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By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Colene and Russell Johnson of Santa Rosa will spend this week in Florida, staying at a resort on the sugar-white sand of St. Pete Beach.
Pat Krueger is one of the six delegates from the North Bay headed to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. (Christopher Chung / PD)
But they and about 750 other Californians making the same trip will have scant time for strolling the beach ranked No. 1 by Travelers’ Choice this year or dipping into the Gulf of Mexico’s clear, 84-degree water — even if tropical storm cooperates by moving to the west.
Their energy and interest will be focused on an upscale hockey arena 30 miles away in Tampa, site of the 40th Republican National Convention at the 670,000-square-foot Tampa Bay Times Forum.
The Johnsons and the rest of the California delegation, joining a flock of more than 4,400 GOP delegates and alternates, will bask not in the sun but in the rhetoric of some three dozen convention speakers, including Republican luminaries like Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Isaac also will intrude on their time in the Sunshine State — it already has forced a postponement of the first day of convention business — but one thing is virtually certain: Mitt Romney will close the four-day convention Thursday night with his acceptance speech as the Republican presidential nominee.
“There’s no question he has the nomination,” said alternate delegate Russell Johnson, 62, a retired Hewlett-Packard engineer who runs a venture capital firm.
“I think you could put money on it,” said delegate Pat Krueger of St. Helena, who ran unsuccessfully for the state Assembly seat representing Santa Rosa in 2004.
There might be a ripple of support for Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas libertarian and three-time presidential candidate, but far too small to keep Romney and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan from securing the nominations by delegate vote on Monday, local delegates said.
Political conventions since the 1980s have been tightly scripted events, deliberately lacking in drama and meant to catapult the nominees into the fall campaign.
But that doesn’t stem the enthusiasm of the Republican faithful heading for Tampa.
“I think the wind is at Mitt Romney’s back,” said Krueger, 70, a winery executive who grew up a Democrat but converted to the GOP during Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s.
“The case we’re making to the American people is for change,” said alternate delegate Kurt Hahn of Healdsburg.
Hahn, 74, a longtime Healdsburg city administrator and now chairman of Healdsburg’s hospital district board, said he backed Romney from the start of the tortuous Republican quest for a front-runner.
“He did a good job as governor of Massachusetts and a great job with the Olympics,” Hahn said.
Russell Johnson sounded what might strike some Republicans as heresy by describing Romney as a “moderate,” defining him as “somebody who knows how to make a deal.”
Appealing to the far right may pay off in the primaries, but Johnson said the race to November is governed by pragmatism.
“You’re trying to appeal to a wide enough slate of people to get elected,” he said.
Indeed, delegate Sally Zelikovsky of San Rafael, a leader of the 1,800-member Bay Area tea party group, said the vast majority of the arch-conservative faction is “absolutely united behind the (Romney-Ryan) ticket.”
Tea party adherents were once “all over the place” on their choice of president, said Zelikovsky, 51, a homemaker and former Democrat who said she gradually lost affinity for the party. “People have really come to like Mitt Romney,” she said. “They’ve had a chance to get to know him.”
Johnson, an alternate delegate, is agreeably playing second fiddle to his wife, Colene, 63, one of six North Bay delegates who will be seated among California’s 172 delegates on the convention floor.
He and Hahn will be seated separately among the state’s 169 alternates, on the main floor but behind the podium.
Krueger, who was a delegate at the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego, said she’s looking forward to meeting friends from her years in New Hampshire as a state legislator and host to politicos who trooped to the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary.
Political conventions, packed with floor speeches and social events, are “a wonderful experience,” said Krueger, who is taking her husband, Ortwin, along as a guest.
Delegates pay their own way, she noted.
When they’re not at the convention, California delegates will have a series of diversions at the TradeWinds Resort on St. Pete Beach, including a Monday breakfast with Gov. Christie and fellow delegate Meg Whitman, the Hewlett-Packard CEO who lost the 2010 governor’s race to Jerry Brown.
They and convention officials have their eyes on tropical storm Isaac, which could become a hurricane by Monday.It is not expected to hit Tampa directly, though the storm conditions will cause problems.
“I’m expecting it will rain the entire time,” Colene Johnson said.
Hahn, who bought a lightweight suit to cope with Florida’s heat and humidity, said he’ll also pick up a plastic raincoat on the way.
Political conventions now just candidates’ coronations
Once upon a time, presidential nominating conventions were gripping theater.
