In the summer of 2007 The Reagan Wing was in preparation for our Washington State Immigration Summit (that would, that June 30th, present national Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, and direct messages from three Presidential Candidates). In conversation, after the planning one evening, I can remember saying “We should begin to see the hand of God in the 2008 Presidential elections.”
It was true… but, of course… He’s not a tame Lion.
I’ve been at this awhile and I have a sense for the players, the forces at work: the challenges that have prevented the GOP from having a conservative Presidential Nominee since 1984. And yet, in the months since then, I have been astonished at the events.
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Pat Robertson endorsed a cross-dressing, pro-abortion gay rights activist for President.
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The most gifted conservative communicator in years came off as lackluster and found no traction.
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Tom Tancredo spoke nothing but impeccable conservatism on the hottest national issue but generated little support.
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Ron Paul spoke nothing but anti-war to the Party of hawks and uncovered an enormous hidden army of Constitutional zealots and a similar flow of funding.
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And the four most liberal candidates in the field cast lots for the mantle of Ronald Reagan, like a clique of Roman guards at a capital punishment soiree.
It was Surrealistic. It was the Republican Party as conceived by Salvador Dali.
But the Divine comedy was not yet enough. In retrospect, it has been as if the Founder of our nation, the One in whom we said we trusted, He who blessed our nation above all that had preceded it for a thousand years, had, at last, demanded an accounting and began, without hands, to pull apart the pieces of our national process like a child with an insect. Or… perhaps to demonstrate that we are already in pieces…
The Republican Party has all but disassembled itself… methodically… ruthlessly… inexorably… to reveal, beneath the outer lines of selfless grassroots activists, beneath the muscles and sinews of issues advocacy movements, beneath the focus-grouped sloganeering that fuels RNC fundraising… a heart of utter darkness.
And now it is clear to me that we must don the sackcloth of penitence. We must retreat from the sham of self-congratulation and misdirection that got us here or we will doom this nation to slavery.
On Saturday, May 3, Jeff Kent, made a speech to the Washington State Republican Central Committee exulting in a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth year of his re-election as National Committeeman specifically by that body which has no legitimacy to give him any more than two. It was reminiscent of the last speech ever given by the ancient Babylonian king, Belshazzar.
Kent’s theme was “not surrendering,” and in the speech he said that to secure our borders we must support John McCain. He was loud and dramatic. “We will not surrender!”
And the nature of the speech demanded that the audience accept what they had to know was obviously false… and not only that, but that they knew that Kent knew was false and must have known that they knew he knew. There has never been a greater OPPONENT of secure borders than John McCain.
The situation demanded that the whole of the State Committee participate in a grand public lie. By Smiling, Pretending, like a collective dark baptism. Accepting the lie that Kent perpetrated about McCain. The right lie. The lie that had to be told. “I give you Barabbas!”
In 2008 The Washington State Republican Party incubated an evil whose parts I have known and whose story I have committed to tell since March 30th. This will have been the hardest article I’ve ever written.
The story is difficult because of its complexity and the breadth of its scope, of course, and difficult because its controversy will, once again, induce the darkest elements in the Party, unwillingly exposed, to attempt to make the reporter the issue instead of their own behavior… but, more than that, difficult because the tangled roots of this evil encompass basically good people, people for whom I have had respect and affection, people to whom I pretend no moral superiority, but who have let themselves become involved in reprehensible acts.
I am subdued because the roots of this evil have ensnared the neck of the Party, and could, for all intents and purposes, suffocate it.
Saturday the 10th the State Credentials Committee will meet to discuss challenges to delegates and whole delegations to the State Convention based on massive cheating by the McCain campaign through its network of Party Officials. They are but the tip of the iceberg.
The Washingt0n State Republican Party is an organism that hosts within its body an enormous, unscrupulous and fatal parasite that must, if we are to survive, be removed. And, whether or not it is successfully removed, our life as an organization is threatened either way.
May the Founder have mercy on us.
Doug,
I don’t understand this assertion: “re-election as National Committeeman specifically by that body which has no legitimacy to give him any more than two”
According to the rules of the RNC, national committee members serve from one national convention to the next – 4 years. In some states they are elected by the State Committee, in others by the state convention, but they all serve 4 year terms. What is your complaint here?
Looking forward to some facts to match your rhetoric about “massive cheating” at some point.
