The Republicans had several county assemblies on Saturday. We saw a blog report from Jefferson County and a newspaper report on the Boulder County assembly. We attended the El Paso County assembly.
The El Paso County assembly was well organized and ran smoothly. Most importantly, it ran on time, as far as we could tell. There were a lot of new faces there, and many old ones.
The one concern that we had was a rule made earlier this year and not well publicized that allowed Jeff Crank to make a full up political speech, Doug Lamborn to make a "Washington Report," and didn't allow Bentley Rayburn to speak at all.
If a rule of that nature is made, it needs to be very well publicized at the assembly. We gave one delegate who wasn't familiar with the rule a ride to and from the assembly. His impression was that "Crank gave a much better speech than Lamborn." That was correct, but Lamborn was operating under constraints that Crank was not, and that information wasn't provided to him.
We discovered a very well written report from another El Paso County assembly attendee. He said about the speeches:
John Suthers got the biggest positive reaction from the crowd. His messages was positive and upbeat. He was followed by Congressman Doug Lamborn, which brought forth a rousing melody from the band. His presentation was about, “I did this and I did that.” I was afraid he would dislocate his shoulder from so much patting himself on the back.
Gracious Wayne Allard was next to make comments about the dangers of losing his Senate seat and the importance of supporting John McCain for President. Bob Schaeffer is the GOP looking to replace Allard in the U.S. Senate. He mostly railed against the liberal from Boulder and not wanting to have Hillary Care for our health care program.
By then, people were getting a bit antsy, including me. Listening to a couple politicians is bad enough, but they kept coming like waves of kamikaze bombers, dropping more platitudes on us. Jeff Crank, candidate for Lamborn’s Congressional seat, was next with “I’m a tough guy and I’ll stand up to Nancy Pelosi.” His message mostly dealt with his strong support of the military...
It is appears that the writer of this piece, Duane Slocum (Kansas Plowboy), didn't understand that the rules were different for the two speeches, but how could he? He ends his essay with the observation:
Maybe they didn’t know about my assignment as a Political Reporter for the Woodmen & Cheyenne Edition. That role carries more responsibility than being a Precinct Delegate.
So, the misimpression created by this rule will be propagated to his readers. Is that good for the party? Not that we can see.
What should have happened was that a public announcement of the rule should have been made both before AND after the two men spoke so that delegates couldn't have been confused by the different parameters.
Is it even a good idea to create multiple classes of Republican candidates? We don't think so. This is a rule that needs to go away. It does not serve the party as a whole. If the party leadership dislikes the fact that candidates can petition on to the ballot, then it needs to change the law. It shouldn't be creating some artificial handicap that favors a candidate who might not pass muster in the primary.
Yes, we know this was passed without active dissent, but that doesn't make it right.
We sat in the back of the room as Lamborn and Crank spoke. If one were to judge their support by the folks who stood and applauded each of them at the end of their speech, neither is particularly strong. There were probably still 1200-1500 folks present when they spoke, and we'd guess that 40 or 50 stood for Lamborn and an equal or slightly smaller number stood for Crank. We saw a few people who didn't applaud either of them and assume that they might have been Rayburn supporters.
One thing that we were very happy to hear was that Jeff Crank will be supporting John McCain, though he was very careful to tell the assembly that McCain was not his first choice.
On to other conventions.
We have been advocating that the Republicans take a page out of the Democrats new playbook. They are nominating candidates who at least somewhat match the district. By doing this, their candidates are credible and create opportunities for upsets. We Republicans must take every race in every district but the most conservative seriously.
It seems like a waste of resources for the Republicans to nominate a conservative to run in a very liberal district. No Democrat will take such a candidate seriously and not many resources will be needed to defeat him. It is counterproductive for a nominee to stand up and tell his assembly how conservative he is if he must run in a liberal district. That will get out and be used against him.
If we wanted to be a majority party, we would match candidates to the districts and school the candidates about what to say and what not to say.
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