In 1924, hooded Ku Klux Klan members burned crosses at a rally in New Jersey during the Democratic National Convention at the Madison Square Garden in New York City Time. It took a record 103 ballots to name a candidate in that convention, marred by conflict over the Klan’s influence.
In 1968, rioting triggered by Vietnam war protests and racial tension broke out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with television cameras rolling.
This year, the TV networks are giving the Republican and Democratic conventions each a mere three hours of coverage. On Monday, CBS will air a rerun of “Hawaii Five-O” during what was supposed to be Ann Romney’s speech on opening night of GOP convention in Tampa. The party countered by moving the speech to Tuesday, when coverage is planned.
Party bosses — determined to avoid brawling like 1968 or even an intra-party skirmish like 1980 (when Ted Kennedy tried to lure delegates from President Jimmy Carter) — have sucked the drama out of the conventions.
Deal-making in smoky rooms and convention-floor revolts have been replaced by the primary election system in which delegates are bound to vote according to the primary results.
Conventions are now like watching a baseball game when you already know the score, said Brian Sobel, a Petaluma political consultant.
The multi-day meetings, with a parade of speakers before a pre-selected audience of delegates in a secure convention hall, are “choreographed to the second, with nothing left to chance,” said David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political science.
Instead of anything resembling news or entertainment, the conventions are prolonged political commercials, Sobel said.
The goal now is to give each ticket a “bounce” in approval ratings going into the fall campaign. The bounce amounts to about 5 points in the polls, McCuan said.
And it fades fast, Sobel said.
“Seven to 10 days, (the approval ratings) will slide back — that’s historical,” he said.
NBC will air a new episode of “Grimm,” about a homicide detective who battles supernatural forces, on Monday night.
Three delegates to the Republican National Convention were selected by Mitt Romney’s campaign from each California congressional district. Representing the 5th Congressional District are:
Colene Johnson, 63, Santa Rosa
Pat Krueger, 70, St. Helena
Janet Kirtlink, 71, Napa
Alternate delegates: Russell Johnson, Kim Graves, David Gaw
Representing the 2nd Congressional District are:
Sally Zelikovsky, 51, San Rafael
Kevin Krick, 42, Fairfax
Sashi McEntee, 38, Mill Valley
Alternate delegates: Kurt Hahn, Matthew Eshoo, Marie Derr
FOUR DAYS IN FLORIDA
The 40th Republican National Convention runs from Monday-Thursday at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa, Fla.
California’s delegation numbers about 750, including 172 delegates, 169 alternate delegates, guests and sponsors.
Fifty states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories are sending 2,286 delegates and 2,125 alternates, with about 15,000 media representatives registered to cover the event.
Delegates will vote by roll call on Monday to nominate the presidential and vice presidential candidates.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will deliver the keynote address Tuesday night.
Rep. Paul Ryan, the presumed vice presidential nominee, is Wednesday night’s closing speaker.
Mitt Romney’s speech wraps the convention Thursday night.
(You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.)
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When you don’t like the RNC, nothing they do will be acceptable, positive or constructive. I heard a piece of oce of the Obama hit pieces on Romney, “He is Mormon, they are not like us”. Really? What do you call that, the Religious card? The PD already attacked his faith headlining the fact Romney doesnt drink beer. The Mamba is on, how low can you go? Fester that hate people, it is the only thing you have left, on the left. Pitiful, sad, predictable. I guess religious attack adds are Bush’s fault. Almost 4 years and not one ounce of responsibility taken, but the SEALS got Bin Laden. Ride it for what it is worth, go Team OB.
“The G-O-P had 3+ years to find a decent Presidential candidate and plan an effective RNC yet they couldn’t even do that. How could anyone expect them to be able to fix an economy…”
In three years the Democrat leadership has PROVED it’s
incapable of dealing with the economy. Proved it is incapable of working with anything close to a budget.
How can anyone expect them to do anything right in four more years………..?
So the best the G-O-P could do for the RNC was…
Christie: Who sounded more like he was giving his first speech towards a 2016 Presidential run than endorsing Romney.
Ryan: Who even conservative media sources are having to do damage control to cover up the overwhelming blatant lies he perpetuated during his speech.
His wife: Who nobody likes and she tried to paint a man who came from a fairly wealthy family as someone who knows what it’s like to struggle because they themselves have struggled…what a joke.
Eastwood: Wow… what a total embarrassment. The giant surprise turned out to be an 82 year old rich white man babbling on about Obama incoherently like someone who just drank a bottle of scotch.