#1 Chris Vance May 6, 2008
—– Original Message —–
From: brian
To: ChairmanVance@wsrp.org
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: WSRP E-MAIL UPDATE – October 7, 2005
Chris:
Where is my letter? Or were you also lying about that?
Brian Thomas
Oh, sorry, Chris,
I didn’t see you sitting there in the waiting room.
The proper authority to elect a National Committeeman is a State Convention in a Presidential year.
That’s the way it was set up.
The State Committee, under Jennifer Dunn, usurped this prerogative.
State Committee authority, while the highest in the WSRP, only extends to the two years of each Committee’s tenure and its proper use, to fill the unexpired term of a National Committee person in the absense of the Convention, would be on a pro tem basis.
Brian, not sure I get you. It has been well established that your precious letter that you pine for, will not come. In fact, it has explained to ad nauseum that your verbal confrontation many years ago was just that, an argument that you lost, and refuse to let go.
You need to focus man, like a laser beam; how are you going to help get Rossi & McCain in power? Stop this inane, trivial demand about a long ago imagined promise.
RBN (at 4):
What was the argument and how did Brian “loose” it?
Where are the “explanations” to which you refer?
On what basis do you call it an “imagined promise”?
[...] May 8, 2008 by Doug Parris (Earlier: Part I. WSRP 2008: Prologue to Dark Sentences) [...]
Doug,
“The proper authority to elect a National Committeeman is a State Convention in a Presidential year.”
Says who? The RNC rules don’t say that.
#7 Chris Vance May 8, 2008
Chris:
As RBN in post #4 May 7, 2008 says:
” You need to focus man, like a laser beam “.
Is your apparent inability to honestly respond when questioned about your actions another reason the Gallatin Group ‘made you an offer you could not refuse’? (If severance pay can be construed to be an ‘offer’)
#1 Chris Vance May 6, 2008
—– Original Message —–
From: brian
To: ChairmanVance@wsrp.org
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: WSRP E-MAIL UPDATE – October 7, 2005
Chris:
Where is my letter? Or were you also lying about that?
Brian Thomas
Chris (at 7):
The highest authority in the Republican Party is the Convention.
No Washington State Republican Convention has conferred that prerogative on the State Committee. They simply took it and they did so to prevent Conservatives from holding the position.
Doug,
No, the highest authority in the Washington State Republican Party is the State Committee. State law creates the State Committee and the State Committee calls the convention for certain limited purposes.
The State Committee IS the State Party, and the State Party has the authority under the RNC rules to adopt rules governing the election of RNC members.
RCW 29A.80.020
State committee.
The state committee of each major political party consists of one committeeman and one committeewoman from each county elected by the county central committee at its organization meeting. It must have a chair and vice-chair of opposite sexes. This committee shall meet during January of each odd-numbered year for the purpose of organization at a time and place designated by a notice mailed at least one week before the date of the meeting to all the newly elected state committeemen and committeewomen by the authorized officers of the retiring committee. At its organizational meeting it shall elect its chair and vice-chair, and such officers as its bylaws may provide, and adopt bylaws, rules, and regulations. It may:
(1) Call conventions at such time and place and under such circumstances and for such purposes as the call to convention designates. The manner, number, and procedure for selection of state convention delegates is subject to the committee’s rules and regulations duly adopted;
(2) Provide for the election of delegates to national conventions;
(3) Fill vacancies on the ticket for any federal or state office to be voted on by the electors of more than one county;
(4) Provide for the nomination of presidential electors; and
(5) Perform all functions inherent in such an organization.
Notwithstanding any provision of this chapter, the committee may not adopt rules governing the conduct of the actual proceedings at a party state convention.
Chris,
There is nothing in your citation to directly reference a conflict between the acts of a State Convention, with which the statute forbids interference by the State Committee, and the acts of the Committee, itself, but there is judicial precedent. As I recall you, yourself, expressed abject dismissal of State Law in 2004, with regard to its restrictions on your interference, as State Chair, in the Convention that year. You were told your plans were a direct violation of the law, as I recall.
“I don’t care!” was how your sentiment was expressed, at that time, I believe.
More interesting is the recent claims by both John White and Richard “The Dark Lord” Derham, to wit: that State Law has no authority over the internal workings of the Party, direct conflicts of which alleged principle are aptly demonstrated in the statue you quote.
