The Pope perspective

In this continuing saga of he said-she said regarding the status of who represents us on the Rules Committee of the Republican National Committee, one person had remained silent – until now. Yesterday a copy of a letter from Louis Pope was acquired by the folks at Red Maryland and posted on their site. (Update: I finally received my copy today, April 8. My mail is apparently slow out in the hinterlands.)

While Brian Griffiths, who wrote the Red Maryland piece and is an avowed supporter of Chair candidate Greg Kline, makes the case that Pope’s objection stems in part from a supposed quid pro quo between Virginia RNC member Morton Blackwell and former Maryland chair Alex Mooney regarding a book Mooney is writing, I’m more appalled that Pope believes “a great deal of misinformation has been flying around the Maryland Republican Party through various blogs, e-mail chains, letters, etc.” about the affair. If this has been so, the (undated) letter to “set the record straight” should have come out some time ago in order to clear the air.

Also intriguing is the implication that Waterman indeed did not make the decision on her own, but spoke to “senior leadership at the RNC who encouraged her to have me remain on the Rules Committee.”

To me, that says the RNC is really not serious about revisiting the rules adopted in Tampa. Sure, they will pay lip service to the concept of listening to the grassroots but in the end they’re really going to listen to the cadre of inside-the-Beltway consultants who are already sizing up the 2016 field and trying to determine who is both most malleable and “electable.” My guess would be Marco Rubio, who remains popular among activists despite his pro-amnesty immigration stance.

As one would also expect, Louis states his support for Diana Waterman, saying “I feel terrible to have put Diana in such an awkward position…she deserves our thanks and admiration, not our criticism.”

While I agree that Diana has performed a number of valuable services to the MDGOP over the last two years as First Vice-Chair, I cannot place her above criticism for the way she has handled this particular duty. Central Committee members are assured over and over again that communication is paramount, only to be bowled over by incidents such as this Rules Committee dustup. Having seen this before with the Rule 11 controversy in 2010 I really don’t like how this movie ends.

Pope goes on to talk about the Tampa rules changes, which he conveniently did not vote on because of his leadership position. At the time, of course, our National Committeewoman was Joyce Terhes, who was not going to rock the boat on her way out the door to a well-deserved retirement from party affairs. Nor is it apparent that Alex Mooney strenuously objected.

The only person who has stood up for the grassroots and voiced her objection was our newly-elected National Committeewoman, Nicolee Ambrose. Since she was the squeaky wheel who got the grease, it’s no surprise that Diana Waterman was “encouraged” to keep Louis Pope in the Rules Committee position.

Lastly, it should be noted that not all Central Committee members have received this message from Pope yet; to be fair, it may have been mailed to all the 300-plus membership and perhaps my copy hasn’t hit my mailbox yet.

But once again it seems to me the party insiders are trying to play their games and, as the aforementioned Griffiths has pointed out, be “the tallest midget in the room.” I’d rather stand tall on my principles, thank you.

Getting it wrong

This is the kind of thing which happens when you don’t have your ear to the ground: brilliant planning, poor execution.

I was sort of glad to see that John Tate, president of the Campaign for Liberty, took the time to explain some of what he saw as the effects of the RNC rules changes made last summer. (It’s a very lengthy diatribe, so I chose to link to it rather than reprint it all. Some of those in my audience probably received their own copy.)

However, I will bring up one passage from the message. See if you can spot the error:

Now, Virginia RNC Committeeman Morton Blackwell – who led the fight against implementation of the new rules in Tampa – will be introducing a resolution to reverse them.

That is why I need you to contact your Republican National Committee representatives IMMEDIATELY to urge them to support Blackwell’s repeal effort.

You are represented at the RNC by the State Party Chairman, a National Committeeman, and a National Committeewoman from your state.

It requires a 75% vote of all RNC members to overturn these rules, so your action could not be more critical.

As you’ll see, I’ve included their contact information for you below.

National Committeeman Louis Pope: 301-776-1988 louismpope (at) aol.com

National Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose: 410-323-6698 nicolee (at) nicoleeambrose.com

State Chairman Alex Mooney: 301-874-5649 amooney (at) mdgop.org

Who’s this Alex Mooney guy? Didn’t he move to West Virginia?

Obviously Tate was using an outdated list to compile the information, but he also makes an interesting observation: it doesn’t really matter who is on the Standing Rules Committee if all 168 vote on the changes. Obviously there are only 43 sticks in the mud who can stop it, given the RNC’s extremely steep 3/4 threshold, but our job is to beseech the three representing Maryland to vote the correct way. Certainly we would prefer Nicolee Ambrose be the one who represents the state on the Standing Rules Committee, but Diana Waterman can help or hurt her cause with her vote.

Now I don’t have Diana’s phone number, but the e-mail listed at the state website is simply chairman (at) mdgop.org.

Tate’s secondary point is that the RNC wants to move away from the caucus system used in some states, where insurgent candidates with grassroots support like Ron Paul did best, to what would eventually be a regional primary system. Tate makes the point that those candidates with the most money and favorable coverage (i.e. the “establishment”) would gain an advantage over those who may be supported by the grassroots.

Yet the facts don’t necessarily bear this out. Certainly Ron Paul had his share of success in the small states which run strictly on a caucus basis, but Rick Santorum won a number of state primaries through a grassroots network of those more concerned with social issues. He never had the monetary backing of Mitt Romney but did well enough to outlast most of the remaining candidates. I could see Ron Paul’s strategy of using his supporters to take enough states to place his name into nomination, but it never came to pass.

Still, Romney won, doing best in states where there were “open” primaries or where the media markets were most expensive. For the second cycle in a row – and arguably since the days of Reagan – we Republicans were saddled with a candidate who wasn’t palatable to various factions of the pro-liberty movement. (Remember, Reagan campaigned on items like eliminating the Department of Education. It’s obviously still around and no GOP nominee has made that promise since.)

