Unity is a Two-Way Street & Two-Wheeler Gate
Posted by Andy on June 9th, 2007
So the Delegates have made their decision. I do not agree, but Ron Carey has been reelected in a pretty close race. I believe the margin was 47 votes, keep in mind there were 46 hand picked, if you will, at large Delegates not elected by the BPOUs to represent them.
Dorothy Flemming was elected Deputy Chair. She beat out 4 others to win the spot. And Tony Sutton was unopposed for Secretary-treasurer.
I know a lot of people think today was a failure for me, but I now have a 95% likelihood of knowing who you are. ( It was very telling how you couldn’t even make eye contact. ) plus I got a lot of keep it ups and don’t give up over this’s.
But the big deal here today is that Lt. Col. Joe Repya did far better than people were saying he would, and he definitely represents the feeling of many with in the party. Things are not all peaches and cream, and we do have discontent with in our ranks.
I hope Mr. Carey’s acceptance speech was made at heart, and he does want us to leave united. But i am going to be honest here. Saying we have to united does not make it so.
Unity is a two way street.
I want to thank everyone I have met along the way for the opportunity of getting to know ya. I want to thank everyone who gave me words of encouragement today. I want to thank Mr. Repya, his family, and friends for allowing me to get to know one of the finest men on Earth.
OK, enough with the fluffy stuff, although I do mean it.
Gov. Pawlenty needs to stop preaching to us and start listening. Attacking oil companies is what the Democrats do, and you can’t win votes or change minds there. I hope he learns from this Chairman’s race that we will not be dictatd to like this. He was on a pretty good roll, vetos vetos vetos, that was the good stuff, BUT ya went somewhere that i think you shouldn’t have. I hope you get to the point where rather than lash out at conservatives like Jason Lewis and others like me who are not satisfied with 100% of what you did, that you reach out to us and either ask us to sit down, or at least listen and try to explain why we are wrong on a personal level. You’re not all bad, but we are not all wrong.
Congressional Delegation:
Senator Coleman did not show, but neither did Reps. Bachmann, Kline, or Ramstad. I don’t believe there was any Washington session work, but if I had the choice to send a proxy for me, I would have to. So I can’t blame them for the absence.
Orders of business and stuff:
I do have to say that sooner or later we have got to figure out these conventions. The voting or balloting was just really a clusterfrack. The party really needs to do a better job uniforming the process so the CDs don’t have to figure it out on the floor as they did….. AGAIN. I heard many many people say this was the worst run convention ever. I didn’t stay til the end, but the beginning and middle were quite, um, well….. mismanaged.
I would offer as advice that in two years, when we assemble for this again, we have 2 days or an extended time frame or different format altogether. Every Delegate knew we’d never get to all of the agenda items by 3 PM when we had to be out, and I doubt they got through the reports.
I think a luncheon type meeting would be a much better way to go. Start off with the elections. yes, get them out of the way first thing as that is why people, er most, come to these this meeting. Then have a nice actual sit down and served lunch and have the guest speakers do their thing while we’re eating.
Then after lunch go through the business stuff. You do that after the elections so no one is given an advantage and those who have other pressing stuff can vote and hit the road. Just sitting there like penned up sheep leads to dwindling delegates.
I’ve been to my share of business meetings over the years, and they usually follow that type of layout. Business in the morning, lunch with speaker(s), and then business after. I think it would flow much better and keep people entertained and engaged in the proceedings rather than how we tend to wander around and chit chat in the lobby or back of the room.
As for the voting, there has to be a better way. If there is not, someone please shoot me.
It was nice to see some old faces. It was really nice to get the name of the person taking pictures of me. (I put that one in the file for a later date.) And it was much less stressful than I had expected. Oh and no one stabbed me in the back. (ahem, no eye contact. Got ya! )
I am home now. Managed to get my grass cut before the rain. Having a beer and finally getting a morsal of food in my stomach. (As I proof this, I just realized I still have not eaten.)
I will be heading out of town tomorrow for the week, and will be out of pocket as they say, but I hope that the asshats will take their victory and leave it at that so i don’t have to pull down my blog while away. I still haven’t gotten my thoughts straightened out about my future, but today was a nice shot in the arm to lift my spirits.
thank you to everyone who took the time to come up and tell me to keep my chin up and that you have my back.
(Closed circuit to the Carey campaign staff: Wally the Beerman would like an apology over the water cart incident. Seriously, was that necessary? Do you think you have exclusive rights to owning hand trucks or something? You know who you are. )
You can find MSM stories about the election:
Strib version (warning, freakishly oversized Carey headshot ahead.)
MPR version (another scary picture ahead.)
WCCO version (phew, no picture)
(Sorry, couldn’t resist on the picture.)
[ZZZZAAAAAPPPPP!!!!!!]
Unity!
Have a good week y’all.
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June 9th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Just to say thanks, enjoy your time off. Also to let you know that a miracle occurred and that “other business” was completed and adjournment was at 2:56 PM.
June 9th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Andy write:
“keep in mind there were 46 hand picked, if you will, at large Delegates not elected by the BPOUs to represent them.”
