The REC’s need some new blood. After all that has happened the “most active Republicans in the county” are still clueless. The REC is supposed to be the principled foundation of the Party, from which grassroots values are supposed to rise upwards to the elected party leadership; each successive level of leadership is to respond to our mutual values and in cooperation lead the Republican Party to electoral success.
Integral to this relationship is the understanding that individual Republicans are equals. From the voter that chooses to register Republican all the way up to the GOP Chairman, we are all volunteers. While it is necessary that their be hierarchy to order our activities and ensure our effectiveness, it is proper to understand we all serve of our own free will. Just as proper is to demand that all who serve in the name of the Republican Party do so for conservative principles and the resulting benefit to our nation rather than for collateral benefit to themselves.
Recently the grassroots REC members of Florida became incensed at our former state chairman, Jim Greer. The root of their complain was that he was abusing his power, that he was basically pushing Republicans around to serve the electoral purposes of himself and his cronies.
Greer is gone, so now the Republican Party of Florida must pick a new Chairman. We all know who that person is going to be, it will be John Thrasher.
The more power held by an individual the more liable they are to abuse it. Greer was a party insider who abused his power as Chairman. Now the FGOP elite are giving all the power that Greer had to a man who is already a lobbyist and a state senator.
Lobbyist. State lawmaker. State Republican Party Chairman. Greer’s power was nothing compared to the influence Thrasher will be able to wield. Grassroots Republicans had better hope he is a benevolent dictator because he will have more power in the Republican Party of Florida than anyone except perhaps the governor.
Who thinks it is a good idea to give one person that much power, especially when that person will be your leader in the state party? That average REC Republican thinks that’s a good idea! The problem is they don’t come to that idea on their own, they are led to it by manipulation of the party electorate by the party elite.
Case in point: the Clay REC.
Understand that I have no real problem with the board or most of the membership of the Clay REC. Clay is a conservative county and this is reflected by our REC. Except for a couple of local power brokers the majority are sincere in their Republicanism; they are nonetheless clueless. They are not the libertarians of the RLC, or the principled patriots of the tea parties, neither do they even have a good understanding of what is means to be a Reagan Republican. They mean well, but they have no understanding, and so in their January meeting voted to place a Republican king over themselves.
The way it went down was that during “new business” a person in the back of the room made a motion that the Clay REC direct it’s voting delegates (chair, state committeeman, state committeewoman) to select John Thrasher as FGOP chairman. Someone at the front of the room, a former REC chair, then stood up to extol Thrashers virtues. A person in the front and a person in the back, promoting something that was not specifically on the agenda? Sounds to me like an ambush and a tactic for working the room. They told us all the Thrasher had done for Clay County, all that he will doing for Northeast Florida, and all he will do for the FGOP.
There were some objections. One man wanted to know who else was running as chairman; he received a very sketchy answer that ended with “Sharon Day is no John Thrasher.” A woman made very intelligent remarks that could have come straight from RLCNEF, about the obvious conflicts of interest in someone being both a lawmaker and a party chairman. Her objections went unheeded.
They “ayes” won the vote, so now Clay is endorsing Thrasher. My impression is that most of the REC members didn’t really know what they were voting on, they were just going with the flow because a couple of Thrasher henchmen put on a good show. I’m sure the same thing is happening in every REC in the state of Florida.
The Republican Party needs to be protected from itself. Every Republican corporate crony, every tax-and-spend Republican, every power player, every moderate who talks like a conservative, every single one of them was placed in their position by a democratic process in which Republicans unwittingly voted against Republican principles.
My appeal to the people of the RLC, and the tea parties, and the Reagan conservatives, and that we do in earnest that thing we have been talking about for years: take over the REC’s. The stupidity comes from above, from the party elite that use us, but the REC is the soil in which it is planted. Join your county REC; get other constitutional conservatives to join the REC; go the meetings, and when a critical vote unexpectedly pops up stand on your principles. If you don’t like the county REC leadership then replace them in December. Nearly every precinct in Florida has at least one opening for a committeeman or committeewoman: take that position and together let’s take our party where it is supposed to be. It will be easy because it is not a matter of us against everyone already in the REC, it is just a matter of us against just the few who want elitist domination, it is a matter of us educating the majority of sincere REC members who want the best for their party and their nation in the decisions they should make to achieve those ends.
I give whoever reads this permission to copy it onto any venue they desire. My hope is that it will go viral in the state of Florida. This will not prevent Thrasher from being seated, but in the future we will at least be able to say “we told you so.” If we drive that home maybe they will listen the next time.
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Tue, Jan 26, 2010
RLCNEF Blog