Eibensteiner as GOP Chair Again

In 2 days in St. Louis Park, the 347-member Republican State Board Committee will elect a chairman for a two-year term. God willing it will be Bill Pulkrabek for Chair and Ron Carey for Vice Chair.

It seems that they usually correct blog Kennedy v The Machine is now supporting Ron Eibensteiner for re-election as MN GOP Party Chair. This is a mistake.

Margaret at Our House lists only a few of the reasons that Ron needs to be kicked to the curb unceremoniously.

Here is my take.

Was it not Eibenstiener who withheld financial support from the Senate Republicans in 2002 because of a pissing match with Dick Day? It was. And his inability to put his position above his petty schoolyard mentality cost the MN GOP a great chance to capture the State Senate. We had the momentum then that has not been recaptured since. Ron cannot understand the the job of the party chair is NOT to pick who should be endorsed. That is the job of the district alone. The party chair's job is to respect the wishes of the party delegates' endorsements and get those people elected. He does not even know his job and people in the party are seriously considering re-electing him. And I thought the DFL had moron-chip issues.

Is it not a fact that we concede by running crappy candidates (stiffs who don't want to run, like Amanda Hutchins) in almost 30 races for the House...under Eibensteiner? It is a fact. To give up on that many districts is reprehensible from a "leader".

As a major party in Minnesota should we accept a leader who allowed the GOP to finish 3rd in a House race to the Green Party? I say no. Any leader in office at the time should be held accountable for allowing the party to finish behind a 3rd Party. (I know they are considered a major party in MN, but they perform like a 3rd Party in the results.)

I'm too tired to pull the 2004 election results with my notes out of the file cabinet so this is from memory. You will get the point. Should we re-elect a leader under whom the party lost 12 of 13 "close" (won by margins of 4% or less) races? He's like the Vikings in Super Bowls: Always enough to get there but never enough to win.

As a Republican who wants a party of Right (vs Left) and Right (vs Wrong) I find it onerous that Eibensteiner would nominate a crook in Eric Hoplin...the thief who personally signed fundraising letters that swindled elderly out of their money only to pour 90% back into fundraising and then blamed the elderly for it all.

Minority status almost happened in 2004 in the MN House because of Ron's personal issues and incompetence. Bush might have won MN had there been a competent get-out-the-vote movement. From what I witnessed there was NONE on campus, there was MINIMAL recruiting done in my home county and Kerry's supporters kicked Bush's ass in MN in lawn signs, buttons and stickers. Why? Because the MN GOP was too cheap to GIVE buttons away. They would only sell them which limited the number who wore the buttons, which limited the number who saw the buttons and that psychological kick in the teeth is more important than the politicos in the MN GOP understand.

Eibensteiner killed the MN GOP momentum. We got lucky that we had 2 good candidates for Governor (though I will not vote for Pawlenty again due to his endorsement of Eibensteiner and Hoplin-the-crook) and a bad DFL candidate. We won the Governor's Mansion despite Ron's abject incompetence. In 2002 Coleman (a bad candidate and a RINO for Senator) won ONLY because of the Wellstone Memorial/Rally. We got a moderate-right Senator despite Ron's failure as a leader.

Consider that until election day Kennedy was considered vulnerable. The fact that an incumbent in a body where 98% of its members win re-election had to fight too hard for his seat shows a failure on the MN GOP leadership to help with the fight. Poor use of resources if you ask me. Oh, and to top it off Kennedy's race was in a very conservative (for the most part) district against a socialist freak who wants to fight the war on terror at home instead of abroad and had no platform at all as of 8 months prior to the elections.

Unacceptable.

Three years ago Minnesota was correctly being labled as moving towards the middle, even moving to the right. Now we can barely keep the House, the Senate seems like a pipe dream and the Governor seems to very vulnerable. We have about 25% of the House races lost by over 50%.

That is not a leader. And that is not the mark of a person that will be the chair of a party that I'm in. I will not work for him, he shows no support for the grass roots workers. If he is chair then you can count on my contributions to the state party finacially to be a total of a quarter in nickel increments and requesting a Political Contribution Receipt to be mailed each time. You can count on my withdrawing my time and labor from the state party. I think it is folly to waste time on trying to make the Titanic float...just call Ron "Captain Smith". And since the College Republicans (run predominately by crooked thugs for years) is the MN GOP youth outreach the party seems to be on shaky ground for the future as well.

I'm not leaving the party...the party is leaving me. If Eibensteiner and Hoplin win I likely will think I will complete the move from the MN Republican party to a different party...resigning as a delegate and withdrawing my services. Will that be a good thing for the party? I don't know. After all, I do live in a district that will be an open seat for Congress in 2006 and need ground work.

Consider this as well. When John F Kennedy was killed and Lyndon B Johnson took over he appointed Robert Kennedy to be his Atty Gen even though they hated each other more than the left hate Scalia. LBJ was asked why and the answer was typical Texas charm: "I'd rather have that son-of-a-bitch inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.

Bottom line: Select Eibensteiner and you are guaranteed to be taken to the cleaners by a very fractured and disorganized DFL over the next 4-6 years (the damage will be long-term). Boot Eibensteiner and the same might happen, but at least it is not a guarantee. Select Hoplin and the Strib, Pioneer Press and New York Times will eventually have a field day regarding more scandals that border criminal.