Posted on 01/05/2013 2:14:24 PM PST by Optimist
St. Louis lawyer Ed Martin, who lost his GOP bid this fall for Missouri attorney general, came roaring back Saturday by getting elected as the new chairman of the Missouri Republican Party.
Martin narrowly defeated current chairman David Cole, 34-32, on the second round of balloting by the 68-member state GOP committee, sources say. Two members apparently were absent during the voting, which took place at a hotel in Columbia, Mo.
The third contender for the post, outgoing state Sen. Jane Cunningham of Chesterfield, was out of the running after garnering only seven votes on the first ballot, which saw Martin collect 32 votes and Cole, 27.
Cole’s loss appears to be a setback for Missouri’s GOP establishment. U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and all six Missouri Republicans in the U.S. House had signed a letter backing Cole’s re-election.
Martin’s win was seen as a victory for the Missouri GOP’s more conservative factions, including some tea party groups – notably the St. Louis Tea Party, whose founder Bill Hennessy had endorsed Martin.
Tweeted former state Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, shortly after the vote: “Congrats to Ed Martin. Conservatives win and the moderate establishment loses.”
New state House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka and an outspoken conservative, lauded Martin’s victory, tweeting that Martin was a “dedicated public servant, common-sense conservative.”
Later, Jones issued a statement saying, in part, “As speaker of the House, I look forward to working with Chairman Martin to strengthen the Republican Party and prepare for the 2014 elections."
Martin also may have gotten a boost from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who called members of the state GOP committee on Thursday or Friday.
In addition, Martin recently had forged alliances with several new state committee members who were backers of former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and his son, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. The Paul forces had snagged the seats during the August statewide primaries, which saw the elections of regional party posts.
Rand Paul had campaigned for Martin last fall.
Sources say that Cole also was hurt because a number of veteran Republican committee members had retired or lost their seats last summer either by losing re-election or because they had been drawn out of their districts, which mesh with the state’s 34 redrawn state Senate districts.
Meanwhile, state Auditor Tom Schweich – who is up for re-election in 2014 – also appeared to score a victory Saturday. His chief of staff, Trish Vincent, was elected vice chair of the state party.
“We have rebuilding to do in upcoming years, and I look forward to working with Ed and the rest of the state committee leadership team to strengthen the Republican Party and communicate our vision across the state of Missouri,” Schweich said in a statement that congratulated Martin and Vincent.
Email controversy hasn't hurt Martin's career
Vincent and Martin have a past in common – both served as chiefs of staff, at different times, to Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican. Blunt hired Vincent after Martin resigned in 2007, amid a growing controversy at the time over office emails that Martin had deleted or ordered to be destroyed.
Martin ended up in the middle of an investigation in 2007 and 2008 launched by a team set up by then-Attorney General Jay Nixon (now governor), and as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Scott Eckersley, a young lawyer in Blunt’s office who claimed to have been fired by Martin after warning that destroying the emails appeared to violate the state’s laws on the preservation of state records.
Martin denied any wrongdoing, although the state settled the suit with Eckersley.
The episode didn’t hurt Martin’s political career. He ran an aggressive, and almost successful, campaign in 2010 for the 3rd District congressional seat then held by Democratic incumbent Russ Carnahan (who lost his post during the 2011 redistricting).
And in 2012, Martin attracted some support from major GOP donors – including David Humphreys of Joplin – during his failed bid to unseat Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat (and former Republican) expected to run for governor in 2016.
Martin also served as the state chairman of the Missouri Republican Party’s statewide campaign to help its entire ticket.
Even so, Cole had taken the brunt of the criticism for the state GOP’s lackluster showing. The only statewide Republican to win was Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, despite the fact that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had carried the state by 10 percentage points.
Cunningham had been outspoken in calling for a new direction for the state party. But it appears that Martin was far more successful in making his case that he was the one to lead that effort.
Aside from running for office, Martin also has a strong background of fighting for conservative causes. He is a former director of the Human Rights Office for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, a former clerk at the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and has been active in lawsuits against abortion rights. Martin represented some pharmacists in Illinois who opposed a state requirement that they stock contraceptives, including the so-called “morning after pill.”
Before running Blunt’s gubernatorial office, Martin also had served a Blunt-appointed stint as chairman of the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners. Martin's revamping of office operations won praise from St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, a Democrat.
BIG GOP CHANGE PING
Can I assume the new guys will champion Right to Work legislation? LOL!
