I have been intimately involved with this issue. It had more to do with ideology than anything else. As a delegate to last year's RPV Convention, I was among the 60% of the voters who elected Jeff to be the new chairman, the first such chairman in 12 years to win election at a convention and the first in 16 years to win a contested convention.
This is clearly a putsch by the fossilized elites of the party who are trying to regain power using trumped up charges and less than democratic means to do so. Clearly, Jeff Frederick and people like him represent the future of this party. He is energetic, tech savvy, and committed to Conservative values and principles. This is about the grassroots versus the elites.
I'm going to tell you straight out that if you do this something like that, and McDonnell loses by a narrow margin, you will guarantee the VA GOP becomes the minority party for the forseeable future. I'm trusting you aren't that petty and vindictive. We need a GOP Governor there to preside over redistricting. You get a Governor McAuliffe in there and a narrow Dem majority in 2011, and you'll be lucky to squeeze 2 or 3 House seats and maybe 1/3rd of the legislature after 2012. Is that what you want ?
You have to be willing to lose in order to win. I heard this same BS about the need to support McCain. I did and I regret it. I worked the phones, handed out sample ballots at early voting and on election day. I contributed money. Never again will I support a RINO using such fallacious reasoning. If the Reps continue to just be another wing of the Dem party, it won't matter who is governor.
As for the demographics, the GOP better start to do what it should've been doing all along, aggressively selling our policies to non-Whites. Putting all your eggs in one racial basket can be a recipe for disaster in a state that ain't all White.
More moderate Rep garbage. There is no special appeal to minorities unless you want to imitate the Democrats and adopt their policies. Our appeal needs to be universal, not one taliored to playing identity politics. Reps must be willing to take a principled stand on issues even if it means polarization, being the object of demagoguery, and short-term losses. Unless Republicans redefine the battlefield and terms of engagement, they will continue to lose the war.
The Republican Party has failed miserably to counter the Democrat political strategy on the issue of immigration. They have been cowed and intimidated fearing that unless they adapt to the new demographic reality forged by mass immigration over the past 45 years, the GOP will become politically irrelevant and powerless. These fears resulted in the nomination of Presidential candidate John McCain, a self-described maverick who supported amnesty and pandered to extremist groups like the National Council of La Raza (The Race). On the issue of immigration, the American people were offered an echo, not a choice in 2008 with both Obama and McCain holding the same views.
FYI: In 2008, if John McCain had received 60 percent [vice 55 percent] of the white vote, he would have won even if Barack Obama had received the entire Hispanic vote. Credible surveys indicate that the major policy concerns of Hispanics/Latinos were no different than the concerns of non-Hispanics/Latinos. The economy and jobs topped the list.
There is little evidence that immigration policy was an influential factor in Hispanics’/Latinos’ choice between the two candidates once basic party predispositions are taken into account. The size of the Latino voting population should be kept in perspective alongside other subsets of the electorate. An estimated 11.8 million voters were of Latino ancestry, compared with 17 million African Americans, 19.7 million veterans, 23.6 million young people, 45 million conservatives, and 34 million born-again white Christians.
FYI:
If you can’t distinguish between getting 85% of what we want or the alternative is slicing our own throat, I don’t know what to tell you. But you pull that 3rd party crap, Hoss, and as far as I and the rest of us are concerned, you’re working for McAuliffe’s election.
It was already stated Frederick was removed due to incompetence. I said already that being a Conservative alone doesn’t automatically qualify you to lead a party. You seem to think it does. What you need in VA is someone successful like SC’s Katon Dawson, probably the best state party chairman in the country.
And if you think I’m about selling out Conservative positions to mimic Democrats, I submit my 8 years of posts here to disavow you of that right off the bat. I LIVE next door to that “illegal” problem, and you’d better believe they don’t come much more unapologetic on that issue than I.
I’ll reiterate to you again, this party has done a HORRIBLE job at selling its message outside of the post-1960s constituencies (and it ain’t exactly doing a bang-up job with the ones that are). They don’t go into the Black/LEGAL Hispanic communities, they don’t walk the streets, they don’t actively recruit or FUND the candidates, and they sure as hell don’t even ASK for their votes. And we act surprised when their votes go overwhelming for the rodents. When it comes to politics, just like it comes to clothes and education, one size does NOT fit all. And you’re not going to be able to pull off a racial appeal to White people, either, because Whites don’t vote as a bloc (nor should we be about appealing “exclusively” to White voters).