Posted on 03/05/2013 4:18:41 AM PST by Kaslin
Memo to the leaders of the GOP:
Wise up.
The dysfunction in the national GOP was on display in Colorado over the weekend; and oh, boy, what a mess.
If conservatives ever win an election again in Colorado it will be only by mistake.
Incumbent chair, Ryan Call, was re-elected 272 votes to 158 over a well-known challenger who had previously served as chairman in one of the metro counties.
I know both men and took no part in the fight.
By way of disclosure, however, I should say that the challenger served with me as vice chair when I was chairman of a county party in Colorado. He is a long-time political ally and someone I consider a close friend.
Call, on the other hand was always helpful to me, and generous with his time for the county party.
Thus, I had rooting interest in the campaign, but took no other interest until around Wednesday of last week.
In general, I try to stay out of state and local politics, especially within the GOP. It’s really no fun for me to get involved in party politics generally. The party runs itself just fine, I figure, with no input from me. After the 2010 disaster in Colorado, I have, for the most part, said “adios” to state party comings and goings.
Besides, it’s so much more fun taking on Obama and the liberals than arguing about obscure bylaws, resolutions and badge fees while the Colorado GOP suffers from one embarrassment after another.
On Wednesday, however, I got an email from someone that contained what was represented as a letter from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation detailing GOP chairman Ryan Call’s arrest in Idaho Springs, Colorado as a fugitive in 2011- just months after he was elected chairman.
This arrest had not been previously reported in the news media…after almost two years.
Call, an attorney, it seems, failed to appear in court after a string of tickets for speeding. He was driving on a suspended license at the time of his arrest.
I was suspicious at the authenticity of the letter- come on, I told others, how does this escape detection after two years?- but the Colorado Statesman, a local publication that caters to Colorado politicos, later confirmed the facts of the case.
There was no mention of the arrest in the Denver Post, at any time. Nor will there be any mention of it in any mainstream media outlet unless, and until, it serves the purposes of the narrow liberal, downtown Denver agenda. Post publisher Dean Singleton, a political amateur with aspirations to be a kingmaker, and the rest of the Downtown Denver Club, which includes GOP and Dems, both, will see to that.
That’s because it’s clear that establishment interests in Denver inside and outside of the GOP- interests that mimic those nationwide- prefer Ryan Call as chairman. And they will intercede wherever they have to in order to support the weakened GOP that Call represents.
To be sure, Call settled up with the court and his now free of charges. But really? This is the best Colorado GOP can do?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
This is the same GOP that failed to deliver Colorado for Mitt Romney despite Chairman Call’s membership in the LDS church. This is the same GOP that failed to take advantage of the conservative tide that the Tea Party brought. In 2010, it lost not just the governor’s race in Colorado but the US Senate race as well. And lost both races while embarrassing the state.
This is the same GOP that campaigned against an unpopular automobile tax, but then hired the chief strategist behind the tax to serve as the chief strategist for the GOP in the State House. This is the same GOP that tripped over itself to become one of the first states to enact the framework for Obamacare healthcare exchanges. This is the GOP that has made it quite clear that help from the grassroots, while wanted, is not particularly appreciated unless it’s the right type of help, for the right type of candidate… and in the meantime all you in the grassroots can go sit in the corner.
And it’s also the same GOP that passed Sarbanes-Oxley, expanded Medicare, supported the Community Reinvestment Act, created the Department of Homeland Security, mismanaged the war in Iraq, and generally put us in the mess that the party occupies today.
What outsiders- and insiders within the GOP- don’t understand is that Tea Party is more an outgrowth of dissatisfaction within the GOP than it is dissatisfaction with Obama. Few Tea Party members ever voted for Obama.
And without the Tea Party, the Republican Party is dead.
It will die because this is what we have come to expect from the GOP: "We need the kind of man who is in the trenches with you and that man is Ryan Call," former Speaker Frank McNulty (R-Highway Contractors) told the Denver Post, as the Post mentioned not one word about the Call arrest. McNulty was the man who was responsible for the strategy of promising repeal of the car tax in Colorado and then making sure no legislators were able to bring a bill to the floor on the repeal. Just as Obama’s White House did with reporter Bob Woodward, McNulty apparently told some legislators they’d “regret” introducing such measures, all while chairman Ryan Call stood aside.
