Sykesville resident Larry Helminiak is the Chair of the Carroll County Republican Central Committee. He said he has been a GOP delegate since 2003 and has gone to one national convention, in 2008 in Minnesota.

He is serving as a Delegate this year in Tampa and will be sending updates to Patch. Following are his most recent updates.

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Thursday, Aug. 30 1 a.m.

Paul Ryan hit it out of the ball park. I was so busy writing down useful one liners from many of the speakers that I could hardly keep up.  

The biggest applause line was when he said, “College grads should not spend their years in their childhood bedrooms looking up at faded posters of Barack Obama.”  

Another was , “You can’t control your circumstances; but you can control your response to those circumstances.”  

Yet another  - “We don’t believe we are doing poorly because you are doing well.”  

Rand Paul brought us to our feet when he said, “We must never trade our Liberty for a promise of fleeting security.”  

I think it was Paul Ryan who said, “I don’t want to live in a country where everything is free but us.”  

I’ve heard that the Tea Party is being dissed, and the term is banned.  My response is, “If that’s true, so what?” Those who would try to erase the Tea Party simply don’t understand it. It has no location It has no leader. It is an idea.  It is a state of mind.  It was born in Washington on 9/12/2009. It was born to combat what had happened since January of 2008. It multiplied itself in the 2010 election. THe neat thing about it is that it feels good to be part of it.   Banning the phrase at a meeting isn’t going to end it.  

See also:

• Carroll County Delegate Checks in from Republican National Convention

• Isaac Forces First Day Cancellation of RNC

• RNC Check-In: Helminiak Talks Security

• News Briefs from the Republican National Convention in Tampa

• O'Malley Crashes GOP Convention, Draws Fire from Republican Delegates