Here’s where I disagree with Tate, though. Why not take this opportunity to reform the broken nominating system and make it shorter, install a quick series of regional primaries during the late spring/early summer of the election year which would only require a few weeks of sacrifice for the grassroots people to get out the word for their candidate, and allow those who earned their convention posts at the state level to be seated no matter who they support instead of insisting on binding winner-take-all primaries? After all, it’s a nomination and not a coronation, and if it takes more than one ballot to select a nominee, so be it. From what I make of it, the Blackwell resolution reverses the changes made by Ben Ginsberg and restores the national party to the rules originally adopted for the next cycle. But we can do so much more with this opportunity and can set these changes in stone at a time well in advance of the nominating process.

If they are going to tinker with the rules at this point, why not get them right and maximize the grassroots participation?

Update: The subsequent reminder e-mail now has the right information.

Another Maryland Republican misfire

I don’t know how many times I have heard a phrase along these lines uttered: “The Maryland Republican Party would do a lot better if they stopped shooting themselves in the foot.” The other variation on that theme involves the phrase “circular firing squad.”

I understand dealing with perpetual underfunding, legislators for whom getting all of them to be a competent opposition party makes herding cats look like child’s play, and those party leaders who have outsized egos. Me, I’m just a cog in the big machine who sits on my Central Committee, takes a lot of notes, and occasionally offers the helpful suggestions and opinions. I don’t have any aspirations for leadership because I’ve found out through experience I work best in the role I’ve chosen.

But this past week has been one of unforced errors, and I couldn’t sit idly by without making my feelings known.

First of all, people speak about the Wicomico County Pathfinders program cancellation in the abstract, but those of us who actually live down here and were trying to talk up the event for would-be candidates and campaign workers might just feel a little bit let down that the state party decided the wild goose chase of Martin O’Malley – who at least can’t hurt the state all that badly when he’s off in South Carolina – took precedence over our event. Yes, I realize it’s only a two-week delay but what if something pressing occurs in the last days of our General Assembly session? Will the state party push us off again?

And then we have the Nicolee Ambrose incident, where she was unceremoniously dumped off the RNC Rules Committee just in time for an upcoming meeting – by whose behest is not clear. I have asked Diana Waterman to give her side of the story in the face of considerable criticism, which I will get to in due course. So far she has not responded, but Nicolee Ambrose has been kind enough to share her side of the events:

I can relay the basic facts of the situation:

On February 18th, Chairman Alex Mooney and I submitted our “Standing Committee on Rules Submission” to the RNC, in which I was elected Maryland’s representative. On February 19th RNC Legal confirmed it was received and in order. After that in late February, Maryland Interim Chairman Diana Waterman signed a form appointing Louis Pope instead.

Per RNC Rule 10(a)(1), I understand I hold this Rules Committee position until the 2016 Convention. We shall see how this works out.

Nicolee added that she wasn’t told about this change by Waterman until this past Thursday, March 21. It appears, though, that it’s a move of dubious legality as well as one unpopular with the reformer wing of the party – the side sick of losing here in Maryland.

Once again, they have fired back against a group they consider the establishment: Richard Cross at Cross Purposes, Jackie Wellfonder at Raging Against the Rhetoricand Dan Bongino (via Anthropocon) have all blasted the Ambrose move. Waterman’s opponent Greg Kline made a lengthy statement regarding these recent incidents, from which I excerpt:

Interim Chairwoman Diana Waterman’s decision to remove National Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose from her position on the RNC rules committee was wrong. Nicolee has worked tirelessly for our party. She has built bridges to our activist base, and reached out voters not traditionally aligned with our party.

Furthermore, the decision, and the particular way it was handled, is emblematic of the opaque, insider brand of politics practiced by current party leadership. The decision to remove Nicolee only serves to widen the internal divisions in our party, at the very time we need to be united.

This is the very thing I am running against in my campaign for state party chair.

Once again, we seem to be heading into our state Spring Convention in a contentious mode, divided again at a time when the General Assembly session is reaching its climax. This is shaping up a lot like last spring’s National Committeewoman contest between Ambrose and Audrey Scott, with some of the same battle lines being drawn between various factions and subsets of the party. Waterman was a Scott supporter last spring while many in the reformer wing (including this writer) supported Ambrose for the post. In this spring’s race, though, loyalties on the “outsider” side may be split between two contenders, Greg Kine and Collins Bailey.

Meanwhile, as we chase Martin O’Malley around the country, House Democrats pass yet another of MOM’s pet tax increases – without a single GOP vote, by the way. As we discuss the election of the chair and the future of the party, an interim chair makes a decision of dubious legality at a time when the person in question was making an attempt to reform the national party and restore the power of the grassroots to the national level.

In my original version of this post, I noted I had not yet spoken with Diana Waterman; however, I did speak to her briefly and candidly earlier tonight at the Wicomico County Lincoln Day Dinner.

In essence, Waterman told me the reasons she selected Louis Pope to be on the Rules Committee were simple: his experience in the national party on that committee and the length of tenure. It was a matter of “continuity,” Diana said. From what I gathered, she wanted Nicolee to focus on other aspects in the state party.

While I can understand the reasoning behind the decision, it doesn’t mean I agree with it and I told her as much. Others who I spoke with about the situation felt that Diana was pushed by people at the national level to make the change, since one of Alex Mooney’s final acts was to place Nicolee on the Rules Committee. This confusion and abrupt change could also lead to a problem with credentials at the upcoming RNC meeting, with other states becoming involved.

My thought is that someone doesn’t like the idea of revisiting the rules adopted at last summer’s convention, an effort spearheaded by Ambrose. There is supposed to be discussion about these rules next month at the RNC spring meeting, and who better to keep the status quo than Louis Pope?

Opening a door – but will they walk through it?

After the Republican National Convention last August, liberty-minded party regulars were chagrined about changes in the party rules that they felt enriched the party elite at the expense of the grassroots, not to mention the controversy surrounding their very enactment. That bitterness extended through the campaign and was among the many reasons blamed for the demise of the Mitt Romney effort.

