MNGOP - Leadership Change Ahead - Draft Grams
Posted by Andy on November 13th, 2008
This December 6th will be one heck of an interesting day for Minnesota Republicans who happen to be State Central Delegates and Alternates. We’re having our normal December State Central Committee meeting. Usualy this is a budget meeting. But this year we could see something unexpected.
Like a new leadership.
Rumors are flying on what is happening. As I said election night, I am hearing that Chairman Carey will be stepping down. I haven’t confirmed when yet, but other rumors lead me to believe that it will be sooner than later.
Secretary/Treasurer Tony Sutton is supposedly angling for the Chairman position as is former Senator Rod Grams.
I think it is time to start a draft Grams movement so we can be ready for battle. If this thing is done behind the scenes and with out public knowledge, we could simply see rearranging of deckchairs. We need new and experienced leaders.
Rod Grams would be a great State Party Chairman.
Stay tuned.
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November 13th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
He would be an excellent choice, one more thing we agree on, Andy. Though we’ll have to recheck that daily I suppose, one day you want all the Olson supporters excommunicated from the party and another day your nominating one for party chair. Consistency, my friend, is key.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Also start eliminating ‘rot’ at the head. After we get actual Conservative leadership at the time I say next target be the Governship in 2010. (It is 2010 right?)
November 14th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Sometimes your mind is so quick, Andy, that I get whiplash trying to follow you. First you jump from some casual rumor about Carey stepping down to the certainty of needing a replacement. Then you point out that Tony Sutton, the most likely candidate, is interested in the job and, from there, never mention him again, while pulling out a name from, what, 1998, someone who has never held any comparable office? Finally, you go on to intimate that this old geezer (we love ya, Rod) is somehow a better and more capable conservative than Ron Carey?
Look, the Party needs to get organized better, and to do all the right things right. You seem to have decided that if we just elect a new Captain for the Titanic, that big hole in the hull will magically disappear. Ah, yes, the band plays on.
November 14th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Yes, I’ve received a lot of emails hoping Grams runs for Governor in 2010.
The next Chairman will oversee that period. I’ll be blunt as to why I think Sutton is a bad choice. First, if Pawlenty runs again, he needs to have a GOP challenger to keep him honest within the party. He is not recognizable to the man who first asked for our endorsement in 2002. He had a challenger last time but Sutton personally cleared the way and laid down cover fire and prevented Sue Jeffers from even having access to the GOP delegations and base. Second As party chair, Sutton would play a pivotal role of “saving the Governor the embarrassment of needing a second ballot”.
There were also an email or two about how if Oberstar takes the Transportation Secretary job for Obama that Grams would be a good person given his name ID and the fact he has run for the spot before as well.
Who knows, I am willing to bet more people will come forward, this post is simply a statement of my preference between the 2 people who are running. One is an insider who has been at the leadership table while rome (our state party) has imploded. I’m sorry, but he was pivotal in Carey’s ascension to Chairman and has sat right next to him on the Exec Comm as we saw our purple state dreams come crashing down. Is Sutton personally responsible? No. But what did he do along the way to stop the unforced errors and complete loss of party message/
Mr. Ewing,
So you are in the ‘camp’ that wants to keep Dorothy in the closet. I’ve never seen such a truly passionate and great conservative, women or not, treated with such disrespect. Her talents have been wasted under Carey and it is a shame.
Let me guess, are we going to see someone from the internal GOP powerbrokering circles start digging up dirt on a former US Senator and of course me?
Oh I’ll let you know ahead of time so that group doesn’t need to send out an anonymous smear letter (like they did last time) at the last second. I am 95% sure I will be running for State Vice Chair of the 6th District again. You may remember I ran for it last time and only lost by 5 votes with out seriously campaigning for the spot.
If I win it would put me on the State Exec Comm in a position to fight for reform of this party and embrace what the grassroots is craving. A return to our first principles as conservatives and a movement away from smear and gutter politics as our only message. Contrasting is just fine with me, but that can’t be all that the voters and most importantly the conservative foot soldiers of this party think is all we stand for as a party.
