Storm douses delegate brawl

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- They fought hard over who would get to come to the Republican National Convention.

Now, as matters of life and death took precedence, the battle over Nevada's delegates didn't seem like such a big deal.

"There's priorities in life, and those are the safety and security of our nation," state Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, said Sunday afternoon at the St. Paul Hotel. "This is still an excellent event to be a part of, but as a nation we have to look out for each other. This is where we pull together."

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain ordered Sunday that minimal convention activities be held and that partisan political activity be curbed, in deference to Hurricane Gustav and the thousands of Gulf Coast residents fleeing the storm's approach.

Uncertainty having nothing to do with weather had surrounded Nevada's delegation to the GOP gathering long before.

It began at the state Republican convention in April, when supporters of the libertarian-minded candidate Ron Paul, a congressman from Texas, more or less took over the proceedings.

They wanted to send their people to the national convention scheduled to begin today, and they successfully proposed a change to the state convention rules that would allow anyone to run for delegate, not just a handpicked slate that was set to be proposed for an up-or-down vote.

The state party establishment hadn't planned for that contingency and there wasn't time for a complicated vote among hundreds of candidates for 31 seats in the delegation. The party abruptly and unilaterally recessed the convention, leaving the Paul supporters incensed.

The Paul supporters, meticulous students of rules and bylaws with a perhaps naive belief that they would hold sway, held their own rogue convention in late June and declared that they had elected delegates that should be recognized by the Republican National Committee.

The state GOP reconvened, but with the Paul supporters, who had made up perhaps half of the attendance at the original meeting, sitting out, a quorum couldn't be achieved.

The state party then declared it had the authority to appoint the delegation and did so in a teleconference of its executive board.

The Paul faction filed a lawsuit, which went nowhere, and a complaint with the RNC, which was a success.

The RNC ruled the delegation selection by the party invalid.

The party appealed. On Tuesday, the RNC's Committee on Contests issued a report blasting the Nevada Republicans for a "flawed, inadequate and unacceptable" delegate selection process.

The controversy sent would-be delegates' travel plans into chaos as longtime party soldiers were told that they would lose their spots.

Party insiders say the episode has been corrosive to the goodwill of the volunteers, some of them big donors, that the party relies on to stay afloat.

It wasn't until Friday that the Nevada party and the RNC agreed to a compromise delegation that includes four Paul loyalists.

One of them is Arden Osborne, a Las Vegas Web designer, who had to scramble for a plane ticket at the last minute.

He said the way things turned out restored his faith in a party of rules. "We're glad that we're being included," he said.

As all the delegates drifted in Sunday, they were met by the news that the convention they were arriving for would be radically reduced in scope. It wouldn't have been appropriate to seem disappointed, in the face of so much suffering, at the elimination of the speeches and parties that traditionally add spice to such an event.

Nevada's Republican National committeewoman, Beverly Willard of Douglas County, was arriving for her fourth national convention.

She put a good face on things, saying the change of plans would give Republicans a chance to show their compassionate side.

She said she hoped the delegation controversy would have no lasting effects on the party except to infuse it with new members.

As for the storm, she said party members were considering charitable efforts such as a possible blood drive.

"I think people are going to see we're not here to have a huge party," Willard said. "People are going to be a little surprised. We Republicans do have softer hearts than they think."

Contact political reporter Molly Ball at 387-2919 or MBall@reviewjournal.com.