There was LOTS of arm twisting being done to support Cole. The state Committee make-up changed dramatically however with slightly less than 1/2 returning from the 2010 State Committee.
It appears that newly-elected 2nd district Congresswoman Ann Wagner was the main “power-player” with rumors of her campaign manager (Aaron Willard - former executive director of Mo’s House Republican Campaign Committee) being the likely new Executive Director for Cole’s new State GOP (can you say establishment control?). Further it had been said by some arm-twisters that Wagner (a former National GOP co-chair) would not support or work with Martin (ie. help raise money) due to their contentious primary fight for the 2nd Congr. Dist.
We’ll see if she in fact takes her ball and goes home.
The one thing Missouri needs to do is switch to off-year elections like most other states. Having all statewide offices (except Auditor) during a Presidential year can often see candidates and candidacies get lost in the shuffle. It’s very peculiar the GOP fares so poorly in those contests even as they have heavy majorities in the House delegation and the state legislature (and now reliably vote GOP for President). I think the GOP would do better statewide with off-year races.
What, no Todd Akin?
RtW is actually a contested issue in the GOP dominated legislature. There are enough union-dependent reps and senators that they cannot agree on moving it forward despite having veto-proof majorities.
Part of the MO legislative /GOP problem has been that there has been no leadership outside of each legislative body, which is why the house and senate cannot come to agreement on many issues. Neither (former) chairman David Cole nor (top GOP officeholder) Lt Gov Kinder have exercised any (apparent) pressure on unifying the bodies or factions within.
Ed is not the type to shy away from a fight. He may say and do something stupid at some point, but he is a bulldog and not afraid of rocking the boat.
who’s Askin?
;)
actually we are still Achin’ which is why there is a new chairman.
Low volume ping list
FReepmail me to be on, or off, this list.
I say throw 'em all out and get some normal people in there that have some common sense.
Low volume ping list
FReepmail me to be on, or off, this list.
I say throw 'em all out and get some normal people in there that have some common sense.
I apologise regardless of reason.
JaJ
Congratulations. It is heartening to see the Missouri GOP taking the right lesson from November.
Yipppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I am thrilled! Couldn’t get anymore establishment than Cole!
Thanks Optimist.
Thanks for the ping. This is good news. Now we have to convince a few of our Republican legislators that right-to-work should be passed and that they should forget about eliminating the electoral college. I can’t believe we have Republicans that think the President should be determined by the overall popular vote.
I don't know much about Martin but I was impressed with his appearance in my county during the last campaign. That's not an endorsement beyond saying that he's an excellent speaker who says good things.
I do need to say something about how good his speech was. From a social issues perspective, he was so fiery and used traditional evangelical terminology so well that I was surprised to find out that he's Roman Catholic. That's not in any way a criticism of his Catholicism — on the issues like abortion and cultural decay on which he was speaking, Roman Catholics and evangelicals are in full agreement. What it says is that Martin clearly knows how to appeal to an audience which is similar but not identical to himself. A lot of evangelicals would struggle to give an effective pro-life speech to a predominantly Roman Catholic audience, but Martin did so well at connecting with his audience that he could have been mistaken for a part-time Baptist preacher.
On a broader issue, I'm surprised to see the stance of the Missouri congressional delegation, and even more surprised to see them lose in their efforts to keep Martin out. Taking a virtually unanimous position like that, and then losing, is not a good indicator that the congressional delegation is in touch with grassroots party activists.
Something clearly went wrong here with a disconnect between the Missouri congressional delegation and the party activists who elect the state chairman. People with far better inside knowledge than me will need to explain that. I simply don't have an explanation, unless perhaps it is that Martin is such an effective speaker in public and persuader in private that he won people over due to his communication competence. If so, that's a good thing.
The Paulistas in Missouri and other places put up a ferocious fight last year for convention delegates and control of state delegations.
But the Romney team kept them from putting Paul’s name in nomination for president at the convention.
Some have suggested that we need to fight ferociously to take over the GOP but I think when any real threat exists like one to Romney did last year they will be taken down by last minute rule changes, changing meeting locations, using executive committees to overrule regular committees.
Despite knowing about the Paulista threat — especially after the practice run four years earlier — David Cole was unprepared to handle the “threat”. Many counties were STILL unprepared for the “sneak attack” at their caucus.
As an attorney and having had years of leadership over committees, he failed to effectively run the state convention. When the Paulistas used their delay tactics — that resulted in a 2-hour delay in breaking for lunch! — many delegates eventually left and they nearly took over before the convention was adjourned.
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