Texas “Winner Take All” is NOT about Romney or Santorum. It is about TEXAS

Texas MUST go to Winner Take All in order to be relevant in this Presidential Election. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain! This has nothing to do with Santorum or Romney. It is about TEXAS. Also, the RNC and DOJ cannot stop us or scare us!

I am a Santorum supporter and I am a Texas GOP SREC member in favor of an Emergency Meeting to go to Winner Take All, but it is very important to make it clear that I have been for winner take all WELL BEFORE I was a Santorum supporter. In fact, I was never in agreement with Texas being forced by the RNC last year to change from to Winner Take All to proportional. My past blog articles serve as proof that winner take all has never been about Santorum for me because I have been for Winner Take All well before I supported Santorum. My support for winner take all has always been about giving Texas a voice and making us relevant. We are the biggest Republican State in the nation and we are always overlooked! Could winner take all for Texas benefit Santorum? Sure it could. That is why the Santorum campaign is really getting on board with this and it is exciting his base. But it could also benefit Romney if he comes here and campaigns hard because with his money and network he could win Texas and get all of our delegates under winner take all. Winner take all is not about Santorum or Romney. It is about giving Texas a voice and getting candidates to recognize Texas and campaign here and have debates here.

Texas GOP SREC Members are for Winner Take All to Make Texas Relevant, Not to Help Santorum or Hurt Romney

The media is making it look like the push for winner take all is about trying to help Santorum. The truth is that Santorum supporters are not the only SREC members in favor of winner take all. In fact, the entire SREC (including Romney supporters) voted to last month to pass the resolution warning Romney to come to our debate. That is proof that this is not about Romney or Santorum. We are just tired of being ignored. This is about making Texas relevant instead of having candidates ignore us every election. A national debate can give Texas a place in the national race and it is insulting for the frontrunner Romney to reject coming to our Nationally Televised Texas Presidential Debate. Winner take all will make Texas relevant on a national level because all the candidates will want to come to TX to compete for our 155 delegates. Winner take all will shake things up and keep the race alive until Texas votes. Santorum will compete hard in Texas because he wants to keep Romney from getting 1144 delegates and force a brokered convention. Romney will want to come to Texas and campaign here to try to get our 155 delegates to help secure his bid for the nomination. This is not about Santorum or Romney. This is about Texas. Considering all the national attention we have stirred up, I think it is safe to say that it is already working!

The DOJ and RNC will not Hurt or Stop Us from going Winner Take All

In February, I proposed going back to Winner Take All but the SREC voted against it because we did not have an election date set in stone yet and there was fear that the DOJ would push our election day back even more if we tried to go back to Winner Take All. Now that our election date is set in stone, the DOJ does not worry us anymore. If we go to Winner Take All now then what do we have to fear from the DOJ? The DOJ cannot push back our election. The only thing that the DOJ can do is to say no and try to get an injunction to stop us from going to Winner Take All. What do we have to lose? I do not think the DOJ will reject it anyways because if they do reject us then that just sets us up to be able to sue them because it is CLEARLY unconstitutional to tell Texas that we cannot be Winner Take All, but at the same time they allow other states to be Winner Take All.

As far as the RNC goes, we are not worried about them either. We followed their rules and went to proportional when our election was before April. Now that our election is after April, due to liberals and a federal court unfairly pushing our election back, we should be allowed to be Winner Take All like everyone else. The RNC has no authority to punish us anyways. Only the national convention can do that. The RNC spokesman try to say that we will for sure be punished, but in reality, they cannot punish us and the only way we can be punished is if someone at the national convention objects to what we did and then the entire body would vote. I do not believe that the majority of the national convention delegates would vote to penalize Texas for going Winner Take All because any state with an April or later Primary is allowed to be Winner Take All.

Proportional is not More Fair vs. Winner Take All

If you run for city council with 2 other people do you split up the city council seat based on the percentage of the votes you get? NO. The person who gets the most votes wins the city council seat. The same thing with the Presidential race, there is no proportional “popular vote” in the Presidential race. If a candidate wins a state in the November General Election then they get all of the Electoral College delegates from that state. The same thing should apply to the Republican Nomination. The Republican candidate who wins Texas should be the candidate that the State of Texas gets behind. Otherwise we might as well throw states rights out the window and just go to a nation-wide popular vote (proportional).

We Have Nothing to Lose But Everything to Gain! Let’s go Winner Take All!

Ultimately, we have nothing to lose but everything to gain. We are completely irrelevant now as it is so no threats of penalties can make us any more irrelevant than we already are. On the other hand, we have everything to gain by taking a shot at changing our rules and possibly putting Texas in the spotlight and making us a must win state that candidates will not want to ignore. Win or lose, we should stand up for Texas and fight back against us slipping off into not ever being relevant. Our message to America should be 'Don't Mess With Texas' the race is not over, bring it on!

Urgent: Texas GOP “Winner Take All” Emergency SREC Meeting

Now it is time to take it to the next step. Now it is time to do something that we should have done a long time ago. Now is the time for Texas Republicans to have a voice and be relevant. It is time to go back to winner take all!

We need 15 members of the 62 Texas Republican Party State Republican Executive Committee members to sign a petition in order to call for an emergency meeting of the SREC to change the Texas GOP rules back to us being a Winner Take All state instead of being proportional.

We already have 15 or more members ready to sign the petition to call this emergency meeting.

Before we turn in the petition and call the meeting, we want to make sure we have enough support from all the other SREC members. Things are looking good so far! Call your SREC member and ask them to support an emergency meeting to go back to winner take all.

Once we see that we have enough support from the rest of the SREC, we will then turn in the petition and call the emergency meeting.

Texas Needs to be Winner Take All to have a Voice and be Relevant

As a member of the SREC and I have advocated for several months and written many articles advocating for Texas to go back to winner take all in order to have any kind of relevancy in the Republican Presidential race. I never wanted to go to proportional in the first place and I made it know at the SREC meeting last year when we voted to go proportional. We were forced to go to proportional though because of the RNC rules that said any state primary election before April would have to be proportion. The liberals and the federal courts have pushed our election back to well after April so now we need to go back to winner take all to be able to have a voice in this presidential race before it is over! Why should other states with April and later elections get to be winner take all and Texas can’t? It is a shame that Texas is the largest Republican state in the nation and we are ignored and never have a say in the Presidential race. We have 155 delegates and if we put all of our delegates behind the candidate who wins Texas then we can really have an impact. Candidates will come to Texas to campaign because they will not want to risk losing 155 delegates in a race where 1144 delegates are needed to win the nomination. 

The Republican Presidential Race is NOT Over Even Though Romney and the Media Says it is

No one is even close to winning the 1144 delegates needed to win the nomination. No matter what Romney and the media says, you cannot win the Republican Nomination until you have 50% or more of all the Republican Delegates in America supporting you. If you cannot win at least 50% of the delegates then that means that 50% of more of America wants someone else and there will be a brokered convention where the delegates can come together and decide who the nominee will me. Texas can have a huge impact if we go back to winner take all. The media says the race is over but it is not. With the vote being split 4 ways in nearly every state election, it is very possible that no candidate will get the 1144 needed to win and that would force a brokered convention. Certainly no candidate will have 1144 delegates before Texas votes May 29^th, 2012. With 155 delegates, Texas could force that brokered convention if, for instance, the voters of Texas give all of our delegates to Santorum over Romney, which is what the polls are showing now.

Mitt Romney has Ticked off Texas Republicans

 This is not about Romney though. It never has been about Mitt Romney. From the beginning, going back to winner take all has always been about giving Texas a voice in the presidential race. The only way we can do that is to be winner take all. I have been for winner take all well before we had any idea of who would still be in the race today. I have advocated going back to winner take all well before Santorum was even doing well in the polls. Going to winner take all has never been about Romney. The only reason Romney has entered this controversy now is because he decided to ignore the largest Republican state in the nation. He has so far told us he does not want to come to our nationally televised Texas debate and has told us the race is over and that he does not need us. Now Texas Republicans are mad and we have a message to Romney. Don’t Mess With Texas! The race is not over! We have 155 delegates so you better not ignore us, especially if we go back to winner take all! The SREC has passed a resolution warning Romney that it will not be good for him is he does not care about Texas and if he snubs our debate. 

Sincerely,

David Bellow

SREC – SD3

David Barton of Wallbuilders, along with Kelly Shackelford and Michael Quinn Sullivan, have released the following message in Support of Winner Take All:

Texas' Role in Choosing the President We in Texas know that we are a significant force in national conservative politics. After all, we have the largest Republican congressional delegation of any state, and ours is a conservative delegation! We also have 155 delegates at stake in the presidential primary – that’s more than the famous first five primary states combined (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada). Those five states are considered to have set the tone for the entire presidential race, but Texas has not spoken yet – and we can speak with a louder voice and with more impact than all of those states! Under our winner-take-all system, our 155 delegates have a significant impact on any presidential race. But this year, the Republican National Committee was poised to penalize Texas for holding our primary in March (as we always do) by imposing on us a proportional delegate count, so the Republican Party of Texas moved away from our normal presidential procedure. But then the federal courts got involved and delayed the Texas primary until May. So Texas now has an opportunity to regain its unified voice by going back to a winner-take-all primary. Contrary to what you may have heard from the national media, the race for the Republican presidential nominee is far from over. After all, only 37% of delegates have been assigned so far; and the media has been completely wrong on the number of delegates that separate Romney from the others (particularly the oft-repeated Associated Press count) – the actual count shows the gap to be much narrower than claimed. Texas can therefore have a clear and powerful voice in selecting a conservative Republican nominee for president by moving back to a winner-take-all system. All it takes is for the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) to call a meeting and make the rule change before the Texas primary vote. Please contact your SREC member and ask them to convene and make that change; and also contact the Republican Party of Texas and let them know that you want to see Texas regain its national voice. Please act on this as quickly as possible - Texas, as the biggest conservative state in the country, should be allowed to speak with the loudest voice!! Thanks for all you do to keep Texas a conservative state! God bless! David Barton (former Vice Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, 1997-2006; National Delegate 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996) Kelly Shackelford (National Attorney; National Platform Committee member 2008, 2004, 2000) Michael Quinn Sullivan (President, Empower Texans*) *For identification purposes only