RNC boosts RINO to victory
So you have a Republican U. S. Senator who is facing a challenge from another Republican. The senator is out of step with the Republican party platform in every respect -- on social issues, fiscal issues, national defense, and foreign policy.
But, you say, the senator is a loyal Republican. If he backs the President, a Republican, and supports the Republican leadership in the Senate, surely that loyalty, that reliable vote, can compensate for ideological differences. It might, but this guy isn't loyal. He didn't vote for the President's re-election, and he's actively working to block the President's nominee to be UN ambassador.
But instead of treating this Republican in Name Only as an outcast, instead of backing a primary challenger who will be in step with the platform and cooperative with his fellow Republicans in government, the Republican National Committee mobilized its forces to prop up the RINO. The RNC paid for party interns to fly in and campaign for the RINO incumbent. The RNC mobilized the 72-hour task force -- the strategy designed to boost turnout and defeat Democrats in the general election -- but this time it was used to prop up the RINO incumbent.
The RNC succeeded in propping up RINO incumbent Sen. Lincoln Chafee and defeating conservative Cranston, R.I., mayor Steve Laffey by about 4,000 votes.
This is nothing new, just one more reason I urge you not to give money to the RNC, the NRSC, or the NRCC. If you want to help real conservative Republicans to win office, you should contribute directly to the campaigns of those real conservative Republicans.
Part of the problem, as I noted back during the 2004 Republican National Convention, is that the Republican National Committee -- the board of directors for the national party organization -- is structured to overrepresent small states with small, ineffective state Republican organizations. The big and growing Sunbelt states where Republicans have gained dominance are underrepresented. Every state (and each of several U. S. territories) has three votes on the RNC -- the state chairman, the national committeeman, and the national committeewoman.
Even so, there are still more red states than blue states, and if the national committee members from the conservative states banded together, they could stop the inappropriate actions that the RNC staff took in a primary in support of a RINO.
But for that to happen, grassroots conservative Republicans in those red states have to be sure their RNC members are conservative. And that those RNC members are willing to rock the boat, to come together in a coalition and to stop the RNC staff from putting its resources into a primary in support of a RINO.
The fact that there was no outcry from the RNC members, that no heads have rolled at the RNC, ought to tell every grassroots activist that he needs to pay closer attention to his state's national committee members. Are they not paying attention? Are they not conservative? Is it time to replace them?
RELATED: Scott Sala urged New York Republicans to take advantage of the rare opportunity to vote today in a primary. Party rules in New York encourage nominees to be chosen behind closed doors and anointed at conventions. Contested primaries are rare, but this year there was one in the race to challenge Hillary Clinton for re-election to the U. S. Senate.
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It doesn't take a genius to figure out why the RNC backed Chafee. It's because he represents the party's best chance of retaining that seat in November, and thus improving the GOP's chances of keeping a majority in the Senate.
The fact is, Laffey would have been too conservative for Rhode Island voters, and would've been squashed by the Democratic candidate. At least Chafee gives the GOP a fighting chance. The party's looking at the bigger picture.
A super-conservative politician doesn't stand a chance in the Northeast, any more than a hyper-liberal would in Oklahoma. Chafee represents his constituency better than the conservative would.
In the real world, pragmatic compromises sometimes have to be made.
I think the RNC should keep its sticky hands off of local or state GOP primaries. Period.
If two authentic Republicans are running for office, then it is up to their fellow home-grown Republicans to decide who will be their nominee.
In this race, the RINO is the incumbent, and it's obvious that all the RNC really cares about is staying in POWER, GOP Core Principles be damned.
I couldn't agree more.
I took your advice and I got a threat from the NRSC to drop my name from their "Solid Republican List". I wrote back and told them to do what they had to do. A couple of weeks later I got a discounted rate to attend one of their fund raisers. I told them I would save myself some money and soothe my conscience and donate directly to Senator Santorum’s campaign.
The NRCC got its nose bloodied in Arizona trying to pick a winner. See a excerpt of a the report on Randy Graf's race.
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Former state lawmaker Randy Graf won the GOP primary for an open U.S. House seat despite lobbying from the National Republican Congressional Committee against his candidacy.
His closet rival, state Rep. Steve Huffman, received a late-campaign boost from the committee, which in a rare move broke its neutrality in a primary race by spending more than $122,000 on TV ads on his behalf. Party officials had expressed concerns Graf may be too conservative to win the seat in November.
But that move prompted a local Republican backlash, drawing a joint letter and a joint news conference in Washington by Huffman's four GOP opponents expressing their "unified outrage" at the national committee.
With 95 percent of the southeastern Arizona district's precincts reporting early Wednesday, Graf led Huffman 22,861 to 19,674 or 43 percent to 37 percent. One-time state party chairman Mike Hellon was next with 12 percent, and two others lagged well behind.