So this news was welcome, and it comes in part from Maryland’s National Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose:

In response to the concerns expressed by grassroots Republicans surrounding the changes in the rules that govern the party, the RNC today made a decision to bring together the members of The Standing Committee on Rules to revisit the amendments that some believe weaken the GOP.

“Our concern is that these rules will centralize power with the top leadership, and diminish both the influence, and the diversity of ideas and experiences, that the grassroots offers to the party,” said John Noisy Hawk, a member of the elected Maine Delegation to the Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida where the rules were adopted. “The GOP believes in empowering the little guy, and we want to see that happen both in our party, and nation wide.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, Maryland Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose of Baltimore rose to praise the committee members and their newly reelected Chair Reince Priebus for the move.

“I’m grateful to be both a grassroots activist and a member of the RNC. In our deliberations it’s important to recognize the many questions we’ve received from activists and donors about our Rules passed at this past convention.

“I congratulate our National Committee, our Resolutions Committee, and Chairman Priebus on hearing this message from the grassroots. Today, we unanimously passed a resolution supporting the formation of a Standing Committee on Rules to examine these concerns. This is exactly the kind of work this committee can do to be most effective in partnering with the grassroots in each of our states.

“We are hopeful about the future and grounded in the belief that every mom and dad, son and daughter are the grassroots who make this country and our Republican Party great.”

Chairman Reince Priebus responded, “Perfect. And to that point… we will have a rules committee constituted at the spring meeting. We will have that meeting the earliest than we have ever done it before… We will have a rules committee to hear any and all amendments, any and all suggestions. And then we are also going to have an official meeting of the RNC at our spring meeting, something we have not done in the past. So that if there are matters and business and rules amendments that are passed out of the rules committee, we can hear those amendments and those suggestions, in the formal body to make them formal amendments under Rule 12.”

The resolution reads as follows:

WHEREAS, many people are concerned about the rules process at the Convention Rules Committee;

WHEREAS, Rule 12 allows Rule 1-11 and 13-25 to be amended by a majority vote of the RNC Standing Committee on Rules (“Rules Committee”) and a seventy-five percent (75%) affirmative vote by the members of the RNC; and

WHEREAS, the Standing Committee on Rules of the Republican National Committee has not been constituted and therefore cannot consider proposed amendments under Rule 12 of The Rules of the Republican Party (the “Rules”); therefore, be it

RESOLVED, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee 1) will ask all states to submit their Rules Committee member by March 1 and 2) will call a meeting of the RNC in April of 2013 and conduct a Rules Committee meeting during this meeting for the purpose of considering amendments to Rules 1-11 and 13-25.

However, you should color me skeptical until I see action on these concerns, particularly the high barrier to change required. By my count, it would only take 43 “establishment” Republicans to keep the party rules as they are. (Although 125-43 is an overwhelming consensus, it’s less than 3/4 of the group.) That’s a fairly low hurdle for those who resist change to overcome, and as we saw in the fight for two of Maryland’s three National Committee posts, there is significant inertia in the party which needs to be surmounted. Indeed, some will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new paradigm which considers the party as a bottom-up rather than top-down structure; something based more on a TEA Party model but with the significant advantage of easier ballot access.

I will caution readers this post is a work in progress. I’ve played phone tag with Nicolee ever since this issue came up, probably because a) she knows I’m passionate about such things, and b) I’m going to hold her and all my other party leaders accountable. But because I’m working on a deadline – one which is self-imposed, but still tight because I have limited free time – I needed to run with this post today. I would encourage Nicolee, Louis Pope, or any of our Maryland Republican leaders to feel free to add their reactions to the comments section, or I can append as needed.

RNC challenger falls short in bid

Unfortunately, it appears that Reince Priebus will be allowed to continue his record of failure at the Republican National Committee without opposition. The upstart candidacy of Maine’s Mark Willis couldn’t get the requisite two members from three different states to back his nomination.

It appears the death blow came after Nevada Committeeman James Smack withdrew his support in the wake of Priebus’s last-minute trip to Nevada. Last-second bids to elicit support from Idaho and Missouri fell short; needless to say my appeal to Maryland’s delegation obviously fell on deaf ears. I can say I’m disappointed, but I can also say that sadly I’m not surprised, seeing that we seem to come from the Bob Michel school of Republican leadership.

Say what you will about Willis’s platform, the fact that he stuck himself out as a choice in the first place says a lot about the condition of the national Republican Party. The elections we have won over the last decade are those where candidates espoused conservative ideas and values, but when the party ran away from their conservative roots (2006 midterms where we lost control of Congress, 2008 with John McCain, 2012 with Mitt Romney) we were beaten and whipped. I really haven’t seen Reince Priebus taking the lead as a party spokesman in quite the way Michael Steele did, and as some have noted Steele was fired despite electoral successes in 2010.

And what did Maryland have to lose? As far as the national Republican Party is concerned, we’re already below the status of even an afterthought.  They’ve talked about minority outreach at the national level for years, but there’s a perfect test case right here and it’s been ignored almost non-stop for decades. When the powers-that-be at the state party level (along with groups affiliated with the MDGOP) give up on the state two months before a key election, that sends a powerful message of debasement to those of us who fight in the trenches.

Moreover, the events which transpired with the Maine delegation to the convention were shameful. Whether they supported the eventual nominee or not, they were duly elected to sit at the convention at delegates. That kind of crap is what I would expect from the other party, not the one in which I’ve made my political home.

The bottom line is that we have two more years of Reince Priebus. Perhaps voters in 2014 can bail him out by doing that which has been a hallmark of elections in the sixth year of a President’s term and add more votes to the GOP legislative column. But I’m not going to hold my breath about getting a lot of help from the RNC in doing so.

Time for a challenge

After the two seminal political events of the ten weeks since the Republican Party slipped farther away from its goal of national governance, it’s become clear that we need a new approach. Lip service to this concept was paid at the Maryland GOP convention back in December, and further calls for rethinking our method of doing business were made at the Turning the Tides 2013 gathering this past weekend.

