would still be seated as delegates if we came in late.  The answer was ‘yes’ but when we arrived Pam Pollard told us we would have to raise a point of order in the meeting and the convention would have to let us in.  Political parties have strict rules about attendance and credentials.  Otherwise you could have some outfit flash mob the place and disrupt.  We have enough controversy as it is without Occupy Norman showing up. It was nearly noon and Governor Fallin finished speaking.  The credentials report was next.  Turned out that the convention floor wasn’t in the mood to seat Steve and I and some other latecomers so we shrugged and decided to enjoy the day as spectators.  We always intend to have fun.  So we sat in the back next to Representative Dennis Johnson and Steve Fair of the Stephens county delegation.  Our Kay county folks were across the aisle.  Sitting there in the cheap seats we were continually visited by others like George Faught who is running for a bigger House—the US House seat in Eastern OK— Rep. Jason Murphy and others. 

The Ron Paul folks are very intense about his candidacy and they arrived in force far greater than the Paul vote percentage in OK's primary.  First vote was to change the rules so that the slate of delegates to the national convention would be opposed by an alternate slate drawn up by the Paulistas.  The majority of the convention opposed this by a vote of about 800 to 500.  But there were computer problems with 6 counties, who had more voting delegates than the computer screen at the front of the room showed.  Kay had 23 voters and only 22 delegates.  “Whassa deal?” I asked Lowell.  "Did we pick up a Chicago Democrat who has been out to the graveyard copying names?”  Turned out that someone in registration line had punched the “guest” button instead of  “delegate” so it was all innocent.  But the 2 big counties, Tulsa and Oklahoma had 20 or 30 folks unaccounted for.  It wouldn’t have made a difference in the vote results, but the Paul people had a fit, not willing to go down to defeat so easily.  They had to re-certify the counties by hand and that took eternity.  Steve and I were getting hungry.  We used up my two granola bars and all the candy kisses he could find in his suit coat pockets and down in the lining and what-not.  Of course that wasn’t sufficient for us two fat boys.  Dennis, who also shares this trait, told somebody that if we had a famine he intended to be the last man standing, and Steve would be second to last. 

Pam and Jeff and Matt, our fearless state party folks were trying to do their best to get things rectified, and really held up well under the threats from the floor.  So too did Mark who was the chair and the parliamentarian who really knew the rules front-to-back, but that only aggravated the Ron Paul folks.  One young guy with a full beard and long hair stood up and gave a passionate demand of why voting had to be perfect.  Good Point.  Steve said to me, “Did Jesus show up to tell us how it should be done?” I told him that that the Democrat Convention always mistakes Jesus and his disciples for Robin Hood and his merry men.  The vote was eventually upheld but by now a fist fight had broken out between two guys in the back corner and did that ever get attention of the house!  Every cell phone camera was running.  Don’t tell me Oklahoma doesn’t have cock fights.  Finally at 2:30 we had a lunch recess.  Steve said, “you can see how so many people died on the Titanic—when people get cross and start arguing.”  Fair and Johnson agreed.  I have always heard that the Republicans on  the Titanic saw the fiscal iceberg coming.  The Democrats said there was no iceberg or if there was they bitched and whined about it not being big enough.

Back from lunch at 3, we voted on the state slate.  It was another long vote, same results, and thus OK will now have a state delegation at the National Convention.  But there were all sorts of angry attempts at amendment.  The chair turned many down flat which really got some in the crowd whompin' and stompin' and mad enough to fight snakes.  They were yelling “tyrant” and similar unrepeatable things.  But we had 2 hours until the hotel had to have the rooms for weddings.  The vote on a state chairman was next.  Steve Fair was a candidate and I leaned over and said, “Now if you win, don’t be like Vaughan, here.  He danced around and got all excited at his watch party and his neighbor asked me if I’d ever seen a guy get so excited about a $38,000 a year job?  Fair was kinda biting his nails and he got a huge kick of relief out of that remark.  Well, by golly, he won.  Couldn’t have happened to a better guy, who has built the Republican party almost from nothing down in Stephens County over the last 30 years and given us good ideas to do in Kay and Osage.

With those two drop-dead necessities done, we were free to consider platform items and the Paulistas were loaded and ready.  Trouble was, we were out of time and the hotel staff was ready to set up walls for their weddings.  Platform items can be taken up at State Party meetings later, but the Ron Paul people were fit to be tied.  So the movement to adjorn was passed over a pandemonium of protests.  They poured out into the parking lot to try to convene their own “convention in exile”, vowing to elect their own slate of delegates and a platform.  Ugh. I have seen this happen with churches too.  A church is an organization with doctrines and beliefs where people disagree and sometimes vehemently.  But it is held together by a glue of shared relationships with God which spawns relationships with each other.  Same for a political party.  We have issues we believe passionately.  But we also have relationships.  If you don’t have both, you fail.  That’s why a chaotic convention is bad.  Relationships break down temporarily.  And yet we have a common goal of getting rid of Benito Obama.  I'll save my passion for that.  

So Mr. Steve got hungry and while I was watching the bedlam, he was on his iphone finding a good place to eat.  Crackerbarrel at 122^nd exit.   The word was passed and we rendezvoused there for dinner.  There we became family again, thinking about the re-election, planning our strategy and not mentioning the convention.  Things get fun again when you are with family. We don't all agree but are willing to work toward a common goal and we trust one another.

Sorry, didn’t finish the story.  The little boy was the sole survivor of the fire, and the town was trying to decide who could take him in.  Perhaps they could send him to a boys ranch where he would be free to run and play.  Or maybe to a good boarding school where he could learn.  Then suddenly at the door a man appeared, dropped to one knee and held out his arms.  The boy immediately knew who it was because the man had scars on his hands from the burning pipe.  He ran into the waiting arms.  Which is the story of us.  “But Zion said, ‘the Lord has forgotten me.’… Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the firstborn of her womb?  Yes, even these may forget, but I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.” Isaiah 49:14-16