That is not true Andy and you should know since you ran for CD chair.
The 46 at-large delegates are mode up of:
The Chair, Deputy Chair and at-large delegate for each CD who vote in the at large pool (3 per CD) so 24 are directly elected at the CD level.
Each affiliate (College Republicans etc…) get a delegate and alternate, who are elected by that group, 10 by my last count (but we may have added one more) so now we are up to 34.
One delegate representative for each US Congressman/Senator, 4 in all for 38
Five more that are elected by State Central (Chair, Deputy, Treasurer, And National Committee members (Male and Female).
I don’t remember where the other 3 or 4 come from.
So at least 34 are directly elected at CD or affiliate level, 4 elected by people of the State of MN and 5 elected at State Central.
So if you do the math at least 43 are elected.
Hardly hand picked.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Funny, this sounds EXACTLY like a phone call I got last night. huh, coincidence? I think not.
I do understand the affiliates and reps for the officials, but there were people who were selectively shifted into these positions.
In the end, carey did win, I get that. But it was anything but a mandate, and the “losers” yesterday were able to voice their opinion.
The true test of if yesterday was a success or not will be if carey can figure out how to unify the party again. We’ve had our nose out of whack since before he took over. I feel it has gotten worse under his leadership.
What is he going to do about it? Is he going to take his attack dogs and pen them up so they can save their energy for the DFL now? or is he going to continue to perpetuate the lies and implications about his political opponents.
His supporters have been as if not more divisive in this battle.
That is a problem HE has to deal with. He needs to get them, er you, back to doing what you do best, and exposing the DFLers and liberals.
I offer this word of advice to carey and Flemming, we cannot improve on our election results unless people know what we stand for. We have our message, we need to learn how to sell it,. Frankly, we can’t leave it up to the big name elected ones. they speak in ways that contradicts most of our legislative candidates and grassroots volunteers who are the foot soldiers in the battle of ideas.
We can’t sell, what we ourselves would not buy. that is one of the biggest issues Carey will face in his next term. He will have to make a choice, allow our message to fit the candidates, or just simply let the party speak for our conservative platform.
June 10th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Andy,
I do not work for or with the Carey campaign.
If you will look over history (back before this year), I have been just as hard on Carey and others. I just point out inconsistency or bad logic (such as Rosie conspiracy theories).
You ten to confuse criticism of your guy as support for the other.
(So if I point out what a moderate Norm is at time, does not mean I am on Frankin’s campaign)
I didn’t call you, But I imagine anyone with knowledge of the party who read your post would notice the problems with it. Even if every affiliate and elected representative is “hand picked” that still leaves over 50% of the “at-large” elected at the CD level.
You are correct that it was not a mandate, but it was a clear victory and the tone on this post is very “Al Gore/John Kerry” like (We would have one if they hadn’t cheated).
I imagine he might had pulled closer to 60 than the 55 he got if the vote had not been such a mess. At least a few undecided might have voted against him based on the theory if he can’t run a meeting how can he run a party. (and I won’t even get into the stupid letter passed out repeating the Autism and Finance accusation - that was a class move, if I recall that was the only “hit” piece at the convention) Regardless he won, Joe lost.
Hopefully he is smart enough to realize that while some of us had some concerns with the other Candidate, a lot of the issues Joe brought up were right on target.
And I hope that whoever gave you the memo will put away their hatchet and give up on Carey.
(Quick not for Rosie - Andy did not give the documents to the paper)
Taking down the party to get one guy is a concern I have, and whoever has a grudge against Carey might want to keep it going since they did not get him here.
So everyone needs to get over it. The election is over. Move on or else MoveOn will get us all.
June 10th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Also,
I am surprised that in you review of Pawlenty you did not mention his 5 minute intro that sounded like a Carey campaign speech.
I don’t remember it exactly but something along the lines of don’t blame a good man for the loses that effected everyone across the country.
Even if it was accurate (up for debate by some) it was very inappropriate.
As I recall, at the last election we didn’t allow Pawlenty to speak until after the election.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
I didn’t think it was appropriate, either, but I certainly understand it. Carey pulled out all the stops for Pawlenty– thank heavens for that– and Pawlenty not only owed him support, but believed he was the best man for the job. Some have criticized Carey for not diverting some support to legislative races. I agree with that criticism, but I don’t think that was one of the choices, and in hindsight would have been the wrong one, anyway.
Andy is once again fundamentally correct– unity is the answer, and it is a two-way street. After the close vote, I am more concerned than ever that those who were dissatisfied with Mr. Carey won’t be making the needed effort.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Mr. Carey made a lot of phone calls to the delegates and alternates and I’m sure got a lot of feedback. I personally had two very lengthy conversations with him. If he talked with others as long as he did with me, he will have a lot of ideas to mull over.
Hopefully, the closeness of the vote and the suggestions he received pointed out some clear opportunities for improvement. I hope Mr. Carey takes some of these suggestions to heart. If so, it will go a long way to building unity and laying the groundwork for a successful ‘08.