So it was interesting to me to find out that someone has stepped up to challenge Reince Priebus for leadership of the national Republican Party. You may recall there was a vote at our state convention to request the Maryland delegation withhold support from Priebus as a protest – while the vote failed to secure a required majority, a significant portion (43%) of the Central Committee members properly requested that:

…the Maryland State Republican Central Committee has no confidence in the leadership of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and advises Maryland’s three voting members of the Republican National Committee to oppose his reelection.

Obviously this would have been a non-binding, advisory resolution, which is why I voted for it and why I believe the rest of our county delegation followed suit.

But the challenge by Maine’s National Committeeman Mark Willis presents a lot to like, particularly in two key areas:

The grassroots are the lifeblood of the Republican Party – always have been and always will be. For the grassroots man the phones at the Victory centers, go door to door with candidates, organize fundraisers as well as attend speeches and events. Without the grassroots support, candidates would be standing at a podium, speaking to an empty auditorium with a few Party members off to the side and the rear.

Without the grassroots the Republican Party is an empty passenger ship at sea without a rudder, captained by a few in the bridge who never took the time to go down below deck in order to realize all the cabins were empty. The Republican Party has turned its back on the grassroots one too many times and we desperately need them to stay involved.

In addition:

(T)hose of us who were at the Tampa Convention were outraged at the “gavel up, gavel down” approach with regards to the rules that were adopted as well. Many states, such as New Hampshire, Nevada, Texas, Minnesota, and North Carolina have passed resolutions condemning these rules for if they are not changed, the grassroots will be completely cut out of the 2016 Presidential election process.

Regarding these new rules, many of you know that Rule 12 gives unprecedented power to the RNC to change party rules without the input and/or approval of state parties and their members while Rule 16 removes the rights of states to choose their own delegates by forcing all state parties to allocate and bind the state’s delegation to the National Convention through Presidential Preference Polls.

Furthermore, Rule 16 also allows the presumptive Presidential candidate to disavow (“veto”) any bound and/or allocated delegate and alternate delegate before the national convention for any reason whatsoever…

Maryland should have been another of those states to disavow the rule changes, and I thought there was to be a resolution to that effect at our last convention. But if you really, really, really want to alienate the TEA Party just go ahead and keep these rules in place.

So here’s what I’m requesting from our elected members of the RNC; I’m talking to you, Alex Mooney, Nicolee Ambrose, and Louis Pope. Do you consider yourselves conservative and want to stand up for liberty? It’s time to put your money where your mouth is.

Willis needs at least two members from three different states to put his name into nomination; so far he has commitments from a pair of RNC members in Nevada and Maine. That means one state is what stands between him and a chance for something other than a Reince Priebus coronation.

While it seems like Mark may not be the absolute perfect choice for the job, he IS a choice. I believe in contested primaries, regardless of the quality of the incumbent, and I believe that when we have the opportunity to challenge leadership it should be taken up. All three of our Maryland National Committee members are examples of this, as each had one to four challengers for their current position. In my personal case, I weighed the challengers and found some worthy and some wanting. It turned out the state party agreed with my recommendation in two out of three cases, but we had good candidates to choose from in most of the races.

Thus, I am calling on you, the Maryland delegation, to make the difference between a coronation and a choice. As it stands right now, no one else is willing to take the slings and arrows of leadership except for Mark Willis, and I believe he deserves his opportunity to state his case. Be the difference-makers and put his name into nomination and let the RNC decide whether they want to embrace the grassroots, or continue to ignore the needs and desires of those of us who crave liberty and limited government.

If you’re all for hurtling over the precipice into tyranny at a slower rate, go ahead and ignore me – at your peril.

Gingrich on the GOP’s future

It’s a very long and detailed read, the type of tome you would expect from a man who at times in his life has been a politician, strategist, novelist, and educator. But Newt Gingrich brings up a lot of valid questions and suggestions in the wake of the 2012 election, a balloting where he admitted:

I was so shaken by how wrong I was in projecting a Republican win on election night that I have personally set aside time at Gingrich Productions to spend the next six months with our team methodically examining where we are and what we must do.

Not only is this a matter of studying where we went wrong, says Newt, but it’s also time to reflect on what Barack Obama did right. After all, he won re-election in the midst of an underperforming economy and haphazard foreign policy decision making – yet he used those resources and advantages he had to secure victory. Gingrich goes on to point out that Republicans have failed to gain a majority in five of the last six Presidential elections and the 2004 Bush re-election was among the closest on record. Since the 2004 balloting was close enough to be within most pollsters’ margin of error, maybe Bob Shrum wasn’t really jumping the gun when he famously asked John Kerry if he could be the first to call him “Mr. President.” It could have been the exit polls were simply on the flip side of the error margin.

Newt would like to see the RNC’s Growth and Opportunity Project address these and many other questions, including disadvantages in technology, a failure to reach out to minority voters despite the fact we have a number of very attractive political positions to most average Americans regardless of color, and efforts at issue development in general so we can stay on offense.

Needless to say I don’t have the same resume as Newt Gingrich, but while he makes a number of outstanding points there is room to add a few more. Newt says that regaining California should be a litmus test of sorts for determining how effective the Growth and Opportunity Project would be, but I would argue that a large part of California is already Republican. It’s a state where the Congressional delegation is 38-15 Democratic, not 7-1 like Maryland has. It would be more cost-effective to the GOP to use Maryland as a test case because it’s a smaller state with few Republican leaders statewide. (The only states with worse D/R ratios are ones with no GOP representatives: Connecticut has five, Delaware has one, Hawaii two, Maine two, Massachusetts nine, New Hampshire two, Rhode Island two, and Vermont one. Aside from Massachusetts, which has elected Republicans statewide a few times in the last decade, Maryland is the worst case.) We also can see from recent election results that the population needs further education on upholding the rule of law and traditional morality.

Moreover, I have also been on the messaging bandwagon, particularly in the respect of using data compiled to finetune it to the intended audience. But one other thing which needs to be investigated is the impact of high-dollar donors like George Soros and Peter Lewis on the alternative media. I’ve heard the rumors about the bloggers being paid by leftwing organizations, so let’s find out if they’re really true. If so, the GOP should be encouraging conservative donors to be making similar efforts; maybe that would do more good than using the same consultants and expecting different results.