McNulty, like Nancy Pelosi, couldn’t attach “former” to the title Speaker fast enough to save his party.
“It is important that we be cautious using the chairman’s bully pulpit,” Call told the Statesman when responding to charges that consequently the GOP in Colorado really doesn’t stand for anything.
I guess being just the bully without the benefit of a pulpit means that the Colorado GOP at least has it half right- the wrong half of course; always the wrong half.
People now tell me that I should relax: The position of GOP chair in any state is inconsequential.
Unfortunately, in Colorado’s case, I sure hope they are right.
Minnesota, with different players.
Yeah, it's always interesting when the white trash kleptocrat "Republicans" put their contempt for the Law on display.
A Republic is a system of governance characterized by the Rule of Law - and when the law fails, the Republic fails.
"Until 9/11, Ransom worked primarily in finance as an investment executive for NYSE member firm Raymond James and Associates,"
ESAD RINOs - If you do, you will. How's that AAA sub-prime A$$Paper digesting? Plop Plop Fiz Fiz.
>>And without the Tea Party, the Republican Party is dead.
There is no Tea “Party”.
It is a set of common American principles - not a collective of wave-riding parrots.
Buzz off back to NY, Ransom.
NO SALE.
An answer may be a kind of revolution, the innovation arising from necessity, in and out of the Party apparatus. It requires audacity, a quality the Usurper did not invent. It requires boldness. From experience, I see now tossing one's hands up and walking away usually does not work. Someone has to make the motion, as they say. A motion to adjourn is always in order, and takes precedent over all other motions... but often great controversies that finally come to a head in front of an angry executive committee gathered to confront such a controversy continue on because everyone was waiting for someone else to make the motion.
Jesse Helms, here in North Carolina, left at least two great examples. When he readied for re-election campaigns, he always proceeded from the assumption that the state and local party did not exist. He essentially set up his own Party apparatus running parallel to the Party, without waiting for endorsements and without insulting anyone on the local or state level. Rather he paid deferred respect and showed up at the meetings, or sent representatives but he never counted on the Party to be there for him. Great if they showed, but never something to depend on.
In addition, no one knew how to handle media bias better, and the media hated him with a purple passion, much the same way as the legacy media hates all Republicans today, moderate or otherwise, as unifying objects of hatred.
Jesse knew what was assumed to be controversial by the media mandarins was certain to be trumpeted over hill and dale. So he deliberately couched a message he wanted widely broadcast within a narrative certain to be controversial. It worked very well, by the way.
Reason-for-being functions crowded out by the self-continuity functions, until the latter is all that remains.
That pretty much sums up the state of affairs in "Colorado”’s RINOcratic Kleptocracy. I say "Coloarado"'s because, unlike those few of us who were born and raised here, the parrots who pretend to speak for us WERE NOT.
Meanwhile, the carpetbaggers who’ve invested in both sides of the aisle will frack themselves a fortune as Useful Idiots like governor Chickenlooper pave the way.
At least the transplanted CA/NY Libertardians can “legally” inhale and self-medicate themselves into oblivion - and the sooner the better.
Tell us, John "Bam" - when are your fellow executive Financial super geniuses planning on taking responsibility for this cluster frack?
ABA Sees Housing Market Stabilizing
June 19, 2007The U.S. economy remains resilient," reported Scott Brown, EAC chairman and chief economist of Raymond James and Associates Inc, St. Petersburg, Fla. "Residential home price declines could deepen, especially if mortgage rates continue to climb, but the drag on the economy should lessen as the year comes to a close."
http://www.subprimenews.com/spn/news/story.html?id=266
"Oops"
I’ve adopted a new theorem concerning Republicans, and I’m using this sort of story as an experiment to see if I’m correct in my assumption.
Republicans know they are in deep trouble. They have a negative reputation on the political market. The media never covers positive Republican outcomes, actions, or ideas. They cannot win in an argument in the current political climate, and they are falling short on many fundraising goals on which they’ve previously succeeded.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have a fawning media complex, an adoring, vocal minority of Americans in large cities standing by them, and a Marxist president doing everything in his power to stoke anger and resentment against any opposition.
