Residual Forces

The Republican Party of Minnesota has fired its Finance Director Dwight Tostenson. Sources say it has to do with the lack luster fundraising of late. Other financial staffers may be getting pink slips too, as will members of other departments, but finance is taking the brunt of Carey’s ire.

Tostenson’s position was a source of controversy at the December State Central Committee meeting during the budget debate. Ron Carey submitted a budget which had removed the standard incentive pay for job excellence, and relegated the finance director to only salary. A good salary, but nonetheless, there was no incentive to excel at his job raising funds.

That along with the decision that Carey would be doing Major donor fundraising one on one with out Fundraising events, showed that the MNGOP attitude of how to raise funds had changed. Carey’s budget left little doubt about who was going to be taking over fundraising. Some people tried to explain commission based sales positions to Carey, but he was having none of it. hmmm, what did Carey <u>used</u> to do before being the first ever full time Party chair drawing nearly 6 digit salary?

Donor fatigue is part of the game in politics, especially in Minnesota where Republicans are just getting used to the non-stop campaign cycles as we are/were finally a battleground state. That along with the slew of major candidates last cycle did drain most donors wallets. Like in state government, money doesn’t grow on trees.

And lest we not forget, donors pay for results earned, not promised, but undelivered. For the last 4 years, elected Republicans in Minnesota have been dismal in delivering legislation that would warrant increases in donations. The biggest problem with party establishment I see is there sole focus on winning, at the expense of good solid conservative or issue based results. They will never get fundraising gains with depleted results.

The best way to judge the performance of the Republican party on the issues is not by election results, but by funds raised. The donors have beliefs, and are giving based on the propensity for those funds to be used to pass legislation, or as a reward for having passed said legislation.

Ron Carey just fired a person who was against the toughest odds. What Tostenson was tasked to do during the 2006 cycle was akin to selling a rear wheeldrive convertible in a blizzard in Minnesota. You can’t necessarily blame the guy simply for lower fundraising, when it was under Carey’s leadership that we saw the Republican party of Minnesota not worth giving a dime to in the first place.