There is a lot of work for conservatives to do in Maryland as well as nationally. There’s no question that we believe we have the right solutions, since over time pro-liberty policies have led to prosperity and freedom while consolidation of power simply leads to tyranny and squalor for all but a privileged few. We lost this election, but all that means is we have to survive as best we can for two years, point out all the instances where the other side overreaches – which is like shooting fish in a barrel – and find the candidates and message for success next time around. It can be done, since we have right on our side.

Maybe Newt needs to come back and check out our zoo again.

Defending the homefront

It’s been an extremely busy week for me – and the next seven to ten days promise to be the same – but I couldn’t refrain from commenting on a phenomenon which has bubbled beneath the surface for some time. Like the aftereffects of Jed Clampett shootin’ at some food, the frustration from grassroots activists first surfaced with the Republican National Convention rules change controversy and is now spreading to a flap over sending Maryland Republican volunteers to other states, perhaps at the expense of good Free State candidates who have a chance to pull the upset over entrenched liberal incumbents.

As reported by Ann Corcoran over at Potomac TEA Party Report, the Maryland AFP chapter enlisted former Governor Bob Ehrlich to assist them in enticing Maryland volunteers to help defeat Barack Obama in Virginia. This “Rally for Repeal” would occur in Maryland, with volunteers continuing on afterward to work in northern Virginia. Corcoran states that campaign volunteer Fred Propheter complained vehemently to all-but-official 2014 gubernatorial candidate David Craig and others about abandoning a number of good Maryland Republican candidates in the field because the party brass deemed the top-of-the-ticket race unwinnable here.

Similarly, Anthropocon‘s Jim Jamitis takes former MDGOP First Vice-Chair Chris Cavey to task over remarks attributed to him in the Baltimore Sun. Joining in the chorus were both U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino – who perhaps stands to lose the most from the state party hierarchy’s attitude that Maryland is a lost cause for Mitt Romney – and the Anne Arundel County GOP:

 

Yet Jamitis stumbles onto a good suggestion in his Anthropocon post: why don’t conservatives in safe Romney states come to the aid of Maryland conservatives? After all, I’ve learned the local Wicomico Democrats are playing in Virginia:

We are holding weekly phone banks on Wednesday evenings, from 6:30 – 8:30, at Democratic Headquarters…  Our task is to call people in Virginia (one of the swing states) about the campaign. We are given a script to follow, so making the calls is easy.  I know a lot of people to whom I am sending this email have already helped with the phone banks, and I am hoping that they will continue to help.  We’d love those of you who haven’t participated in a phone bank to join us.

(snip)

…definitely bring your cell phone with you (we don’t actually have a bank of phones in Democratic headquarters, so we have to use our cell phones).

What? I thought the Democrats were fat and happy with union cash; apparently they don’t spread the wealth (or the dedicated phone lines) to states they think are in the bag. Maybe some Wednesday or Saturday I’ll drive by and see how attendance appears.

But I think a valid point is being made, despite the naysayers who say things like this. The following is an actual Facebook post, but I’ll withhold the person’s name:

There are two kinds of Maryland Republicans: those that can do math, and those that can’t. If I hear one more person complaining about resources being diverted to other states, I swear I’m registering as an Independent.

Interestingly, one of those who “liked” the post is heavily involved in David Craig’s campaign.

My point with all this, though, is to remind people the Democrats didn’t get to the position they currently reside in here in Maryland overnight. Along the line they had their share of activists, dreamers, and people who believed enough in their ideas – misguided as they are – to stand up and tell their friends to vote for their party.

And even though they’ve been running the General Assembly for a century and a half, it’s worth noting that the Democrats of 1860 or even the Democrats of 1960 aren’t really like those of today. As they stand currently a good share of Democratic registrations come from the “daddy” wing of the party, as in “my daddy was a Democrat so I am too.” Never mind there’s a good chance that if you sit down and talk to them, you can help them discover that perhaps they have much more in common with the GOP than with the party that left them.

But if we simply throw up our hands, complain Maryland is a lost cause, and decide we should go try to win states which are deemed more winnable by the blind followers of conventional wisdom who never venture beyond the safe confines of the Beltway, then we never talk to those people who may change their mind when they learn the truth and because of that continue to vote down-the-line Democrat – to their own detriment.

I’m not going to tell you we can win every race this year, but it is worth noting that in this supposedly true-blue Democratic state a large number of local elected officials are Republicans. Granted, there are pockets of the state where we have not made inroads and it may take a generation before we do. But that doesn’t mean the effort can’t begin now with Marylanders helping fellow Marylanders to see the light. Of course, if you want to help us from Texas, Utah, or the solidly GOP South, we’re not going to turn up our noses at you.

Let the Democrats assume they have these things safely in the bag – it’ll make November 7 even more depressing for them when they realize a lot of their patronage slipped away overnight, and it can create a template for important races in 2014. Even David Craig may appreciate Maryland conservatives by then.

Update: In fairness, I should note this came from the Maryland GOP, signed by new NCW Nicolee Ambrose:

This autumn we have the opportunity for Marylanders to help Maryland.  To support our tremendous candidates and educate voters on the ballot initiatives, we have designed a Super Saturday program – all we need now is YOU!

Join the Maryland Republican Party StrikeForce for our Super Saturdays.  We are asking that every GOP activist and Central Committee member donate ONE Saturday before Election Day to make Maryland a true two party state!

The MDGOP StrikeForce is composed of grassroots activists who will work on behalf of all of our GOP candidates:  Romney/Ryan, Dan Bongino, Andy Harris, Nancy Jacobs, Eric Knowles, Faith Loudon, Tony O’Donnell, Roscoe Bartlett, Frank Mirabile, and Ken Timmerman; while also providing ballot initiative education material.  We will spend four full Saturdays in targeted areas across our state to help Get out the Vote (GOTV) for our entire Republican ticket.

