GOP Convention in Grand Rapids, Mi.

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by Aurora, May 22, 2004.

  1. Aurora

    Aurora Member

    Colorado Gov. Bill Owens highlighted today's convention.
    Wonder if Ramsey's were there and how Owens feels about John Ramsey running for office ...when he clearly ran and hid behind his lawyers after Owens asked him to come back to Colorado. Ironic isn't it.... John coming to him...to run for office..no less...*unbelievable*

    From todays news....

    Colorado Gov. Bill Owens was the keynote speaker at the convention, held at DeVos Place. The new downtown convention center bears the name of Amway Corp. co-founder and billionaire Rich DeVos, Betsy DeVos' father-in-law.

    Owens called this year's presidential election the most important in at least 20 years. He said it will be won on two major issues: the economy and the war on terrorism.

    "Our economy is coming back. It's coming back strong," he said. "It's coming back strong because of President Bush's common-sense tax cuts."

    The Oval Office requires a tough leader, something the Democratic presidential candidate is not, the Colorado governor said.

    "John Kerry would wait for a permission slip to be filled out by the United Nations and initialed by France" before rebuilding Iraq, said Owens, who then segued into a couple of jokes at France's expense.

    "You know why they planted those big trees along the boulevard in Paris? So the invading armies could march in the shade," he said. "You know why the new French navy has glass-bottom boats? So it can see the old French navy."

    The jokes drew laughter and applause from many of the roughly 2,000 people in attendance.

    Convention-goers selected 63 delegates to attend the Republican National Convention in New York City this summer, and elected a new national committeewoman, a high-profile campaigning and fund-raising position.

    Holly Hughes, a Montague resident and treasurer of the Muskegon County Republican Party, unseated Sharon Wise, who had held the position as Michigan's female GOP representative to the Republican National Committee since 1997.

    Wise, an Owosso gourmet deli owner, pledged in her concession speech to keep working for Bush's re-election, and urged Republicans to support Hughes.

    Chuck Yob, the state GOP's national committeeman since 1989, was re-elected without opposition.
     
  2. LurkerXIV

    LurkerXIV Moderator

    Owens is a Clown

    Aren't there a lot of voters of French descent in Michigan? You know--the wealthy descendents of the Quebecois hunters, trappers, and explorers?
    Those jokes were pretty lame--and VERY old.

    Wonder if Umbrella Man went up to Owens and shook his hand?
     
  3. LurkerXIV

    LurkerXIV Moderator

    People Mag Article

    (excerpted)

    BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT-- May 24, 2004



    They are, of course, the couple at the center of a true crime mystery. Seven and a half years ago someone murdered JonBenet Ramsey, age 6, in her Boulder, Colo., home. The public first saw John and Patsy Ramsey as grieving parents. Over the days and weeks that followed, questions grew about the couple's innocence: Why, when police started asking questions, had they gotten lawyers and refused to take lie detector tests? Why had someone composed a "practice" version of a ransom note on one of the Ramseys' legal pads? Why had that note demanded the very specific sum of $118,000-the amount of the work bonus that John had recently received? Neither John nor Patsy was ever charged with a crime, but in the face of relentless press coverage, they were all but found guilty in the court of public opinion.

    After the Ramseys' trial by media, during which they were chased by the tabloids from Colorado to Atlanta to their summer refuge in northern Michigan, one might expect that the family would crave nothing more than their privacy. Instead, John Ramsey has done the one thing guaranteed to have the opposite effect: On May 11 he announced that he would run for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives, thereby reopening the Ramseys' lives to scrutiny. "One friend said, 'Why don't you start a restaurant instead? That's probably the next most crazy thing you could do. Why would you want to subject yourself to that?'" admits Ramsey, 60.

    *****snip*****

    Whatever happens, judging by an emotional Mother's Day interview with PEOPLE at their cottage-style home in Charlevoix, the lakeside Michigan community where they moved last summer, it's clear that the Ramseys see themselves as writing a new chapter in their life without JonBenet. Son Burke, now 17, is growing up fast, with college applications on the horizon. Patsy helps run a Yellow Pages-like directory for Web sites. Perhaps a campaign isn't so risky after all. "John and Patsy have already been investigated clear back to their birth," says Patsy's sister Pam Paugh. "It's clear there are no skeletons in their closets."

    It's true that the "umbrella of suspicion"-as one Boulder police official called it-hanging over the Ramseys now appears to have some holes in it. In October 1999 a Boulder grand jury declined to indict either John or Patsy after a 13-month probe. On March 31, 2003, Atlanta judge Julie Carnes concluded that based on the selected documents and evidence she had reviewed in a civil lawsuit against the Ramseys, "the weight of the evidence is more consistent with a theory that an intruder murdered JonBenet than it is with a theory that Mrs. Ramsey did so." Last December, Boulder county district attorney Mary Keenan reopened the case. "The investigation is continuing," she says. "We feel we are making forward progress." In December, Colorado authorities finally submitted DNA from a spot of blood found on JonBenet's underwear-long known to have come from a male unrelated to her-to the FBI database for potential matching.

    *****snip*****

    "If the killer can be found, this group will find him," predicts Patsy. And then, she claims, the mysterious clues such as the ransom note and the DNA "will fall in place." Even if that were to happen, the couple doubt they will ever be completely vindicated. "We can have a confession, we can have a conviction and we can have an execution, and there will still be 10 percent of the population who believe that somehow Patsy and I are involved," says John.

