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Kansas City dropped from consideration for 2016 Republican National Convention

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Kansas City is no longer in the running to be the site of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

The list of potential sites had been narrowed to four cities a month ago but that list has been trimmed again, and Kansas City didn’t make the cut. The finalists are Cleveland, Ohio and Dallas, Texas.

One of the items Governor Jay Nixon (D) announced Tuesday would be withheld in the budget for the fiscal year that starts Tuesday is $5-million dollars to help Kansas City land that convention.

Kansas City last hosted a national political party convention in 1976.

MO GOP delegation responds to Romney speech (VIDEO LINK)

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(Missouri’s GOP delegation thinks the party’s candidate for President sent the right messages to the right people when he accepted that nomination last night, at the National Convention.

Mitt Romney formally accepts the Republican party nomination for President of the United States at its National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

Mitt Romney’s wife Ann spent a lot of time in her speech on Tuesday night talking to women voters. Many messages ahead of Romney’s speech last night were geared to Hispanic voters and immigrants. Former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway thinks when Romney came out, he spoke to everyone he needed to.

“Who he spoke to was Americans. Immigrants were included, minorities were included, women were included, but at the bottom line he created this imagery of what it really feels like to be a parent. To do the hard work of raising your family … of sitting at home doing your homework with your kids … and he conjured those images that remind Americans of what our most core values are.”

Hanaway thinks Romney did a good job of making himself identifiable to the average American, answering ad campaigns that paint him as being out of touch.

“Quite honestly I think Mitt Romney without a hair out-of-place … perfectly tailored suit … sometimes looks a little too perfect and it makes it easy for the other side to say, ‘he’s kind of a robot, he isn’t like you,’ and when you see him … the video they showed before he went on where he puts a lightbulb in a socket that’s too small … just all those kinds of crazy things that are a part of your real family life, I think it was an important message for Americans to hear.”

Romney laid out a plan he says will create 12 million new jobs in five steps. One of those would be to make America energy independent by 2010.

Ballwin delegate Chris Howard says he doesn’t know if that’s attainable. “I would think it could be if you want to do it bad enough … I think the whole thing about this week was proving that he has the will to make a hard choice or set a goal and reach it. So if he’s really committed to reaching that goal, then I say yeah, it’s possible.”

Romney also reaffirmed his support for school choice, which Missouri Republicans agreed is where he would face the most resistance, from groups like the National Education Association. Howard says that position will appeal to African-Americans.

“We know from polling inside the party … African-Americans hugely value school choice because they know that a good education is their path to a better job. They’re pro-small business because they know that’s the best opportunity to build personal financial security, which is the real path to freedom. They are pro-life, they are pro traditional family.”

Missouri’s Republicans say they’ll be watching to see if the Democratic National Convention responds to the themes of the RNC, and say they expect the controversy surrounding comments made last week by Senate candidate Todd Akin will be heavily featured at the DNC next week.

Watch Romney’s speech.

GOP convention rules change meant to hold delegates to their word

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The Republican National Committee has made some changes to its rules that some members say were based on Ron Paul supporters. Some Committee members said they were worried that Paul supporters would claim to back another candidate and then vote for Paul at the Convention.

The 2012 Republican National Convention wraps up tonight in Tampa, Fla.

Secretary of the Missouri Republican State Committee Pat Thomas is a member of the national rules committee.

“The rule No. 16 is one that the delegate is bound to their candidate and only once they get to the national … if they change their vote, their vote still goes for the candidate and the delegate will be unseated,” she says.

Thomas says the change was prompted by events in other states, and not by anything that happened in Missouri. She says a delegate would not be unseated at the will of the party.

She says any situation in which a delegate wants to support a candidate other than the one they agreed to at the caucus level should be dealt with before the National Convention gets underway.

“If you’ve got a situation or something that came up where you feel like you really can’t support that candidate, we need to work it out ahead of time, we need to apply for a waiver,” Thomas says. “What if the candidate, unfortunately, something tragic were to happen … they get out of the race or they pass away or health reasons, they’re no longer going to be able to be a nominee or be on the ballot? We need to be able to address those as they come up, and currently there just wasn’t a mechanism in place to protect the delegates and the people back home who sent them to be a delegate.”

Thomas says the other component to the rule change is a waiver exemption.

“What happens if the candidate drops out and doesn’t release people? So there’s a waiver in there that allows the party to apply for people to be able to say, ‘Look, because of this circumstance I’m going to need to change my vote.’ But, that all needs to happen beforehand,” she says. “What we’re saying is don’t bring this to the floor.”

Thomas stresses that nothing that happened in Missouri helped prompt the rules change.