These “Super Saturdays” aren’t a new concept – I seem to recall we had at least one in each of the last several cycles – but it’s also worth mentioning that the focal points will be Baltimore County on September 29, Prince George’s County on October 13, Districts 3 and 7 on October 20, and Montgomery County on October 27.

More observations on the RNC races

As I mentioned the other day we had our quad-county meeting earlier this week, where the members of the four Lower Shore GOP Central Committees (Wicomico, Worcester, Somerset, and Dorchester) get together to discuss issues and find common ground. For the most part, this meeting (ably ran by John McCullough of Dorchester County) focused on the upcoming Spring Convention, including what was supposed to be a frank discussion of the two National Committee races.

In the runup to the meeting, we debated whether we should invite the candidates to speak or not. Three of the four county chairs decided to say no, while the other was neutral on the issue. Because of that consensus, none of the hopefuls was invited to speak; however Audrey Scott got her “wires crossed” in the words of McCullough and showed up anyway. It created an awkward scene where we had to have her leave the room so an open discussion could take place.

But before she left, she made sure to tell everyone not to believe what was read on this site. And while she was careful not to single me or my site out by name, I must say that I will abide a lot of things because I bend over backwards to be fair but I will not be called a liar. In fact, I have taken steps to have the information I was provided by several reliable sources disproved and if I find out it is so I will make the correction. As of this writing I’m awaiting the confirmation, after asking a person I frankly thought she threw under the bus when the subject was brought up.

Unfortunately for Audrey, some of her more fervent supporters adopted the same condescending tone Audrey adopted when she discussed what’s been said about her in the campaign. This was especially apparent when one (female) backer wondered aloud if Nicolee Ambrose could handle the position while having a family, ignoring the fact that many women who serve in politics already do so quite well. These supporters as a group believed Audrey’s experience sets her apart, and I won’t deny she’s experienced. But that’s not what the position needs at this time; instead it needs bold leadership and frankly I feel Audrey Scott will treat the post like a retirement gift from a grateful party.

And then we have several points brought up by quad-county members about Audrey’s actions: the Rule 11 controversy, attendance at the rally supporting the gas tax and her weak retort that she only attended the rally to support a bill to keep the Transportation Trust Fund from being raided, and of course the “unelectable” Roscoe Bartlett comment. I found it fascinating as well that, just hours after Roscoe announced his support of Nicolee Ambrose in the NCW race, Audrey Scott slapped up her own grainy picture with Bartlett, taken at the Montgomery County Lincoln Day Dinner last Friday. She also rehashed the “let’s get behind our nominees” mea culpa but the damage has been done.

I also found out, in speaking to some of those attending, that at least two of them who are listed as supporters of Audrey Scott have no intention of voting for her. Of course, Audrey mentioned she would be happy to remove any names from the list but who wants to ask about something like that? It’s almost embarrassing, but more importantly these admissions chip away at her facade of support she’s attempting to build.

Compared to the NCW discussion, the contest between Scott Shaffer and Louis Pope was rather mild. There were some who wanted the change and some who didn’t, but for the most part neither drew many negative remarks.

But I wanted to bring up something I was told today, as a letter from Louis Pope arrived in my mailbox. It proves one thing that Scott Shaffer brought up earlier this week and that I wasn’t sure of: Pope is indeed sending out re-election items paid for by the RNC (at least the stationery is, and presumably postage too.)

I’m not worried about the couple hundred dollars which the RNC may be giving to Pope for his re-election (although it is an important item to point out) as much as I’m interested in this line that Pope wrote:

Over the last decade I have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for MDGOP and our local and statewide candidates here in Maryland, as well as presidential candidates.

I’ll take that at face value, particularly since Pope has led fundraising seminars in the past and has several entries on his political resume regarding fundraising for Bob Ehrlich, Michael Steele, and George W. Bush. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in a decade seems like a realistic amount.

Yet Audrey Scott claimed to raise $1.5 million for the MDGOP along with $1 million from the RNC for Victory Centers, all in the one year she was Chair. I’d be glad to believe that if the numbers were there, but as I dissected them last Sunday they are not. But even if she did, I quite frankly believe that her presence at the quad county meeting may have lost her more votes than she gained, particularly when the Allen West fundraiser that Nicolee Ambrose helped to organize was described in glowing terms. I don’t think MDGOP fundraising would suffer under Nicolee, particularly if she can bring those kinds of personalities to the state.

Out of a two-hour meeting, we spent well over an hour going back and forth about the National Committeewoman race. To me that points out the distinction between the two candidates, and I’ll be quite interested to see how the votes come out from the four counties involved in the quad-county meeting. Our votes may not mean a lot but they have to be earned, and coming down to attend a meeting where her opponent obeyed a specific request not to show up gives me the impression that Audrey Scott believes she’s entitled to be National Committeewoman because she’s served in the Republican Party at a high level for a long time.

I don’t believe in entitlements. I believe we need a leader, and Audrey Scott isn’t translating the success she had as Chair into a good campaign for National Committeewoman.

Shaffer responds

This was addressed to the members of the “quad county caucus,” which presumably means that the 36 or so members of our four central committees (Wicomico, Worcester, Dorchester, Somerset) received this e-mail. It was in reply to the post I did endorsing Shaffer’s opponent, Louis Pope. I am posting this as closely as I can to the original, with slight edits as needed for formatting and shortening links. I’m also choosing not to blockquote the letter; instead I’ll divide it manually.

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In a recent article on Monoblogue, Michael Swartz of Wicomico County endorsed Louis Pope in the National Committeeman’s race, because as he put it it’s “a case of six of one and a half-dozen of the other.”  With respect to Michael (Monoblogue is one of my favorite reads), I’d like to point out some differences between Louis and myself.  At the end of the day, I’ve never been the type to hold grudges.  Whether a Central Committee member endorses or votes for Louis is his/her prerogative, and I’m not going to let that stop me from working with said Committee member in trying to make our party better.  But if anyone votes for Louis simply because they see no difference between the two of us, then I have utterly failed in communicating my vision for National Committeeman.