Then the Presidential candidate himself: Stiff, robotic, same crap we’ve heard for a year. He was supposed to reinvent himself in his speech though yet all he did was shore up the feelings most logical people have… once he’s on stage with Obama during a debate he’s going to have his you know what handed to him.
The G-O-P had 3+ years to find a decent Presidential candidate and plan an effective RNC yet they couldn’t even do that. How could anyone expect them to be able to fix an economy…
If you want to know the true story you’ll find it here in this article entitled:
“Okay, Folks, Let’s Put Aside Politics And Look At The Facts… [CHARTS]”
http://www.businessinsider.com/politics-economics-facts-charts-2012-6
@Mockingbird
What total nonsense.
And what a biased outlook not based in any reality.
Go Clint.
Neither party is willing to make the significant budget cuts and responsible tax increases it will take to fix the mess created by my greedy baby boom generation.
My generation wants to take, take, take, without sacrifice, and has no problem whatsoever handing the stinking mess to their children and grand children.
We are a sorry lot.
My solution has been to live well below my means and to create something to hand down to my child that will cushion the blow for her.
Kids, my generation, both Republicans and Democrats, have let you down.
At least you will have the opportunity to slash our support system as we dodder off into our old age and lose our grip on the failed house of cards we’ve created.
Clint Eastwood made our day. Great ad libs ripping apart the incompetent, failure Obama.
The people DO “own this country.” Which must be a huge disappointment to an elitist like Obama.
To all those with common sense and critical thinking skills – Celebrate success, and Choose a better future!
Michael Sheehan-I’d like a better candidate than Obama too. I voted for Hillary. But when you compare Obama IN EVERY WAY-knowledge, intelligence, experience, compassion, caring, personality, integrity, worldliness, excellent critical thinking and problem solving skills, understands complex problems quickly, does his homework, LIKES WOMEN AND DOESN’T WANT TO TAKE AWAY THEIR RIGHTS, respectful, believes ALL CITIZENS HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE, believes in the constitution and on and on-he beats out Romney and especially Ryan who has screws loose in his brain and is one scary dude. Read Ayn Rand’s non fiction and fiction and see what Ryan has planned FOR YOU.
I wish that Howard Dean, Gore or Kerry had been President too. We got C- Bush and from his administration we got a humongous deficit that Obama inherited, two expensive interminable wars, more wealth flowing up to the richest in America, more slashing of the middleclass’s security, and a great big mortgage bubble burst.
As clearly shown by the long post here, left-wingers cannot face reality and admit the truth about what a total clown Obama is.
What the hell is wrong with right-wingers? Can you people not use Google? Are you unable to craft a singular thought that maybe..just maybe you might want to question the bull spewing from the mouths of your party?
These people aren’t just bending the truth…they’re flat out making up a reality that never existed.
Last night Ryan blamed the credit downgrade on Obama …are you frigging kidding me? You’re blaming the credit downgrade on Obama when the damn rating agency, S&P, openly said it was the partisan politics played by the G-O-P that led to the downgrade.
Oh for the record the debt ceiling has nothing…not a single damn thing, to do with new spending. It’s just a legislative procedure that allows the government to pay out debts on money WE HAVE ALREADY SPENT. You can’t sign papers on a new car then a year later claim your car payment as new spending….that would be stupid and wouldn’t make any sense.
Then he came out and said that an automotive plant in his state closed due to Obama’s policies. This plant closed BEFORE Obama ever took office. Then when it closed he requested money from Obama’s stimulus bill to try and create jobs for the workers that were let go when the plant closed.
Now I wouldn’t make fun of your ignorance as much if they were discussing complex economic issues that are difficult to understand but to disprove these blatant lies all it take a simple Google search a 7 year old could make. However you people seem unable to perform even that simple of an action.
You talk about building things yourself but you can’t even form your own thoughts. You’re a bunch of puppets on tight strings with your puppet masters manipulating your every thought and movement because they know the typical right-wing voter is so brainwashed that they’ll never question even their most ridiculous statements.
Their entire platform is based on the fact they know YOU are ignorant. Liberals aren’t the only ones who think you’re blind and brainwashed ….your own damn party knows you are as well.
How else can they stand on stage with a straight face and build an entire convention based on lies so ridiculous only those who lack the ability to think for themselves would ever believe this nonsense.
I can’t even talk sensibly with most of you people. It’s impossible to hold a rational debate with people who lack the ability to even know what rational means, let alone use rational thoughts.
