What a weekend.

I enjoy politics. I enjoy discussing politics and writing about politics, as my friends and my wife can attest to. This weekend I was able to pull back the curtain and see the wizard for myself.

It is easy to loose yourself in the world of politics. We all get to play 'what if' with the world around us. What if Iran gets caught transporting their latest surface to air missiles to the Shiite militias? What if someone asks Barack Obama a serious question and demands a detailed answer?

Those kinds of questions, and the answers they bring, can fill up the average newspaper and use a few billion pixels on computer screens around the globe.

That is one part of the political world. Another part involves people actually writing pages upon pages of the most seemingly uninteresting legal boilerplate that other people must decide whether or not to make into a new law, or bylaw or city ordinance or UN resolution. I took a peek inside this world if only for a moment at the Republican convention this weekend.

A spirited race for vice chair was the highlight for me. I met both candidates, spoke to many members from all over the state and heard their views on different topics and candidates. It was a political junkies dream. I was also able to attend a workshop for new members taught by our new party chair Ron Nehring. I learned a great deal from this workshop and came away with one phrase that I couldn't get out of my head.

The world is run by those who show up.

I am not sure who first came up with this statement but it is undeniable true as well as completely misunderstood by the general public.

Most people are happy to go about their busy lives and are not personally involved with the world around them. I say busy lives but I think there are very few of us who fill their time with important and meaningful commitments. Many of us have children with soccer games, basketball practice and other commitments we choose to fill our time with. and that is all well and good. Children are precious and I love to spend time with mine, but I want them to live in a place that still holds onto the values and ideas I love. It is easy to claim that I am too busy.

We are too busy to sit in on a city council meeting, a county board of supervisors meeting, a school board or parks commission meeting, the list goes on and on. Have you ever wonder why the city did this, or the county did that, or who's that person sitting in that high backed leather chair who is supposed to be representing my interests? You should know. You should show up.

The people whose politics and interests run counter to yours are at that meeting, and can you guess what they are doing? Telling the powers that be what they think about the issues that will affect your life. If you show up you may not make a difference on any one single issue, but you will have shown up, and by doing so you know what is going on first hand and you can influence people more effectively.

If you don't show up on election day, you are letting someone else make decisions for you. I would rather show up and loose than stay home and settle into the comfortable world of complacency. If you think there is no difference between the political parties, or they are all just bunch of crooks, that is what the people in power want you think. They less people sitting in on these meeting, or paying attention to how they vote, the less responsive your government is. The republicans in Congress just had a little taste of what happens when you get too far from your constituents and too close to special interests, including their own interests.

In about a week just over 30,000 people signed the pledge to stop funding the RNSC if they gave any money to any Senator who votes for the non-binding resolution to oppose the troop build up. The Republicans stood thoer ground. 30,000 regular folks paying attention gave the republican leadership a much needed dose of backbone at just the right time. They showed up.

This weekend I saw just one small corner of the sausage factory. What I saw did not make me give up sausage. This world is full of meetings, committees and commitments. It is not glamorous in the least. But it is important.

Is it important that Ron Nehring is the new chairman of the California Republican Party? You bet it is. The same is true for Tom Del Beccaro being our new vice chair. These are the people who will lead us in the next elections. One bit of advise to them as they go forward. I hope the GOP moves away from being the party of political infrastructure, my get out the vote effort is bigger than yours, and gets back to the party of my ideas are better than yours.

Ideas are what moves people. Ideas can make people show up.