Some recent WSRP history
April 2nd, 2008 by Republican By DefaultThere’s something brewing over at TheReaganWing.com. Doug Parris, an outspoken critic of the Washington State Republican Party’s (WSRP’s) methods in the recent past, has assembled a list of articles that he wrote over the years about the former WSRP state chair, Chris Vance.
I don’t know what it means or where Parris is going withan announcement about an announcement that he has announce, but I’m guessing it’s going to be interesting since former WSRP state chair Chris Vance showed up to argue against it in the comments. I’m gathering that it has something to do with an organizer for the McCain campaign in Washington state showing up at King County caucuses and chaired a caucus. While it’s not illegal or a violation of party rules, it is somewhat unethical to have someone with such a clear agenda influencing the process of selecting candidates.
Also, if I could draw your attention to one of the articles in the list of articles that Parris wrote against Vance, there’s one that is particularly telling, in my opinion.
The Vance Record: A PROVEN LOSER. Some highlights… er… lowlights:
Acting entirely without authority, [Chris Vance] warned candidates who wanted “… to run for the Legislature and their top three issues are property rights, excess regulation of the business community and abortion, I ain’t helping them because they are going to lose.” (Seattle Times Sunday, January 13) From that pronouncement to his unilateral, unauthorized decree that “There will be no Republican primary”, to his implementation of full-blown candidate censorship in 2004, Vance has consistently justified his ethical violations as “means to an end,” namely, winning at all costs. Christine Gregoire tactics. [emphasis his]
The most telling part of the article:
Well, Okay, if Chris says that winning is everything, let’s take him at his word. How is he doing? After implementing the Vance strategy are we winning?
Here’s the scorecard:
National Races
2004 was a presidential election year and we had the most popular President (in terms of votes attracted) in at least 16 years. So at the top of the national ticket Vance had a winner. Yet He won only THREE and lost EIGHT national races. That’s a winning percentage of 27.3%! They fire high school coaches for that. Any hope of the RNC concentrating on Washington evaporated after the primary election disaster Vance had orchestrated. Remember, we weren’t going to HAVE a primary, according to Chris.Statewide Races
What about the statewide races? With Candidates at the top of the Democratic ticket who had serious ethical problems Vance should have had it easy. But this area wasn’t much better. He won only THREE and lost FIVE statewide races. That’s a winning percentage of 37.5%! What’s more, all three winners were pro-abortion and gay-rights candidates. It’s true. One of them, arch-liberal Sam Reed, the incumbent Secretary of State, filed legal papers supporting the Gregoire position on the re-count! Unbelievable!State Legislative Races
The State Legislative Races looked slightly better. Many of them were contested far away from Vance’s King County liberal mindset. Eastern Washington helped him out quite a bit. Nevertheless, Vance’s chilling warning not to campaign on conservative issues had an undeniably negative effect. For Instance, Jeffery Possinger had a good shot of winning an open seat in King County’s 45th Dist. But was a target of the Vance/Herbold use of candidate censorship, was shorn of all Party support in the general and lost by a scant 3035 votes! Vance won FIFTY SIX state legislative races and lost SEVENTY. That’s a 44.4 percent winning record. What’s more, this is worse than he did two years ago WITHOUT George Bush at the top of the ticket.We’re actually LOSING ground when the nation, as a whole, is gaining. [emphasis his]
What amazed me was that after this string of losses, there was little or no coverage of it. The liberal media wouldn’t be expected to point out why Republicans lost, that might help them fix it. But what bothered me was how little discussion there was from supposedly conservative sources in the area.
John Carlson, the self-proclaimed conservative, talk show host and failed gubernatorial candidate, barely touched on the issue of the party’s failures. I know this because I was a regular listener at the time.
But the most pronounced bias on John’s show was when he talked with a potential Vance replacement on his show. I called in and asked the kryptonite question of his guest, “If you are chosen as the state chair, will you work with the religious conservatives in the party or will you work against them like Vance did?” [That’s as close to the wording as I can remember, but the point of the question was clear]. I no sooner than got the words out and Carlson hung up the phone and redirected the question by talking about the ’split in the party caused by Ellen Craswell and her group.’
In case you’re not aware, the left-wing of the Republican party loves to point to Ellen Craswell’s grassroots support from religious conservatives and claim that it divided the party and that Craswell lost because of it. That’s a red herring. Elections are complicated, but it’s clear that the WSRP has little experience with winning. In my opinion, they failed her. Their response to that is that they gave her a lot of money. But it takes more than money to win a campaign, and it’s the other things that were lacking.
And by the way, if you speak up against the liberals in the party you can expect the same treatment that I got in that phone call to Carlson’s show.