    *****snip*****

    To help protect Burke, the Ramseys went without television for three years. "We didn't want Burke to flip across Geraldo Rivera," says John. "And frankly, we didn't need to see it either." It was harder to protect him from random tabloid headlines at stores, but they tried.

    Though the couple had discussed for some time the idea of living year-round in Charlevoix, where they had summered since the mid-'80s, they wanted to keep "Burke's life stable to the best of our ability," says John. So they remained based in Atlanta, with Burke enrolled in the exclusive Lovett School. Toward the end of last summer, however, Burke told his parents that he would rather finish school in Charlevoix-a decision his parents embraced. Says John of leaving Atlanta, where JonBenet's grave lies next to that of her older half sister Elizabeth, killed at 22 in a 1992 car accident: "It was a factor in my heart that I have two daughters buried there, but that's not where they are. They're in heaven."

    Since moving to Charlevoix, the Ramseys have plunged full-tilt into town life, from learning to snow-mobile to the lobbying efforts by Burke, an avid skateboarder, to get approval for and raise money for a local skate park. "Charlevoix really gave him back his childhood," says John of his son. "He's able to be on his own and be safe."

    The Ramseys say they had frequently mulled how they might harness their name recognition. But it wasn't until a few months ago when a friend of John's urged him to consider running for a vacant Michigan House seat that he seriously considered the prospect. "I think I can advocate with a much louder voice for things that are important in this area," says Ramsey-who faces five rivals in the August primary-"so in a way it's employing this platform I've been given for some good." He describes his planks as including "the sanctity of life" "the right to own firearms" and affordable health care. (He has a Web site pushing his candidacy at www. supportramsey.com.) "Politics certainly would have been the last thing on my list of choices 10 years ago," Ramsey says. "But we haven't written the final chapters in our lives yet."
     
  4. Freebird

    Freebird Active Member

    Yep even I agree that was no time or place for stupid french jokes. And I have no love for France.
     
  5. imon128

    imon128 Banned

    Why so many "Franch" connections to this case? JonBenet's name even is Frenchy. Was Patsy's furniture style French Provential, too? Gadzooks.
     
  6. JustChillun

    JustChillun Member

    Wonder if Owens is going to quote the Iraqui one-liners from Greenleaf's posts on FFJ at the next campaign speech event?
     
  7. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    I am not happy with the French, either, but Owens' jokes were in poor taste. One has to question his choices a lot these days.
     
  8. Aurora

    Aurora Member

    Hmmmm

    Michigan Manic should have been protesting at that one! Gov. Owens...knows the truth of this case. Ramsey is still under suspicion for murder and yet running a campaign for government office. What is wrong with this picture? If he had done his job.... the only thing ole John may have been running would have been a lisence plate machine. *LOL*
     
  9. JustinCase

    JustinCase Member

    Ramsey wins spot at GOP convention
    By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
    May 26, 2004
    http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/ramsey/article/0,1299,DRMN_1296_2914024,00.html
    Two weeks into his political career, John Ramsey has notched his first victory.

    Ramsey was elected as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention this past weekend, during a state GOP convention at Grand Rapids, Mich.

    He will be one of three alternates joining three regular delegates from Michigan's 1st Congressional District heading to New York City this summer to help launch President George W. Bush toward the final months of his re-election campaign.

    Ramsey, 60, grabbed national headlines earlier this month with his announcement that he is seeking to represent the 105th House District in the Michigan legislature.

    Ramsey will face five Republican opponents in that state's Aug. 3 Republican primary. Two Democratic candidates have also declared they are running in the heavily Republican, four-county, northern Michigan district.

    The seat Ramsey seeks is being vacated by a term-limited incumbent Republican, state Rep. Ken Bradstreet.

    Ramsey's ability to land an alternate delegate's slot to the GOP's national convention does not directly affect his state legislature ambitions. But a Ramsey supporter said it's still significant.

    "It's a high honor for him to go to this; it's a chance of a lifetime," said Susan Flanders, a Republican activist and friend of John and Patsy Ramsey who lives in Charlevoix, the summer resort community where the Ramseys settled last year.

    Flanders, who had considered running for the same seat Ramsey has targeted, said the state GOP convention received him "remarkably well" last weekend.

    Ramsey is the father of JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old girl found murdered in the family's basement in Boulder on Dec. 26, 1996.

    Bradstreet has publicly opposed Ramsey's candidacy, citing Ramsey's recent relocation to Michigan, plus unanswered questions about JonBenet's unsolved slaying.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2004
  10. LurkerXIV

    LurkerXIV Moderator

    Phooey!

    Time for me to change my party affiliation.
     
  11. "J_R"

    "J_R" Shutter Bug Bee

    My thoughts exactly Lurker.
     
  12. Moab

    Moab Admin Staff Member

    Looks like a good place to insert the pic that :mears: sent to have posted...
     

    Attached Files:

  13. Aurora

    Aurora Member

    Unreal!

    What on earth are these people thinking to choose him????? *arghhhhhh*
     
  14. Shadow

    Shadow FFJ Senior Content Moderator

    It used to be the Democrat Party that had a "big tent" full of wierd politicians - guess the Republican Party has joined them. I wonder if Owens and John Ramsey "kissed-and-made-up?"

    BTW, love 'em or hate 'em, if it hadn't been for the French there would be no U.S.A.
     
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice