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6/16/2002
THE
REPUBLICAN LIBERTY CAUCUS OF TEXAS eNEWSLETTER
IN THIS ISSUE:
Republican
Liberty Caucus of Texas Successfully Represented at Texas GOP Convention!
Report Authors:
Eric Dondero, John Reed, Richard Relph, and Don Zimmerman
June
7-8, 2002 - Dallas, Texas
We
had a successful Recruitment Booth at the GOP Convention in Dallas! (In
addition to our Booth, we also had an exciting "Friday
Evening Reception", with Ron Paul, June 7th.)
 Over
the weekend of June 6, 7 and 8, the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas was
well represented at the Texas GOP Convention in Dallas. This Texas
Republican Convention is the largest State GOP event in the country.
This year over 10,000 delegates and guests were in attendance.
Please CLICK HERE
to view a small excerpt of streaming video of our Booth at the convention,
followed by a talk from Congressman Ron Paul, at our Reception Friday evening.
The
Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas sponsored a booth at the convention.
About 10 RLC activists from around the State staffed the booth at various
times. Among them were Don Zimmerman (RLC of Texas Field Director), John
Reed (RLC of Texas Treasurer), Richard Relph (RLC of Texas Advisor), Mike
Holmes (RLC of Texas Advisor), Lonnie Brantley (RLC of Texas Executive
Director), Eric Dondero (RLC of Texas Founder), Rex Lamb (Young Republican
SREC Liaison), Tammi Kannar (RLC of Texas Legal Counsel), Gordon Summitt
(Chairman, Dallas Metro RLC),
and Rob Booth (RLC of Texas Advisor).
Don Zimmerman, RLC of Texas Field Director and NW Austin MUD #1 Board Member,
did a great job of planning and coordinating our recruiting booth at the state
GOP Convention. Don held planning meetings and drills to prepare for
this event months in advance. His talents and planning paid off. As a result, the RLC was guaranteed the best location of all,
right at the entrance to the delegate area.
From the start, the booth was swamped. Delegates and other Republicans
mobbed the booth in search of clipboards with Political quizzes. Among
hordes of think tanks, conservative groups and vendors, the RLC easily had the
most popular booth at the convention. At any given moment there would be
on average 10 to 15 interested individuals around the booth, inquiring about
the RLC (or Ron Paul), and discussing the benefits of creating a Grass-roots
network of Republicans looking for and helping out in campaigns to get more
Ron Paul type Republicans in office at all levels in Texas.
Eric Dondero, RLC Founder, took a red marker and wrote in the names of some
prominent politicians in the areas of the chart where they would likely
fall. This included conservatives; George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jack
Kemp; social conservatives, Dan Quayle and Pat Robertson, authoritarian
conservatives; Pat Buchanan and Bill Bennett, liberals; Kennedy, Clinton(s),
Gore and Gephardt; liberal-authoritarian; Jessie Jackson, Centrists; Colin
Powell, John McCain and Ross Perot and "moderate" libertarians;
Milton Friedman, Jeb Bush, Jessie Ventura, Steve Forbes and Barry Goldwater.
Rush Limbaugh straddeled the hardcore libertarian-conservative line.
This tactic proved to be a huge success. The vast majority of people
were absolutely thrilled with the location they ended up with and their
company.
 In
addition, for most attendees, it was the first time they had seen political ideology as a
two-dimensional space instead of the usual one-dimensional left/right line.
One could see many quiz-taker's eyes light up as they realized that there was not only the left-right axis,
but also the axis of how much authority government should exercise. We're sure many, many attendees will be thinking and talking about this for
quite a while.
Here are the results from
World's Smallest Political Quiz Event* at the GOP Convention, 6/6/2002 -
6/8/2002:
COMBINED
TOTAL SCORES FOR REPUBLICAN MEN AND WOMEN:
| Libertarian |
Conservative |
Centrist |
Liberal |
Authoritarian |
| 33.4% |
43.3% |
16.8% |
2.2% |
4.3% |
Note: 473 Republican
Delegates and other visitors took the Political quiz.
473 Republican Delegates and other visitors, to our booth, were recorded on
the Nolan Chart. Not all visitors that took the quiz were
recorded. Many left with their quiz before getting recorded. So
the actual numbers of individuals that took the quiz could be closer to 550 or
600.
 Overall the results were not at all surprising for a Republican
Convention. About 43% of the dots ended up being in the Conservative
quadrant, 33% in the Libertarian sphere, 17% Centrist and 6% Liberal and
Authoritarian. Most Conservatives ended
end up near Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, Kemp and the more Centrist George W. (40%
on Personal Freedom and 80% Economic
Freedom). Another very popular area seemed to be Limbaugh territory
(50% on
Personal Freedom and 90% or 100% on Economic Freedom).
The
most popular Libertarian area was Barry Goldwater/Steve Forbes/Jeb Bush
Country (about 60% or 70% on Personal Freedom and 90% to 100% Economic
Freedom). Though, over 50% of the libertarian-Republicans ended up
being Strong Libertarians (80% to 100% on Personal Freedom and 80% to 100%
on Economics Freedom). Interestingly, a good number of these
individuals admitted to being former members of the Libertarian Party who had
found their way over the years to the GOP. Naturally we attempted to
sign them up on the spot.
There
were some very interesting outcomes with the quiz. We used some
variations. Don Zimmerman hit on the idea of using orange dots to plot
MEN and green for WOMEN. We noticed that their was a slight
tendency for a women to score a little more conservative and authoritarian
than the men, and the men tended to score slightly more libertarian than the
women. Only men scored in the very high
Libertarian area (100% on Personal Freedom and 100% on Economic Freedom).