It’s amazing to see a party stand on a national stage and so blatantly treat their followers like complete idiots. Then the sad really hits me when I realize there are millions of people sitting at home loudly cheering when they do.
Lets see which party is responsible for our national debt – http://tinyurl.com/3rdeaac
Lets see under which party the economy does better under - http://tinyurl.com/3q87g9
Bush’s Great Recession started in 2007… so how long will it last?
The Great Depression started in 1929 under Republican Hoover and LASTED 12 YEARS until 1941. Following Japan’s December 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. will enter the war in the Pacific and in Europe. The war effort will jump-start U.S. industry and effectively end the Great Depression.
The bottom line for voters with common sense is that Obama has been a miserable failure. His only hope is to smear his opponents with distortions and lies in hope that the gullible, or feeble-minded “true believers,” buy into them.
But by any objective standards, the guy is an incompetent, a brain-washed academic with no leadership skills.
@4G:
If the PD painted an accurate picture of what the Republicans are doing at the convention, what would that be? The candidate AND the VP candidate are already chosen. All I see is puffery and attempts to make the Mittster look like a real person.
So much for civil debate. The name calling and lack of facts bantered about here has gotten worse of late, but I suppose as we near November that should be expected, yet still frustrating (at least to some).
IMHO, name calling is what one without facts or a clear argument resorts to out of frustration. The Republican Party platform, much like the Democratic Party platform hasn’t gone far from each party’s basic (and old) ideas. Frankly, each party’s platform is relatively meaningless and symbolic only. Not really a news item though a good distraction from the issues. As for Ryan’s alleged “abortion defined” bill. First of all read it before you comment, and even if the basic allegations alleged here were accurate, the reality is that given the inablility of our government to address the real issues before it, how likely are they to address that issue and agree on it. I’d be willing to wager, not at all.
As for the argument that Ryan’s medicare reform ideas are somehow born from his reading of Ann Rynd, really?? In what way, and please provide facts. Because the facts as I know them are that this bill was initially born from Ryan’s work with Alice Rivlin (D) and Ron Wyden (D) and some other members of the bowles-simpson commission set up by President Obama to address these issues, and while they were unable to agree on all issues, many, including D’s agreed on choice options (much like Congress itself enjoys) for future medicare recipients, while keeping the status quo for current or near recipients. In fact, one should read the recommendations of the bowles-simpson commission before judging Ryan’s plan.
As for all the fuss about voter id, why? I work with many poor, underserved, etc and the majority, if not all have photo id’s because they are necessary for many public aid programs, required for travel, and make it easier for them to do just about anything and everything, including obtaining general public services. So, why and how (facts please, not media soundbites) does having one to vote somehow impede that right? Again, a red herring without little real issue, only political pr for different political organizations with differing agendas. And, I love the assumption that anyone with a “conserative” opinion somehow must be getting all their information from Faux or Fox news. I guess that means everyone on the other side of the coin only gets their information from MSLD or MSNBC, right? Well, some of us don’t rely on either, but actually try and get facts from actual sources, like reading the proposed bills. If we keep educating ourselves with media driven soundbites, and keep getting distacted with non-issues, we won’t be changing much anytime soon.
“Please, WSC conservatives, defend such positions.”
Well that’s easy.
Justify killing an innocent baby because her father committed a heinous crime.
Take your time.
I’m not the one who cosponsored a bill in the House to change the definition of rape. But Paul Ryan did. Nor does my party’s platform ban all abortions, even in the case of rape. That would be the Grand Old Party’s recently enacted party platform. In other words, the party of legitimate rape. Just ask Todd Akin. Please, WSC conservatives, defend such positions.
@Jean Anderson
That was pretty much my 1st reaction too…
until I read the news today “oh boy”!
Seems that Mitt what can I do to get you into this car today Romney has managed to stifle any descent in the party.
Just like the Democrats!
His “rules change” has made the votes of any delegates NOT voting for him NULL & VOID!
“Not towing the party line? Over here please…”
CLEARLY….. the Republicans still DON’T “get it!
Perhaps 4 more years of the Socialist-in-Chief might do the trick!
It seems that Vinyl Rules’ post (while quite juvenile and inflammatory) may be more appropriate than it would appear at 1st glance!
GO OBAMA! He may ne the only “hope” for “change” in the Republican party.
4G: One piece of good news: 2016 is playing at the Boulevard Cinemas in Petaluma. Saw it last night at 6:30. Theatre was at least 60% full.