First off, Louis Pope is a two-term incumbent who believes that he is entitled to the position as long as he wishes to hold it.  He has characterized the National Committeeman role as a job reserved only for the most senior member of our party, essentially nothing more than a reward for past service.  On the other hand, I am an advocate of term limits (at my very first county Central Committee meeting after being elected, I proposed a bylaws amendment instituting term limits for Anne Arundel Central Committee members).  I have stated that I would not seek this position beyond a second term, because it is imperative to the party that we bring in new people and new ideas on a regular basis.  Allowing the party to be run by the same small group of people for decades at a time has done nothing to advance our cause.  Furthermore, I believe that any election like this should be based on future expectations – what the candidate is proposing, not what they’ve done in the past.  The NCM role is too important to be treated as a retirement package or social club membership.

Second, Louis was responsible for the Rule 11 waiver in 2010.  But this is only one example of a demonstrated pattern of behavior.  He has consistently used his position to sway the results in contested primary elections, by giving unfair advantages to one Republican candidate over another.  This year he served as state campaign chair to the Romney campaign, dismissing the other candidates.  Now, he is attempting to force a slate of at-large convention delegates and alternates on the State Central Committee at our upcoming convention.  My view is that no party officer should be publicly favoring one candidate over another in a contested primary – whether by waiving Rule 11, joining a campaign staff before the primary election, or otherwise endorsing a candidate before the primary.  Contested primaries make our party stronger, and the job of our party leaders should be to create a level playing field that allows all factions of our party to be heard, and ensures all candidates have a fair chance at winning over voters.  Louis believes he should decide the primary outcomes; I believe the voters should be the ones making those decisions.

I also believe that one of the main responsibilities of this role is constituent service.  For Louis, constituent service means nothing more than showing up twice a year at our conventions, and delivering a speech dictating the RNC’s decisions to us.  My pledge as National Committeeman is to contact all 24 county Central Committees before each and every RNC meeting I attend; finding out what you need from the RNC so I can truly represent you.  Any speech I give at the MD GOP conventions will include status updates on those items important to you.  Along the same lines, the state party needs to do a better job of “sharing the wealth” within our state.  For example, the annual Red, White, and Blue fundraising dinner should be rotated around the state – and not simply handed to Howard County each year.

Louis believes it’s ok to spend RNC money on his reelection efforts (despite claiming he pays his own expenses).  I’m sending you an email (not a “Paid by the RNC” mailing).  As the minority party in Maryland, I believe we need to do things better and cheaper, like making the MD GOP’s communication efforts with the Central Committees 100% electronic.  Besides cutting out wasteful spending, this also makes us more efficient.  We all know what happens when we have to have a 10 day notice required because we’re relying on the US Mail.

Louis has lost the respect of many of his RNC peers, first by mismanaging spending on the Tampa convention and approving a budget putting the RNC in unprecedented debt, then by trying to stonewall RNC efforts to investigate that misspending and related rules violations.  I have already been extended an invitation to join the Republican National Conservative Caucus and the RNC Conservative Steering Committee by other RNC members should I win this election.  As much as my opponent would like you to believe it, Maryland’s stature within the RNC will not be diminished if he isn’t returned to the post.  In fact, our credibility will be restored.

Here are two articles you should read about Louis Pope’s tenure on the RNC, and here are two items you should read about how my vision differs from that of Louis Pope.

As I alluded to earlier, our state party has been held back by a small number of people in positions of power, who put their future ahead of the party’s future.  We have “leaders” who seek to hold on to their titles indefinitely.  We have fundraisers who would rather take their rolodexes to their graves than pass on their skills and contacts by mentoring and training the next generation.  We cannot survive as a party as long as there are people within it who are “too important to lose.”  A big focus of my campaign has been on the need to grow our party within the younger generations of voters, to begin recruiting younger candidates who can reach those voters, and to ensure that our institutional knowledge doesn’t end once our current leaders are gone.  But this will not happen as long as there are people at the top who refuse to get out of the way; people who would rather horde their few table scaps of power than ensure our party’s future.

Thank you for your consideration as your next National Committeeman.  I look forward to seeing you at the convention.  In the meantime, please visit my Facebook page to learn more about me and my campaign.

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In all honesty, I wish Scott had written this position paper about two to four weeks sooner because one of my chief complaints about his campaign was that it was so low key for several weeks. Because he was unknown to so many of those who serve on the 24 various Central Committees, it was truly up to him to make the rounds and explain why we need to topple the lone incumbent running. You can’t run your campaign in the last few weeks, because first impressions mean a lot in this particular election. His effort doesn’t favorably compare to the one Nicolee Ambrose is running in terms of mileage driven and meetings attended, at least that I’m aware of.

Now I’d like to respond to a few of the points Shaffer brings to the table. First of all, I don’t believe Louis Pope should be on the RNC for the rest of his life; in fact, I would make the case that 12 years is enough should he be fortunate enough to win this time. It’s why I believe Scott should pursue another party office in 2014 and if he’s still interested make a 2016 RNC run, which I’m more likely to support should I be able to win another term myself. If I do, that would be my last one because I’ve no interest in serving beyond 12 years either.

On the question of neutrality: I think some confusion over that was part of what doomed the Rule 11 resolution Heather Olsen and I put up at the Fall 2011 state convention. It’s a double-edged sword – for example, I was a Herman Cain backer at the time but I was also careful to note that the remainder of my Central Committee may not have agreed with me.

Yet being on the Central Committee should not preclude having an opinion on who is the best candidate. Where I object is when the party places its imprimatur on one candidate over another. And while Louis was one of those who invoked Rule 11 in 2010, he was a backer of our amendment last fall – even though he didn’t think it would be necessary anymore.

While I think Scott is understating Louis’s role to some extent – I recall Pope going through the finer points of fundraising at a seminar during a convention held in my first term, before Shaffer joined the AARCC, as one example – I do agree with Shaffer that communication could be better and Pope could be more of an advocate for individual concerns. That extends to Shaffer’s next point as well, although I would have to look and see about the “RNC money on his re-election efforts” since I don’t have any of Pope’s correspondence in front of me.