We need to reengage in legislative battles. We need to use the state and federal sessions to reach out and inform voters on what real conservatives alternatives are out there just waiting to be tried. Our complete ignorance of that as a party, out of fear of alienating the squishy Republicans is what has helped lead this party to be out flanked by Democrats as the more fiscally responsible one.
And unlike you, I don’t believe rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic that is our party, will solve anything. Proof that Sutton is th guy would be some instance where he stood up and questioned the direction the party has been going. He was in a position to do something about it. now maybe I haven’t heard about it and if so, I would love to hear from Sutton. Maybe I am wrong and he does have it in his heart. I did reach out to someone in his circle of friends last week asking to get in touch so I could see what his plans were.
612-916-3232Still waiting!
(Thank you to whoever forwarded the comment to Sutton. We’ll be talking next week)
Or let me guess, another Ogara’s moment?
–
Time will tell if Sutton can garner the votes needed to pull off the early election scenario and also if the rumors of Carey’s departure are true for that matter.
I’m not reporting them as fact. I’ve been as careful as can be to report them as what they are being reported to me as “rumors”
I’m just simply making sure people are aware of the chatter so that they can be ready for December should what I feel is the worst, does happen. Another surprise power grab.
If this is a backdoor/ end around of the base of this party it will do more harm then good. It will piss off the already irked base and cause an exodous of some of our finest workers who have been putting up with the mismanagement of the last few years.
We need to be open and transparent with our base, otherwise it will never trust us again. And if our own base can’t trust us, then how will the voters?
November 14th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Rod Grams recent accomplishments:
Lost Senate Race in 2000 to a horrible in candidate MARK f’in DAYTON
Got crushed in CD8 race against Oberstar in ‘06
Was the face of the Vote No campaign which as a huge failure
Supported Mark Olson
Yeah, nice choice, Andy.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Don’t blame Rod for the failure of the vote no campaign, look instead to all the RINO’s that lined up in support of the amendment.
Grams would be vastly superior to any further suburban leadership attempting to pull the MN GOP further across the centerline, insuring a blue MN regardless of party in power.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Andy, I keep hearing all of these high-sounding ideas about getting/keeping the grass roots engaged and active, about getting back to our conservative principles, and about getting the message out. What I don’t hear is any specifics about how we get that done, or what specifics some new leader might have to make all this magic happen. You sound like Obama, no insult intended. I think election to State Exec might do for you what Obama’s post-victory briefings seem to have done for him– make him recognize that it’s not that simple and not that easy.
Look, I’m mostly all for the things you say you want to do. How? When? Who? By what miraculous turn of events or diabolically clever machination?
One other thing. What makes you think that you know what the “base” of the Party wants? What makes you think that State Central does NOT represent the “base” of the Party just as much as you do? For that matter, if leadership is the Party’s problem, aren’t YOU one of our leaders?
November 14th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
So Ken, Rod’s inability to overcome the influence of said RINOs makes him a good candidate for party chair? Yeah, that’s exactly what we need.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I’m dissapointed to hear the Grams supported Olson, and shocked to learn that you would extoll the virtues of someone who did, Andy.
We’re at a turning point here, my friend. It’s time to toss out the deadwood and polish the brass. People like Mark Olson are the antithesis of what I hope to see the GOP become in the future.
I’m sick and tired of having to listen to some stinking Democrat point their fingers at some elected GOP politician and find myself unable to respond.
And I know I’m not alone.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Good gosh people. Andy IS the base. Everyone else should be just in awe of his amazing GOP grassroots baseness.
If he says the current leadership is the problem, then the current leadership is the problem. Please don’t question The Andy, it’s just not healthy for the party.
Thanks!