“In Missouri we didn’t see this so much, but I think that’s because we tend to have a feel for people and at the local level we knew people, and if you weren’t quite sure about somebody you did a little investigating before you voted for them,” she says. “But, I think some other states are just in total chaos.”

The changes have not impacted the nomination of Mitt Romney for President of the United States.

“No, none,” Thomas says. “This would be the next convention. These are rules for the next convention. What we’re saying to people is this is how it’s going to be. You’re going to be disingenuous, you’re going to be penalized. We want you to truly represent the vote of the local person.”

Thomas says the Paul supporters in Missouri have been very good to work with and have not caused problems as organizers in other states say they fear.

“Ours conduct themselves more businesslike,” Thomas says. “They’re here about the business of the Convention. Some of them I see, they genuinely want to understand how rules and things are impacting them and what’s going on for the future and how they can be part of that … some of the Ron Paul (supporters) have been distracting from the process and I very much appreciate that ours have not been that way.”

Missouri GOP delegation likes what it hears from Paul Ryan (VIDEO)

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Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan has formally accepted his party’s nomination, at its National Convention in Tampa, Fla. He spoke about the economy, health care and set the stage for Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney to speak tonight.

Missouri’s Congressional Delegation responds to comments from Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan at the 2012 Republican National Convention.

The speech energized convention attendees, including Missouri’s delegation, and there are ties to Missouri to be found in his comments.

Ryan focused much of the speech on the Affordable Care Act. Conservative Missourians turned out in big numbers in 2010 to vote for Proposition C, meant to disarm the Affordable Care Act in the state.

Lafayette County Republican Kay Hoflander says that could be the key issue in this campaign for conservative Missourians.

“He spent a lot of time on Obamacare, and that was really clear,” she says. “I thought his message was straightforward, very easy to understand, very clear … Obamacare is what is destroying Medicare, not the Paul Ryan Plan.”

Hoflander says Medicare is an issue of particular importance to her.

“I’m 65 and I’m on Medicare myself,” Hoflander says. “If people could understand what he said, which was, ‘we’re not going to bleed it to death like Obama and the Democrats want to do.’ They just want to bleed it to death. They have no plan to save it for my children, my grandchildren, but (Ryan) does.”

Hoflander says the speech sent the right messages.

“Exactly what Republicans would like to say to independents, or to Democrats, or to people that are undecided or people that misunderstand what his Medicare program is all about,” she says. “He answered it all tonight.”

Some ad campaigns and messages circulating on the internet try to tie Ryan to Missouri Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin, who is under fire including from fellow Republicans for comments made last week about abortion in cases of rape.

See our earlier stories on Todd Akin

Hoflander says it’s not clear how the Akin controversy might play out. “The national polls are not good for (Akin). I think he has some internal polls that he’s saying are good, but the national polls don’t look good. There’s some time, though, so it’s possible, but we just have to wait and see. I know that Democrats have tried to tie Romney, Akin and Ryan all together, but I don’t think that’s going anywhere … I don’t think it’s sticking.”

Romney will address the RNC tonight and formally accept the party’s nomination for President.

 

Akin a hot topic among Republicans at National Convention

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The comments of U.S. Senate Candidate Todd Akin last week regarding abortion in cases of rape are on the minds of many Republicans at their National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Several delegates from other states expressed frustration at Akin’s comments, but declined to be interviewed.

A banner welcomes Missouri Republicans to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, but some delegates from other states want to know, as one put it, “what’s up” with the state’s Republican Senate candidate.

The controversy also has many eyes on Missouri’s delegation. Missouri GOP Chairman David Cole says he hasn’t issued any marching orders to Missouri Republicans about how to deal with questions about the Missouri Congressman.

“You know, this delegation is full of a lot of good, hardworking Republicans and they’re working hard to elect Republicans. Obviously the attention that’s being directed toward (Congressman) Akin can be a distraction.”

Cole won’t say whether the Missouri Republican Committee will support Akin in his Senate run. He refers to polls that show the impact of last week’s remarks.

“I, like everyone else, have seen the poll numbers over the last two weeks. What they were two weeks ago versus the … especially the numbers that came out in the Post-Dispatch (Saturday). Obviously those numbers are concerning and troubling. That’s not any secret, but, we’re just going to have to deal with it.”

See our earlier story on Akin’s comments.

Akin won’t be at the RNC. Cole says he isn’t sure what he’d say to Akin if the Congressman did come to Tampa.

“What I want to do is I want to focus on Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan this week and that’s what we’re talking about. Congressman Akin, what I understood, was asked not to come to the convention by Chairman (Reince) Priebus and I was not involved in that discussion … This delegation, we’re here, we’re focused on Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.”

With many of today’s activities delayed due to Tropical Storm Isaac, the Convention gets into full swing tomorrow.