Sourgrapes
This is just incredibly poor form.Â
For those that don’t know, SD38 GOP Chair Justin Countryman is none other than Gina Countryman’s husband. Yes, that Gina Countryman. A senior staffer for the MNGOP who is close to Ron Carey and his attack dogs.Â
MNPooplus has posted internal Republican emails, that no doubt were leaked to them from…. gee I wonder who…. Could it be Ron Carey’s campaign manager who is also the former Chair of SD38? Its speculation on my part, but it fits the past behavior. Outsourcing the smear to the Democrats? Real classy.Â
I have to wonder if they bothered to even invite Repya to the meeting and inform him on their intentions to revoke his ability to have an opinion. Repya is also a National Delegate. I wouldn’t put it past these punks to try to unseat him. The connection to Carey’s inner circle is quite disturbing, especially since we did see Carey attack another BPOU leader last Friday on floor of the State Convention.
I sure hope we get to the real bottom of this and learn who exactly decided to bring this up at the SD38 meeting.Â
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“It fits the past behavior. Outsourcing the smear to the Democrats”
Like last year someone leaking internal documents to the Star Tribune and others?
Not to confuse a great argument with facts but I am curious,
By whose authority is Repya asking for this at all?
What leadership position does he hold?
I didn’t think he was anything other than a National Delegate (but could be mistaken, so please let me know if this is wrong).
Sam,
I’ve posted my response on my web blog, The Eagle’s Nest Blog.
Once again, last years leak to the Star Tribune didn’t come from me and I’ll be glad to sue for libel anyone that publically makes that claim.
I have it from one of the SD38 Vice Chairs that was present the evening of the vote that Michael Brodkorp was behind the condemnation and was going to push the story when he thought the time was right. According to my source, that was the first BPOU exec meeting in three months that he showed up to. Brodkorp has long been suspected by many of often feeding DFL web sites info to damage Republicans not favored by the establishment leadership.
As far as my authority, I don’t have any. But as a good Republican, getting damaging video that could hurt two more DFLer in their re-election bit seemed to be the “right thing to do,” since I’m the one the people called. Wouldn’t you agree? Or don’t you believe in teamwork?
So from reading all three posts let me see if I got this right.
SD38 had some opposition footage.
Other SDs requested it and SD38 said no.
Repya decided to intervene was also told no.
Repya then decided to threaten the SD38 leadership with publishing their private communications with you.
Repya asked other to assist him and they told him no.
So Repya canceled a fund raiser for candidates he claims to support.
Had his wife resign her leadership position and resigned as precinct chair.
And now are complaining because someone posted the same communications he himself threatened to publish.
Did I miss anything?
Also, I am not sure of innuendo – I think Andy was trying to imply the SD38 chair leaked the info, now Repya is accusing Brodkorp (I assume he has facts to prove this).
I believe the title of this thread is absolutely correct.
And I do believe in teamwork – I also believe an SD has the right to tell someone no and not expect to receive threats.
Unless I misread Repya post on his blog, he is saying that he is the source of the leak.
From his blog:
UPDATE #1, Earlier today I had to clear my good name from the attacks leveled against me by SD38 Chair Justin Countryman and the SD38 executive committee members by leaking a condemnation of me to the DFL blog MNPublius.com with the above post.
Andy, I believe you owe both Justin and Gina an apology for claiming that they were the source of the leak.
And you owe an apology for the second paragraph:
“I have to wonder if they bothered to even invite Repya to the meeting”
Repya also post that Countryman felt that Repya was threatening him (which he was) and that he to Repya that he “intended to take the matter to the SD 38 executive committee, which my wife was a Vice Chair and member.”
So again, Repya himself says he knew what was happening.
You also said:
“I sure hope we get to the real bottom of this and learn who exactly decided to bring this up at the SD38 meeting.”
Sounds like Repya threatened Countryman and Countryman said “let’s let the SD38 executive committee and let them decide what they should do”.
On a side note:
I thought Joe and others was talking about naked power grabs and other people trying to take power away from BPOUs.
Sounds like someone weren’t happy with the actions of a BPOU exectuve committee and tried to threaten them into submission.
Unless I a missing something how is this different from other BPOUs who were defended in this very blog for standing up and doing what they thought was right (regardless of how others felt).
From my original post!
FORMER!!!!!! SD38 Chair
Gina and Justin were NOT chairing Carey’s campaign.
Nice try.