The Republicans, in multifaceted attempts to “reinvent themselves” have taken to adopting previously extremist attitudes toward disarmament, illegal immigrants, homosexuality, and financial affairs. As such, they are hemorrhaging support from their base in a futile attempt to lure a small constituent of voters over to their side, a constituency that has little money to give them anyway.
My theorem is as such: the Republican establishment, mostly RINOs, are taking leftist views, appointing left-of-center candidates and representatives to political and non-political offices in the GOP establishment, and leftists, not wanting to let a crisis go to waste, are grooming criminals and politically ambitious men and women to invade the GOP, thus providing negative talking points for Democrats and the media to use against them.
There are, of course, outliers, and many of them appear to be so far RIGHT of center as to be undesirable to a broad swath of men and women who consider themselves to be Republicans. These “Christian Right” candidates are using the church, in its many forms, to push agendas or ideas that are so unpalatable as to be vomit-inducing, much like the gentleman up for the senate seat out of Missouri. The media then spins it that we are ALL like him, and we’re left back on our heels in defense.
The real fight needs to come from the conservatives among us. We need to stand up for ideals ensconced in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We need to stand up for God in the public square and not push ignorance in the form of misinformation. If we can win the public in the war of ideas and espouse true conservative American principles, push the idea of exceptionalism and nationalism in the vein of pride, and show all Americans that we stand for inclusion of all races and creeds but will not stand for ideas that are counter to our Judeo-Christian pedigree, then, and only then, will we see a resurgence in the idea of Americanism not just in the form of nationalism but as an ethos.
The GOPe is self-destructing, and like Obama’s “declination management plan” for the nation, the GOP is being forced into obscurity through a series of missteps and poor management decisions that I personally believe are being orchestrated by those in positions of power. A decentralized party apparatus in the form of the TEA Party and other Constitution-centered political platforms needs to emerge for us to take back the nation we all knew and loved.
People in CO aren’t really native “Coloradans” any more, they are transplants from even more liberal states; they are drunk on the liberal scotch and won’t give up the freebies they rarely get but sit by patiently waiting.
Thanks for the rememberance of Senator Helm; he gave a lot more help to Senator Broyhill than the latter reciprocated.
People in CO aren’t really native “Coloradans” any more, they are transplants from even more liberal states;
Uhuh. No mention of where the author is really from - but we sure know what log cabin fiscal "Conservatism" slithered out from under.
"Be the best informed fiscal conservative. Make Townhall Finance a part of your daily read. "
https://m.facebook.com/ransomreformrepublican?v=info&refid=17
Anyone who qualifies their "conservatism" with fiscal should get a big fat NO SALE rung up on their cash register.
There was an earlier heads-up, but it was somewhat censored.
Are The Republicans On A Colorado RockyMountain High?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2992675/posts
The election of the Colorado Republican State Party Chairman will be held Saturday, March 2, 2013 by the Colorado GOP Central Committee. The two candidates are the Republican Party Chairman of Douglas County in Colorado, Mark Baisley (a businessman) and the incumbent, Chairman Ryan Call (a lawyer). Baisley is a winning County Leader who ousted the Teacher's Union giving School Choice to his County, and was drafted by many minority and conservative groups across Colorado seeking true leadership and vision. Ryan Call has been endorsed by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and GOP Establishment insiders, but Ryan Call failed to deliver Colorado in the November 2012 election both on the State and Federal level. Colorado now faces the choice between blind loyalty to Party insider, Ryan Call or a chance to break the mold and regain the principled Republican enthusiasm with Grassroots Champion Mark Baisley.
(Excerpt) Read more at rightsidenews.com ...
“Is this the best they can do? Yes!”
Another reason why Colorado is NOT on my retirement location list.
To: RightSideNews
Your blog is news?
2 posted on Friday, March 01, 2013 6:22:59 PM by humblegunner [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse]
He doesn't obviously know the difference between a blog and a news article
Actually he is from Evanston, IL, but lives in Colorado
Thanks
Yes. If I remember correctly, there was another occurrence with CNS News or another site like it that predates most.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.