Movie was pretty good, although I thought a bit simplistic. It attributes nearly all of Obama’s failures to an anti-colonialist philosophy he acquired from his Third World background.
While largely true, the film minimizes the fact that he is also a radical-chic following, communist-mentored, Islamic-sympathetic, black impersonator with a thin outer shell of narcissistic jerk.
Jean Anderson-Vinyl Rules was absolutely spot on. If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen. Or maybe stop watching Faux No News to find out the REAL NEWS. Akin got BBQ’ed for what he said, but it’s exactly what’s on the Republicans platform-SOCIAL LEGISLATING OF OUR BEHAVIOR ACCORDING TO WHAT THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT DICTATES. And that includes no abortions at all, either for the life of the mother, or incest, or rape.
Thank you Jake Miller. Reality strikes again.
The real Republicans’ platform, besides snooping and controlling our behavior in our own homes, banning birth control and abortions (social behavior legislation IS NOT “smaller” government”), taking away minorities’, students’, the elderly, and the poor’s right to vote is to move more even more money (trickle up) to the 1%. Ryan’s love of Ayn Rand tells you that.
If you haven’t read Ayn Rand please do so, especially her non fiction. Then you’ll know what Ryan plans for our future. Ironically, Ayn was pro abortion and an atheist. She lived her later years on social security and medicare after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Ryan tends to ignore this reality from her life in his plans for our future. Remember, he’s next in line after Romney, and Romney has moved so far from his moderate history to be teetering on the cliff of fiscal disaster for the people of this country. The rich, and I mean the top 5%, will have even more of the middleclasses’ wealth and we’ll see more poverty, because that’s how Ayn Rand saw it. Ayn Rand advocated NO SOCIAL SAFETY NETS OF ANY KIND. If you are hurt and can’t work-too bad. No unemployment, no health care, no help of ANY KIND. I guess we’ll have to “soylent green” our elderly and our disabled who are incapable of working if the Republicans get their way.
@Vinyl Rules
What disgusting, idiotic, and lame comment. Grow up.
Living in Sonoma County we are deprived of a lot of information. For example, we have a one party bias press, movies such as 2016 are not in a local theater. The public employees and the local elected officials are in hip pocket of SEIU and the other public sector unions including the teachers and public safety employees.
This paper gives a very sketchy report of the Republican convention in Florida with more coverage about the beaches in Tampa than what the delegates are doing.
No wonder so many people are turned off and tuning out of left wing politics in this county.
The winners of the 2012 election will show the current administration what hasn’t been done for each and every American who is a worker, taxpayer, and generally overall those who contribute in some positive way to society.
Let me remind you, this is not a popularity contest as you have now been shown what a popularity contest has done to America the last 3+ years. This is about taking someone for their ideas and worth, then putting that plan into action for all Americans, not just the Republicans, or Democrats, or the other parties who call themselves a registered American for as specific party affiliation.
Its time to take America back, jobs back, and to help those Americans who have lost their jobs, their dignities, and how this recession has affected their lives. Members of a team contribute for a win, its time for America to stop all the name calling, TV Ads bashing the other candidate for ridiculous reason and to man up and put their best foot forward to help all those affected, and our children’s future.
What could be more important than the preservation of dreams, and hope, happieness, and caring for our families.
Please consider your vote for the Party who will help you, not the party that wants your vote for popularity, or for their lost promises the past 3+ years.
I love it when the wonderful loving non-hating, unbiased liberals make comments on the WSC. Hats off to Vinyl Rules.
GO ROMNEY AND RYAN. GO SONOMA COUNTY CONSERVATIVES!!!THE LIBERAL MARXIST TYRANNY WILL SOON BE OVER…except in SoCo of course.
I have a revised headline: “Local nincompoops travel thousands of miles to advocate for legitimate rape”
God bless the Republicans in Tampa.
May they unify and triunph.
If they win, we all win.
Where is the Occupy mob?
Fair-weather protesters, it seems.
YOU MUST SEE THIS
https://www.politify.com/election/national
Impact to Households
If the candidate’s policies were fully enacted by 2015, these are the estimated impacts to all American households, factoring in changes to taxes and federal services. These results are based on a simulation using IRS and Census data.
Change to Deficit
Using the candidate’s official budget from their campaign website, these are the expected changes to the national deficit by 2015.
Isaac is not Republican!
…remembering Super Dome….
Praying for a hurricane and an oil spill :)
Time to party, Lovie!