As a BPOU Chair, if I ever truly felt threatened I’d rather hide behind the Police than a censure resolution from a BPOU. That being said, if I ever did feel the need to bring forth a resolution against a Republican from my BPOU, I would have the common courtesy to invite them to the meeting and give them a chance to present their case.
As I told someone who is on the SD38 Committee this evening on the phone. I really don’t give a damn about this. Frankly I am far more worried about SD51 and making sure our 2 candidates win as well as helping Bachmann, Matthews, and Barb Davis than to get bogged down in the mud of the last Chair’s race. But Joe is a good friend of mine and someone is trying to drag him through the mud and decided to shop this around and had to lower themselves to the DFL operative’s blog.
I recommend that all sides in this battle work on retaking the MN & US House for conservatives and move on.
I understand your loyalty but the two items you are upset about as I understand are:
1) Trying to drag someone through the mud by leaking communications
2) Repya not being invited.
So from reading Your, the Poop and Repya’s posts this is what I understand:
1) From Repya’s own post – His threat to SD38 was that if they did not give into his demands that he himself was going to post/leak the communications.
So for him (or you) to complain about someone posting the communications that he himself said he was going to post seems a little ingeniousnesses/hypocritical.
2) The SD did tell Repya that didn’t appreciate his threats and were going to bring it up at the next meeting. Repya’s wife is on that same committee. So he obviously knew that is was going to be discussed, knew when and where the meeting was and had someone on the committee who could recognize him to talk and also defend his case. I think that is more than common courtesy.
And what this still goes back to is that if Repya did not think the SD was doing what he wanted, he should have gone to the next executive meeting (or since his wife was on the committee had her do it) and bring up the issue. If the SD still decided not to agree with his actions then he should have let that settle it. Instead, when he did not get his way he tried to threaten and bully the SD.
In addition, as you said I think we should all work on the MN and US House. Repya seems to not agree here.
When Repya did not get his way, he decided that the appropriate actions was to punish as MN House and US Congress candidate.
Canceling a confirmed fundraiser for your own candidates, in my opinion, does a lot more harm then not sharing a video with someone else.
Like the state convention, no one in this one is a saint.
The SD crossed a line when they started shopping the story around to the stalkerazzi and DFL attack blog. That was an intentional move meant to embarrass, not correct and internal party problem.
So while you try to make this all about Joe, your buddies down there crossed a line. By your standards, anyone can “leak” anything they want from now on since tit for tat is fair play.
The person I believe to be responsible for the Pooplus lads (oh and I hear they weren’t the first offered) getting this sensitive information has screamed and railed at me in the past for simply linking to them when they had one of Ron Carey’s campaign emails. I think it is an amazing about face for that very same person to now utilize them to embarrass and tarnish another Republican. And with that person’s strong connections to the leaders (Party and Public office) it speaks very badly for how this problematic personality conflict is being handled.
I believe in open and honest dialogue in this party. I hope someday soon we get back to it. I hate attacks from the shadows and anonymous cowards. I wish we could all just sit down, talk about our differences, and see if we can possibly move forward together. But…. no one seems interested in trying to unite. Instead they seek to divide and shun people away from this party.
Now I am going to get back to worrying about how to grow the membership and grassroots of my own little corner of the party.
I’ll ask you follow the
cowardicelead of ‘you know who’ and go trash Repya on the DFL blogs. Who knows, maybe even Eva Young would be interested to corroborate some emails she may or may not have been offered.The more you talk, the more you reveal this wasn’t about a ‘threat’ but is really about getting back at Repya.
Andy,
I do not think it is right for anyone to be taking our internal issues public.
That has been one of my concerns with Rapya, since he seemed to want to hold Press Conference for the strib.
My point was not that “tit for tat” but that for you and Repya to cry about the outrage of posting messages, that, when read show that the messages, show the message was a threat to post the messages seems a little ironic.
(Sort of like: “how dare you post those messages, I was going to”).
From both sides it appears that two people got upset at each other and decided to escalate it.
While I think it is bad to leak the info, besides other bloggers I don’t think anyone really takes the Poop seriously.
But it was Repya’s other actions that concern me.
Yell at the SD Chair, threaten, bully him whatever – doesn’t really effect me.
But instead he decided that the proper action was to embarrass a House candidate it appears he likes and to also trying to hurt John Kline.
It would be the same as someone getting mad a Coleman by not helping their conservative local rep – not only stupid but very damaging for the party.
Repya can go do what he wants, he doesn’t need me to trash him, from what I have read he already damaged himself enough at State.
But when he starts trying to hurt good candidates – like canceling assistance for John Kline – I get very concerned.
Petty petty petty.