WOMEN:
| Libertarian |
Conservative |
Centrist |
Liberal |
Authoritarian |
| 27.0% |
46.9% |
14.5% |
2.2% |
9.5% |
MEN:
| Libertarian |
Conservative |
Centrist |
Liberal |
Authoritarian |
| 36.1% |
41.8% |
17.7% |
2.2% |
2.1% |
Another unexplainable dichotomy resulted in more men scoring as Perfect
Conservatives (0% Personal Freedom, 100% Economics Freedom).
Thankfully, not a single person scored in the Perfect or even very low
Authoritarian area (0% Personal Freedom, 0% Economics Freedom). Though
one lone male individual scored a 30%/30% which made for some very interesting
comments from the rest of the delegates along the lines of, "this person
does not deserve to be called an American." About 12 people, mostly
women, scored in the authoritarian-liberal area next to
Hillary Clinton and Dick Gephardt. This provoked even more interesting
comments from other delegates and lots of ribbing from their friends.
Also notable, three Republicans scored in the libertarian-liberal area; one of
these individuals confessed to being a
great fan of Jessie Ventura, P.J. O'Rourke and William Weld. No one had
a Perfect Liberal score. The Centrist category was packed though, mostly towards the right.
By Saturday delegates and guests were regularly coming up to the booth
excitedly asking, "is this the place where you take the test?"
Just about everyone was extremely pleased with where they ended up.
Arguments about placement were few and far between. Most smiled upon
hearing their score and seeing their dot plotted and commented, "Yup,
that's exactly what I thought."
Ron Paul also stopped by the booth at one point and was mobbed by delegates. He took a picture standing with the
RLCers.
The bottom line; the Convention was a smashing success from the outreach
standpoint. The RLC of Texas Treasurer, John Reed, reports that nearly
30 new memberships were collected, and another 100 or so names have been added
to our mailing
list. Of course, EVERY single name and/or membership was collected of
those who scored in the Libertarian quadrant or in the Libertarian/Conservative
border.
 We're
excited about the potential for the pro-Liberty/Ron Paul movement to help the
GOP get back to it's Barry Goldwater
days. We'd like to see this type of RLC representation in every GOP
Convention in every state. We need to keep building our grass-roots
network of Republicans that want to get more Ron Paul style Republicans into
office. To describe this movement, we've coined the phrase, "I'm a
'Ron Paul' Republican!" In fact, thanks to Don Zimmerman, we were
passing out stickers at the convention that said just that. We're
excited about our future and we'd like to see our country start moving in the
right direction. Currently the only hope for that is to get more Ron
Pauls in office. To emphasize this
point, here is an excerpt from our "PURPOSE" Section:
"...while
rolling back decades of government "nannyism" will require a great
deal of public education and grassroots lobbying, the most important means
of changing public policy is to change public officials. Therefore, the Republican
Liberty Caucus of Texas works
to elect pro-liberty Republicans to offices at all levels,
partisan and non-partisan, in both primary and general elections."
*Note - The Advocates for Self-Government's "World's Smallest Political
Quiz" was very useful in our outreach at the Texas GOP Convention; they
deserve a large amount of credit for our success. Take the "World's Smallest Political
Quiz" for yourself: http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
.
Our Purpose:
After decades of New Deal and Great Society social activism ... combined with the rapid decline in civics and American history education in our government-run public schools ... mixed with a growing population of ill-informed and apathetic voters ...
government at every level in this country continues to be
too big, too intrusive and too expensive.
Founded in 1990, the Republican Liberty Caucus of
Texas works to advance the principles of limited government, individual
liberty and free markets within the Republican Party and throughout
Texas. Our focus is on a broad range of issues, including education, taxation, property
rights, gun rights, free speech, federalism and the proper role of government.
In
addition to giving disenfranchised smaller-government Republicans a home by
creating incentive to stay in our party, the Republican Liberty Caucus of
Texas helps avoid a potential exodus to Libertarian,
Constitutional, and other third parties, which would end up weakening our
thin margin over the Democrats, thus opening the door to big-government
victories from leftist candidates. The Republican Liberty Caucus
of
Texas is proud to promote the GOP's smaller-government message. Our limited government, individual
liberty and free market ideas will win by inclusion. There is
strength in numbers.
While rolling back decades of government "nannyism" will require a great deal of public education and grassroots lobbying, the most important means of changing public policy is to change public officials. Therefore, the
Republican Liberty Caucus of
Texas works to elect
pro-liberty Republicans to offices at all levels, partisan and non-partisan, in both primary and general
elections.
The Republican Liberty Caucus of
Texas is committed
not to just electing more Republicans ... but better ones, as well.
COMMITTEE:
Chairman:
Mr. Jerry Patterson
jerry@rlctexas.net
Executive Director:
Mr. Lonnie Brantley
lbrantley@rlctexas.net
Vice Chairman:
Ms. Linda Thomas
lthomas@rlctexas.net
Secretary:
Mr David Palmquist
dpalmquist@rlctexas.net
Treasurer:
Mr. John Reed
jreed@rlctexas.net
Become a dues paying member:
-
Option
A:
Join online via our Secure
PayPalŠ Connection:
Secure Online Membership Section
-
Option
B:
Write $25 check out to:
The Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas
Mail to:
Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas
201 W. Stassney Lane 181-B
Austin, TX 78745
To Subscribe to this eNewsletter send a blank email to:
RLCTX-Announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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