Romney wins Illinois GOP Straw Poll, State Troopers called in to calm Ron Paul supporters!

[wndycty]

If you have to bring in state troopers to calm people at a PARTISAN event that is pretty severe if you ask me. The Illinois GOP is in bad shape.

A bit of heat in Republican Day at fair

By BERNARD SCHOENBURG
POLITICAL WRITER

Published Friday, August 17, 2007

-snip-
Just before state GOP chairman Andy McKenna announced the results from the podium at the Director’s Lawn at the fair, sign-carrying supporters of Paul, who has developed an Internet-driven following, traded chants with the gathered supporters of the ultimate winner.

And shortly after Thursday’s program, Republican Day at the state fair, some state troopers calmed participants in a disagreement spurred by Paul supporters waving their signs behind the heads of Craig Romney and Illinois Romney chairman Dan Rutherford, a state senator from Chenoa, during TV interviews being done away from the stage.

Despite the minor disturbance, McKenna and the Romney forces were happy with the event, even though it was less than a tenth the size of Saturday’s straw poll in Ames, Iowa, which drew more than 14,000 votes and was also won by Romney.
-snip-

http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/14406.asp

[tanyev]

1. One eyewitness claimed to have overheard Craig Romney wondering aloud

if he would be safer fighting in Iraq than working for his father's campaign.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Nobody is stopping you Craig Romney... Get your butt over there.

[Buzz Clik]

3. A staggering 922 Republicans showed up for this event.

[madrchsod]

4. what republican party?

i noticed the ron paul people working the blues fest in aurora this summer,yes these guys a definitely on a mission.

romney is the perfect republican candidate for mckenna and his crew.

[txaslftist]

5. I like Ron Paul.

I'd vote for John Edwards over him, but that's about it.

And yeah, us Ron Paul fans (like John Edwards' fans) are on a mission. A mission to save this country.

Kind of big deal with us.

[TwilightGardener]

6. That's absurd. RP is the opposite of Edwards. The two aren't

in the same universe.

[ieoeja]

7. But they're from the good part of the country. n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. Paul is originally from Pittsburgh

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000583

[txaslftist]

8. Obviously they are both in the same universe.

Or I wouldn't have them as choices.

I like them both because I think they are both honest and both have the best interest of the nation at heart (and above their own or special interests). I like them both because they both want to make the US a better place in which to live and both are very troubled by the destruction of the middle class and the working class in the US.

I don't believe the other candidates meet these criteria (and this is just an opinion of mine).

Their approaches to how to handle our present national crises are very different, certainly, and philosophically they come from very different places. But in my view they are both honest men who will absolutely do the best they can for our country. Additionally, they both have a plan for doing so that makes sense coming from their core principles.

They also both seem driven not by ambition, but by love. That goes a long way with me.

[TwilightGardener]

11. Anyone who wants to dismantle our government institutions

and protections, privatize everything and leave us to the mercy of "market forces", is not someone who has the best interests of the country at heart. Anyone who wants us to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and leave the UN and NATO is not acting in our best interests. You can have "core principles" and be dangerously wrong. Many, many examples of that in history. Remember the bridge collapse in MN? That's a Ron Paul future. Unless we want to pay expensive tolls on every "privatized" road and bridge, that is.

edit to add--in RP's world, only the rich will survive.

[txaslftist]

13. Really?

You think Ron Paul wants to "isolate" us? Because from what I've heard, he wants us to expand our economic ties with the world while withdrawing our military and stopping our interventions. You know, like the one where we toppled the democratically elected president of Iran because big oil wanted us to.

And if you think you aren't "at the mercy" of market forces now, you haven't been watching the consumer price index or the Dow this week.

Nato is currently waging a bombing campaign in Afghanistan lead by an air force general with the cheerful nickname of "Bombs Away"; targetting homes (because, after all, the Taliban live in homes, just like everyone else in the world). They are deliberately downplaying civilian casualties.

As for the bridge collapse in MN, if that were a toll road, it would have been kept up and insured by the owners. Even if it were simply a public works project, the cities around the bridge could have raised a bond to pay for its maintenance. Instead they relied on the DOT, who refused to pay for the infrastructure, despite having determined that bridge along with 7500 others in the US are in very poor shape.

You say "in RP's world, only the rich will survive..."

Just what do you think has happened for the past six years? By every measure the government has grown and the poor have grown poorer. I'd say that governmental institutions haven't been doing a bang up job of preventing that, have they?

Ron Paul's philosophy differs from that of John Edwards. John Edwards says that government can help people a lot, and should. Mr. Paul says that government doesn't have a very good track record in that regard, and maybe people should help themselves. They are both right in the respect that they place the well-being of the people first.

[TwilightGardener]

14. I stand by my comments. He's a Buchananite isolationist, a racist, and antithetical to what

Dems stand for, except for the war.

[truebrit71]

9. Um, you know he's a REPUBLICAN right?

... :shrug:

[txaslftist]

12. Joe Lieberman was a Democrat. So was Scoop Jackson.

And Zell Miller.

Sometimes the (D) or the (R) don't make a difference. Besides, Ron Paul used to be a Libertarian, too.

He's also the ONLY candidate other than Dennis Kucinich to definitively say he'll bring the troops home right away.