Twenty supporters of former Presidential candidate Ron Paul showed up this morning at the  organizational meeting of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County (RPLAC) and demanded to vote. They were part of a statewide effort by the Paul campaign to take over local units of the GOP.

The Paul campaign launched an unprecedented write in effort this year for central committees in large counties, particularly those with low Republican registration. Some of the Paulistas this morning met the state election code requirement that they receive at least 20 ballots in the actual voting and some did not. They were all allowed to vote after turncoat county Second Vice-Chairman Al Han was selected as Temporary Chairman of the meeting over Chairman Linda Boyd's candidate, State Senator Bob Huff.

Despite being supported and mentored by Chairman Boyd over the past five years, Al Han presided over a motley crew of assorted local hangers-on "elected" in districts where other Republicans don't file to run for central committee, gay activists upset by Linda Boyd's strong support of Proposition 8 and Ron Paul supporters new to the process this year.

Han inexplicably simply asked for volunteers to serve on the Temporary Credentials Committee instead of appointing people. Unsurprisingly, the Paulistas volunteered and recommended that all their people be allowed to vote.

Although the Nominating Committee recommended longtime incumbent Chairman Boyd for reelection, she declined to run as did her picks for First Vice Chairman, Jane Barnett, and Second Vice Chairman, Bob Haueter. Perennial Board of Equalization candidate Glen Forsch was elected the new county chairman, and Paulistas moved into key slots in local assembly district committtees around the county.

With 26 Assembly Districts wholly or partly within Los Angeles County and seven people elected to the central committee per district, Los Angeles County has a Republican Central Committee more than three times as large as any other county in California. It also is a place where anybody can run and win - and they do. All the local flotsam and jetsam turned out today to team up with the Paulistas in an effort to take control.

Al Han provided the critical credibility they needed by using his rapidly diminishing popularity to be elected as their Temporary Chairman candidate. Local District elections were not held as required in the By-laws and several assembly district committees walked out in protest. 

The new administration appears to have no one in place who can raise money. Maybe Han will be the new Chairman of the Finance Committee. He truly does deserve it.

Outgoing Chairman Linda Boyd congratulated the new officers and wished them well. The group gave her a prolonged standing ovation at the conclusion of her remarks.

She touched upon the remarkable accomplishments of her record tying six year tenure as Chairman of America's most populous county Republican Party. They include raising over three million dollars, finding and furnishing a state of the art 3200 square foot headquarters with a T-1 line for communications, a 25 foot conference table and ten work stations with integrated computers, increasing the LA County GOP Presidential vote by 205,000 between the 2000 and 2004 elections, being one the McCain campaign's top Republican counties nationwide in volunteer voter contacts during 2008, founding an ongoing outside direct mail fundraising progam and a telemarketing program, conducting ongoing voter registration to keep the number of registered Los Angeles County Republicans at over one million despite unfavorable demographic trends, establishing a first class website with fundraising capability and recruiting over 5,000 volunteers during her tenure.

I'm very proud of my wife Linda for the outstanding job she has done in a county Democrats dominate by a two to one margin. I join her in wishing the new RPLAC officers good luck. They'll need it.