After June 16th and declaring I was “all in” for Donald Trump’s Presidential run, I often used skills my mother long ago taught her 4 young hearing daughters – after a fifth daughter had just lost her hearing at age 10. Mom taught my sisters and me how to read who a person is, not by what they say, but by what they do. Watching Donald Trump’s interactions with everyday people I learned a lot about the man. By not hearing what was being said, but by watching how a billionaire cared for “the least of these” in his everyday actions, I was amazed at how Donald cared for each individual he came in contact with, as if they were the most important person in the world. It struck me that Donald Trump was not only very intelligent, but he also lives fully in the moment with those around him.
As soon as I learned about DonaldJTrump.com I signed up to volunteer doing anything I could, including working to become an Alternate or Delegate for his campaign at the state and national level. I had been a state Delegate before, but at that point in my life I had lived in the same Congressional District for many years and people in the Minnesota GOP knew me. 2015 was different; Doug and I had just moved to a new BPOU (Basic Party Organizational Unit), a new Congressional District, and being unknown in the area would make the job of becoming a Delegate or Alternate nearly impossible.
My husband, Doug, had never been involved in politics. For years he saw me go off to Precinct Caucuses never having a clue what went on at those ‘radical political events.’ January 2016 brought the first mention of Doug possibly attending our Precinct Caucus; it was a huge step for my non-political husband, so I knew he too was all in for Donald Trump.
At our Precinct Caucus on March 1st Doug and I met many of our new neighbors, and for the first time we met a #NeverTrump person – actually we met two of them. Within the first fifteen minutes it was obvious our Precinct was for Trump, which made the NeverTrumpers very angry. They never said angry words – they never said anything. But their body language – lack of eye contact, protruding veins and clenched teeth – spoke volumes.
Doug enjoyed attending the caucus and entered his name to become a Delegate to the State Convention. Had Doug not entered his name to become a Delegate I would have entered my name. Instead I put my name on the list to become an Alternate. When the votes were tallied Doug had won one of two Delegate spots and I was number 6 out of 8 Alternates elected. In order for me to ever have a seat during conventions the two Delegates and first five Alternates would all have to drop out, and then I would be seated. That was not likely to happen. But my darling husband surprised us both by diving into the political pool head first and doing so with style!
At the end of the evening our county voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. Unbelievably the rest of Minnesota voted for Marco Rubio.
On March 26th our BPOU met again, this time to elect Alternates and Delegates to attend the Congressional District and State Conventions. Doug was elected a Delegate and because I "showed up" I was no longer sixth in line – I was now one of two Alternates going to both conventions. God made a way for two newcomers to quickly go far in the process.
As we left the meeting that day Doug and I were given paperwork with all the particulars concerning the Congressional District and State Conventions. While attending the meeting I had taken many notes to insure we would not miss anything; even so I decided to read the paperwork we were given on our drive home.
It turned out that paperwork had critical information concerning a step we were never told about during the BPOU meeting. In order for any Minnesotan to become a Delegate to the Republican National Convention – which Doug and I both wanted to do – they first needed to apply to be interviewed by a group of ranking Republicans within their Congressional District. Sounded fine until I read that interviews had to be scheduled by the next business day. Yikes! Had I not read that paperwork that day Doug and I would have been out of the running for anything beyond the State Convention. God threw doors open wide to keep us moving forward, no matter how much it seemed like everything else was trying to hold us back.
Ten days later, on April 5th in McGregor, Minnesota, Doug and I waited to be interviewed for consideration as Donald Trump Delegates to the Republican National Convention. But before being interviewed we were told we needed to decide whether we wanted to run for a Delegate position or an Alternate position, because they would not allow the top four Delegate winners to become the two Delegates and two Alternates to the National Convention. Instead they wanted Delegates to run as Delegates and Alternates to run as Alternates.
Knowing Doug wanted to run for the Trump Delegate slot I interviewed for the Trump Alternate slot. If the ranking Republicans from our Congressional District thought we were good candidates due to our interviews, Doug and I would have the opportunity to present ourselves through three minute speeches and personal flyers at the Congressional District Convention. Doug would be competing against all the Trump Delegate Wannabes, and I would be competing against everyone who passed the interview process for the Trump Alternate position. At that level we knew our chances of winning a place at the Republican National Convention were slim at best, but first we had to do well on our interviews!
No comments:
Post a Comment