Doug,
I didn’t “interfere” with the State Convention. As you will remember the convention voted to apopt rules that required candidates in contested primaries to sign the 11th Commandment in order to address the convention. The Convention has the power to adopt rules to govern its proceedings.
The authority of the convention, however, is limited to the purposes for which it is called by the State Committee. The convention is a temporary body called into being by the State Committee for two specific purposes: elect delegates to the national convention in a manner consistent with the rules adopted by the State Committee and submitted to the RNC, and adopt a platform and resolutions. That’s it.
In regards to your other assertion, you are confirming my point. State law gives the State Committee the authority over the internal workings of the Party. The State can’t interfere, and neither can the convention.
Juan McLaim is too good at “cooking frogs” for me to ever vote for him.
I really believe that IN THE LONG RUN Obama will be best for America. It will let them see clearly how wrong the direction is that our country has been going is and people will realize the need to elect a true conservative next time.
It happened before. After the scandal that the liberal Nixon put the Republican party through it would be logical to think that it was going to be a long, long time before the country would ever trust the Republican party enough to again put a Republican into executive power. But of course that wasn’t the case. It only took one extremely Liberal President by the name of Jimmy Carter.
Without Jimmy Carter I doubt that any post-Watergate Republican would have been elected President for a generation or more. But not only did the country again trust a Republican in the White House, but they put in one of the Most Conservative Republicans ever.
Now, I am not saying that the next four years are going to be pretty. They are not. But they aren’t going to be pretty if McCain gets elected either since he will try liberal solutions to our problems too. So the question isn’t whether you want things to get worse in the next four years. For regardless of who wins, things will get worse. The only question remaining is who do you want to get the blame when things get worse? And to that I answer that I rather have Obama and the Democrats be blamed.
Now McCain hopes that our hated of Obama will keep us in line. Also he thinks we are all prejudiced so we would never vote against him because we are all racists and therefore could never bring ourselves to voting for Obama. Well, I am no racist, and I am not fearful either. Don’t get me wrong, it will be unpleasant but this country survived Carter and as a result got Reagan. So, yeah, I don’t like Obama, but I will vote for him knowing that in four years a new Reagan will come to set things right.
Also, remember this, if the country keeps going the way its been going (under Bush-Clinton-Bush so it doesn’t it really matter who was in the White House) Obama will be eventually elected.
If not him, someone like him as the Republicans can’t win the White House forever.
If McCain manages to win this time, our country be such a mess in four years he would lose to Obama then, or again if not Obama himself someone just as bad or even worse.
So, by electing McCain we are only putting off the inevitable, and not by that long either.
What is needed is an Obama as President to show America the errors of its ways and for people to understand the need of a change of direction for the country to survive.
And, I don’t need to go through the long list of key areas do I where Obama and McCain for the most part agree so it’s not like McCain in public policy is going to be much different. Immigration, the whole man made Global warming scam, so called “free trade”, where’s the key differences there between the two? And of course we all talk “Iraq” but what makes you think McCain could actually do better there. Sure he was in the military but even today I read where he is saying things against “waterboarding”. Yeah he was in the military, and you can’t take away from him that sacrifice, but he was a pilot, not a commander so whose to say he understand how to lead a war effort? And I hate to bring it up but he was captured, and I thought the goal in war is not to be captured.
In the end, while McCain claims to be strongly for the war in Iraq he provides no real solutions to how to win it. Now I am as far from “cut as run” as it gets but nor am “stay and allow your troops to be shooting ducks”. McCain as much as anyone should understand the need to have a strategy to get most the troops home as possible. How can any conservative say it’s patriotic to want to have the men and women who sacrifice daily to spend years and years away from family and friends. They are willing to make that sacrifice, but we shouldn’t abuse their sacrifice. Our part of that bargain should be that we will keep them there as long as it is absolutely necessary, with the goal to use all our focus upon getting them out as quickly as possible.
Yeah, the song went “And It Won’t Be Over Until It’s Over.. Over There!” during WWII but the underlining thinking is that the goal was that someday it WOULD BE over over there. And back then there was an endgame and people did return. So, no, not Cut and Run, but not Stay and Die either. I would say it should be Win and Go Home. And I don’t feel unpatriotic to seem to be going against the GOP by having this belief.
You know we talk about Reverend Wright, as I believe we should, but McCain has his own “Reverend Wright”.
And no, I am not talking about Pastor Hagee though as a Catholic that should give Chris Vance pause.