As far as the next charge, I would be interested to see those invitations. I’m quite aware that Louis is not the most conservative Republican in the Maryland party.

Yet I most agree with Scott’s final assessment of the state of our party. Having said that, though, and taking into account his paean to conservatism regarding those invitations he’s received, I’m having a hard time reconciling his conservative stance with his opposition to the effort to overturn Maryland’s newly adopted same-sex marriage law – a bill that almost every Republican in the General Assembly voted against. This places Scott on the opposite side of many who attended our quad-county meeting tonight. (I have much more on that tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on when I receive a certain piece of information.) Given that particular stance, I have a hard time supporting Scott. It doesn’t mean I couldn’t work with him if successful (so far in my five years on the Central Committee I haven’t voted for a single Chair on the first ballot, having voted against Jim Pelura, Audrey Scott, and Alex Mooney in succession) but I’ve grown to support them in time because they generally seem to have the party’s best interests at heart.

So it’s still pretty much six of one, a half-dozen of the other. I’m voting for Louis Pope, but I can see the case for voting in Scott Shaffer’s favor as well. Aside from one fundamental disagreement, he and I aren’t all that far apart. Shaffer can do a lot of good and prove his worth if he can lead Anne Arundel County as a testing ground for his GOP growth theories. We have 24 counties, and if something works in one it may be worth a shot elsewhere.

Budgetary woes: it’s not just a state party thing

While Alex Mooney joined his two Maryland cohorts in pledging to vote for Michael Steele, at least “on the first ballot,” it’s one of those two fellow RNC members who now plays a different role in the election.

Louis Pope was picked two years ago to be the party’s treasurer in a downballot race which attracted much less interest than the Chair’s race. Yet, according to this Washington Times story by Ralph Z. Hallow, Pope approved a 2012 budget which figures to leave the national GOP $10 million in the hole – shades of Jim Pelura!

While one can joke about persistent debt being part of the Maryland GOP’s DNA and it carrying over to the national party once Steele assumed command, the fact that the party may not be able to pay its bills without a large line of credit is a charge contenders for the position have used to hammer the incumbent Steele, who backed Pope for the treasurer’s post.

Obviously politics is somewhat different than a business – and it should be, since there better not be a profit mode in the political arena – but the ideal would be a zero-sum game. Yes, ask any politician and certainly they’d love to have more money to help them get out the vote and convince the electorate their ideas are best. They don’t call money the mother’s milk of politics for nothing.

But our side is supposed to be the conservative one, and this lack of leadership by example tends to paint the GOP with the same big-spending brush it was tarred with during the Bush years. Worse yet, a party hampered by debt in 2012 may have a difficult time digging out of the hole if it has nothing to offer. Obviously another trip to the political wilderness like it had over the last two years is still possible after 2012 if the GOP challenger to President Obama loses and people lose faith in the Republican brand to create the change we really need. Undoubtedly the partisan media will be playing up the contention between Congress (particularly the Republican-controlled House) and President Obama.

There’s no need to rehash the financial truth of the Maryland GOP, since it’s existed in the political wilderness for longer than the national party. Every few decades they capture the governor’s office, but they have yet to crack the Democratic strangehold on the General Assembly. (It just wants to make you go beat some sense into the residents of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Baltimore City who somehow keep voting against their best interests. I can see the cushy government job aspect in some areas, but why listen to the poverty pimps in the inner city?)

This financial question may be a key as to why Mooney only committed to Steele for one round of voting and Pope “knows who he will vote for once Steele drops out after the first or second ballot.” That can’t be good news for the incumbent, who may be looking for a new full-time gig in a couple weeks.

In the meantime, look for more “surveys” and other pitches (overt and covert) from the RNC for fundraising. They may not quite be reduced to the “buddy, can you spare a dime” pitch on the street corner, but they could be closer than you think.

Home state advantage?

It was a small sample to be sure, but unsurprisingly Michael Steele won my RNC Chair poll. There were only 33 votes, which I found disappointing. I enjoyed the write-ins, though.

Here’s how the totals break down (including write-ins):

  • Michael Steele – 11 (33.3%)
  • Reince Priebus – 5 (15.2%)
  • Saul Anuzis – 4 (12.1%)
  • Maria Cino – 3 (9.1%)
  • Gentry Collins – 2 (6.1%)
  • Ann Wagner – 2 (6.1%)
  • Sarah Palin (write-in) – 2 (6.1%)
  • Michael Swartz (write-in) – 2 (6.1%)
  • Gary Johnson (write-in) – 1 (3%)
  • Rush Limbaugh (write-in) – 1 (3%)

While I thank my supporter (or supporters) for the two votes, let me just quote William Tecumseh Sherman, “If nominated, I will not accept; if drafted, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.” Still, I’m flattered.

I think this poll proves two things, though. As I was watching this poll develop over the last few days, initially Steele had an absolute majority but as time went on it became a plurality. This is interesting because the majority (about 3/4) of my readers come from Maryland so one would naturally assume he would do well. Either I had more out-of-state voters come on board or Steele is losing his status as a favorite son.

Secondly, there seems to be a large streak of “none-of-the-aboveism” among the rank-and-file, almost as if they are asking, “is this the best we can do?” Certainly there is some celebrity involved (witness the votes for Palin and Limbaugh) but the votes for Gary Johnson (and to a lesser extent, yours truly) may suggest that a direction more conducive to the TEA Party is desired. (Just for the record, I didn’t vote in this poll.) Despite the naysayers, I think the TEA Party is finding its voice in the GOP. (I’ll have more to say on that opinion in coming days.)

Even so, among the people who count, there is a suggestion that Steele is in peril as he bids for a second term as GOP head. We’ll see how it all shakes out on January 15, although there is a debate scheduled for this afternoon among the six announced contenders. (I had other plans.) I believe a number of those who can vote may be making their mind up after they hear all six speak in a public forum, and I also think that when we get to voting in twelve days there will only be three or four nominated. The bottom-feeders know the score as well as the rest of us.