The rift is in the air
February 18th, 2008 by Republican By DefaultThe Washington State Republican Party (WSRP) is divided. It has to be fixed, but until we find out who’s causing it and get them to stop, it will remain. The party leadership and their spokesmen blame conservatives (like me), while conservatives blame party leadership. Separate, neither group can accomplish anything politically in this state, as shown by elections over most of the last couple of decades.
Let me try to set the record straight about something that is repeatedly brought up when the issue is discussed. Party leadership tries to claim responsibility for the sweep in 1994 that lead to the party grabbing the majority in the State’s House and Senate, as well as placing several other Republicans in elected positions around the state.
I’d like to point out that it was a national grassroots conservative movement that swept those people into office, not the WSRP. Newt Gingrich and his leadership, based largely on the ‘Contract With America’ created a ground-swell that swept the nation. The Republican Party in Washington State deserves little or no credit for that sweep since they merely came into office on the coattails of a larger movement.
If you need further proof of that just look at where we are now. The WSRP couldn’t hold on to the majority in either state’s House or Senate, the King County council, or any number of other positions that were seized in that year. If the sweep had been due to the state party’s effort, those majorities would still be there.
Today’s events:
As Reed Davis, former chair of the King County Republican party, points out in the Seattle Times today (Missteps of the Washington’s GOP), on the heels of that victory the Republican majority changed the rules for party fund raising in this state. The result was that the financial strength of the party shifted from the counties and the grassroots of the party to the state party leadership. The piece is definitely recommended reading if you’d like to see the picture better.
Radio talk show host David Bose invited Davis to appear on his show this afternoon to talk about his opinion piece. I liked the piece but was irritated by the discussion on the show. So I called in.
If you caught the show you’ll know me as ‘Jeff in Tacoma’ who offered the last call taken in the segment. Due to time constraints I wasn’t able to make my point, nor was I allowed time to rebut David’s response to the issue I brought up. So I’m going to do it here. David is welcome to respond if he wishes and I’d be happy to post his comments or link to his post if he will forward the information to me.
To set this up, I heard it announced that David would be having Davis on his show to talk about the opinion piece in the Seattle Times. I was on the road and when I got back to my computer I searched the Times for the piece.
Search problems with the Times site (not sure what caused that, maybe it was the letters ‘GOP’ in the search) prevented me from finding it initially and only brought up the usual GOP stuff, like David Postman’s take on the state of the Washington State GOP in the face of the McCain nomination (Enthusiasm missing as GOP gets set to vote). Not a bad piece from a true outsider to the party, who are always happy to point out rifts within any part of the GOP.
David [Bose] started the segment by asking for callers who had left the party because they felt that the party didn’t represent their views, and included the request that callers be people who are now voting Democrat or Independent. But why would anyone leave the Republican Party in this state and move to the Democrats? The Republican party moved for them.
David’s request was a tip-off to me that he had a particular direction he wanted the segment to take. It appeared to me that he wanted to steer the issue away from the real issue, alienation of the ‘grass-roots’ of the party, and turn it toward their supposed abandonment of the party for no substantive reason.
My call to the show:
As I listened to the show I got irritated with David’s repeated use of the phrase ‘thin-skinned’ in reference to anyone who wasn’t towing the party line. So I called, which meant that I was late getting out of the gate and there wasn’t much time left as I started the call on the home stretch. After speaking to the screener I got put right through (sorry if anyone else got bumped because of it).
I started by trying to explain that many conservatives who are still complaining about McCain aren’t doing it because they lost and they’re just thin skinned, but that they are really just looking for answers, much like myself. David cut that short so I got right to my rather pointed point.
I challenged David on his use of the phrase ‘thin-skinned’ because I believe that it is perpetuating the rift in the party. That got him riled up. He defended his use of the phrase and used up the remaining time.
Since I didn’t get my point(s) in, I’m posting them here.
David is obviously a supporter of the WSRP leadership. He clearly believes in the mantra that goes ‘we have to nominate people who can get elected in our state’ (and still these nominees keep losing). I’m sure in his heart David wants to see the party brought back together (giving him the benefit of the doubt) so that we can win, but I believe that he’s unwittingly making the rift wider.
Take the McCain opposition that remains vocal in the party. Even the liberal reporter David Postman recognizes that the party will likely come back together during the campaign for presidency. Yet party leadership continues to criticize these ‘conservative ideologues’ who are expressing their discontent with the pending nomination. Not only is their criticism offensive and demeaning, it is effectively an attempt to squelch free speech. Is that something that the party wants to be known for?
It also begs the question of who really is thin-skinned in the issue. The people with legitimate complaints about McCain’s record, or the whiners who want us to shut up about it. Personally, I think we’re more likely to attract independent voters if we’re realistic about our candidate, and that requires some realistic criticism.
It’s also the last chance for conservatives in the party to sway McCain in his policies. Isn’t that part of both democracy and a republic? The nominee is hearing from his constituents. So quit whining about it, all of you thin-skinned McCain supporters. It’s the process at work. Suck it up.
Another mantra that David brought up (2 or 3 times) was the ‘Ellen Craswell left the party and went off on her own’, thereby splitting the party. But Davis pointed out that she was driven from the party, as were other groups.
Part of that mantra is that she was given a lot of support from the state party. But I beg to differ. She was given a lot of money, but she wasn’t given a lot of support in other forms. Once again, it was the grassroots support that carried the candidate along, not the support of the party. If it weren’t for a member of my church who supported her and invited her in to speak (something that candidates are allowed to do, contrary to the liberal’s IRS threats), I would likely not have heard much about her.
Maybe someday the status quo leaders in the state party will realize that Ellen Craswell does not represent all Christian conservatives in this state. She was simply someone who’s policies and principles lined up with ours, so we supported her in her efforts to become governor of this state.
To sum up…
The points that I wanted to make in that call,
- I agree with Davis that conservatives were driven from the party.
- Initiative 134 (discussed in his opinion piece) was a contributing factor, but I think it was symptomatic rather than causal. It was a tool that was wielded by the leadership to seize more power.
- It was the grassroots in the party that swept them to victory in ‘94, not the state party’s leadership.
- The party was losing before 1994 and they’ve been losing since.
- Leadership in the party doesn’t recognize it’s need to support the grassroots, and until they do they will continue to lose (unless the grassroots are motivated by some other issue, such as the Contract With America or Dino Rossi).
- Blaming conservatives for the party’s losses will not solve anything. It’s they who have been in leadership while the party has been losing.
- Blaming conservatives for leaving the party is akin to beating the daylights out of someone until they leave, then criticizing them for leaving.
I guess I’ve said enough… for now. So I’ll just leave you with a quote from Davis’ opinion piece. Note that it was on Chris Vance’s watch that the WSRP lost at least one of the legislative houses. That alone should leave him labeled as a failure, not as an expert whose opinion matters.
Chris Vance, a former state GOP chairman, recently declared that he has never seen the party as united as it is today. Well, that’s because there’s hardly anyone left: The party has run out libertarians, Ellen Craswell’s Christian conservatives, Pat Buchanan’s social conservatives and, in 2000, even presidential candidate John McCain’s “mainstream” conservatives!