But I am talking about someone else, an adviser to McCain who radical views if they ever got even near the same air play as Reverend Wright’s would make people never able to trust or vote for McCain.
Yeah, “GD America” is bad.
But how about telling people of Hispanic Decent, now I am not talking about people who have been here just a few generations but I am talking about people who have been here five, six, seven generations or more that they are Mexicans First! Not Americans but Mexicans.
But that is exactly what one of Juan McCain’s advisers said. The guy’s name is Juan Hernandez.
Can you imagine the outrage if some advisor said that white people should think of themselves as Europeans first? But that is what this guy said about someone who happens to be of Hispanic decent.
Yeah, being advised by someone who will damn America is bad, but so is being advised by someone who would tell a great number of Americans to not consider themselves Americans but instead ally themselves with another country. In fact to me it seems like it comes out to a draw when considering which is worse.
#15 Michael Perkins May 10, 2008
“ But how about telling people of Hispanic Decent, now I am not talking about people who have been here just a few generations but I am talking about people who have been here five, six, seven generations or more that they are Mexicans First! Not Americans but Mexicans. ”
Michael, keep in mind that it is Fredi Simpson –
Fredi Simpson Washington State National Committeewoman:
National Committeewoman, Washington State Republican Party, Elected May 25, 2006
Chairman, Chelan County Republican Party, 2003-
Board of Directors, Washington Federation of Republican Women, 2006-
Vice-Chair, Washington State Republican Party, 2005-2006
Team Leader, Rossi for Governor, 2004
Vice Chair, Washington Republican National Hispanic Assembly, 2001-2005
Campaign Manager, Mike Harum for Chelan County Sheriff, 2002
Vice-Chair, Chelan County Republican Party 1999-2003
Co-Chair, John Carlson for Governor for North Central Washington, 1999-2000
- who stood up at a Republican function and proclaimed in a loud voice “ I am not Hispanic, I am Mexican! Mexican! Mexican!”
Not Mexican-American, Mexican!
I know Fredie Simpson quite well, and you’re a bit crazy if you think that’s something she’d ever say. You may want to consider a refresher course on the ethics of libel. Most human beings consider it a fairly detestable act.
Michael,
It would appear to me that anyone claiming to “know” Ms. Simpson “quite well” should be able to, at least, spell her name.
In addition, you claim to know what Ms. Simpson “would” say, not what she actually DID say, clearly projecting her actions, theoretically, based only on your personal image of her. Many of us, at one time, had a firm belief in Richard Nixon’s impeccable honesty on the same basis.
And then you have the temerity to imply “libel” against a man without any specific knowledge of the facts he references.
Someone needs a “refresher course” on ethics, to be sure, but it doesn’t look to me like it’s Brian.
Here a quote by Ms Simpson in the newspaper.
See here for the full article:
Fredi Simpson, an Hispanic GOP activist from Chelan County and the party’s newly elected national committeewoman, said the position on guest workers will be unpopular among growers and their workers.
“That’s going to be the toughest one for me to explain,” Simpson said. “They have to go home before they can come back?”
http://www.chelancountygop.org/FredisImigration.htm
I strongly believe we need a comprehensive guest worker program, and the President is right on this point. The orchardists, farmers and other businesses employing seasonal labor need to be able to hire the best workers they can get. With the unemployment rate as low as it is in this Country, it is true that some employers are finding Americans do not want to do some jobs the migrant is willing to do *. But, I want the Government to know who these seasonal workers are. This means we need to document any worker who comes into the U.S. and we need to have a better system of cross referencing social security numbers to names for positive identification. The Departments of Licensing in the various States can do this identification check in minutes and if our governmental agencies were utilizing a unified computer system, the local employment services departments should be able to do this also. These services should not be a burden to employers.
In addition we should look into tamper-proof biometric ID cards (link)… for anyone entering the Country. A comprehensive guest worker program could do all that. Migrants should be allowed to come here to work, then (as I said before) they must go back to their home country. If they wish to come back with their families, they must go through the proper channels for entering this Country again. Also, I believe we will continue to have immigration problems until U S citizens stop wanting the best job done, for the least amount of money (day labor). We all share in this problem, and the solution may well require that we pay more for qualified contractors to do our building, etc. rather than having illegal immigrants do the work. This would also benefit the economy in that increased wages in these fields means greater investments and spending.