November 14th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Rod Grams is a HUGE Mark Olson supporter. He was an honored guest at the Olson family
picnic last summer. You need to dig deeper on Grams. He has baggage. He will drag Olson back into the party.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Rod will not support spending GOP resources to trample on the choice of local GOP delegates. Nor will he put forward requests to conventions for the constitutional power to replace BPOU officers at will. Nor will you see him bend and twist with every political wind that blows as our Governor and Senator do all too often, Rod rather would ask them to stand rather than bend right along with those tides.
Andy’s right on this one- it would be an extremely refreshing change from the present direction.
November 14th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Ken, were you and Andy classmates at precognition school? I like Rod Grams, and Ron Carey, and Tim Pawlenty. These folks have all stepped up to serve the GOP and the conservative cause. They serve as best they are able, but cannot possibly do all as each of us might wish. Expecting that anyone of them, or someone else, will discharge their duties better, or provide us with some miraculous new ability to win votes, is pure speculation at this point.
No, let any who believe they know better how to accomplish our mutually agreed ends speak up and convince of such, with details. Then, and not before, we can select the best of those willing to serve. In the meantime, the rest of us should do no less. We need all the good ideas we can get, and then a grassroots commitment to those that make the most sense. In other words, we can have a change of direction with or without a change in leadership, and changing leadership might be only a distraction from what WE, as a party, should be doing. Figure that out first, and we’ll go from there.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
To hell with what we as a party should be doing, in a time of self-induced national crisis keep the focus on what we as Americans should be doing- and that means we rally around leaders and elected reps in favor of a solvent future for a fiscally responsible USA, and marginalize to whatever extent we can those in favor of keeping wall street hands at the control of our directions and destiny. There never was a better and more clear litmus test for that than what occurred last month in the halls of Congress. Right now Minnesota’s delegation in Washington is looking pretty sickly in that regard:
In favor of US sovereignty, solvency, and self-determination-
Bachmann
Peterson
Walz
Opposed to the same-
Coleman
Ellison
Kline
Klobuchar
McCollum
Oberstar
Ramstad
Paulson? we’ll see soon enough I suppose.
Pawlenty? No doubt which list he hangs his hat within. He’s come to stink of wall street every bit as much as Coleman.
The future of the party lies in taking care of America’s problems first and foremost, and that means a return to very limited Federal gov’t and fiscal sanity. It means settling up most of the debt over time whether its painful or not. We need to be the party about paying the bills and restoring sound currency. Take care of that and the votes will take care of themselves. Stay lost in virtually meaningless party label loyalties and the GOP on the national level will remain a co-conspirator in the destruction of the USA. Is the present leadership prepared to adopt that course, and do so aggressively and immediately???
November 16th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I didn’t know that streets, even such a famous one as Wall Street, HAD a vote in Congress, or, for that matter, was capable of creating a national crisis. If you want to ascribe human failings to an entire and irreplaceable industry, you can, but I think then you have to see them as more victims than perpetrators. First, the government creates demands on them to do unwise things, then permits the house of cards to build up, while benefiting the regulators through kickbacks and graft, and finally, when the house of cards comes down, the Congress swoops in and buys up the damaged free enterprises, claiming credit for “saving us” from the damage THEY caused!
I’m tired of this game of “blame all around” when we KNOW three things for certain: 1) Certain key Democrats created this problem, 2) Republicans tried to fix it early but Democrats refused, and 3) when it came time to deal with the crisis Democrats created (and some would say the timing was for political purposes), some Republicans made the best of a bad situation and supported what turned out to be a poor alternative, both in principle and practice.
I’m also tired of the magical thinking that says when a Democrat majority does something conservatives don’t like (which is pretty frequent) that we punish the Republican /minority/ for not being conservative enough. It’s like kicking the papaplegic for not winning the jitterbug competition.
November 16th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
The housing bubble is the symptom, not the root problem. The root problem is massive global debt imbalance, a global structure built like a Dr. Suess village with fantastic imbalanced new wings thrust out in haphazard directions, well off-kilter with the foundational centers of gravity, all supported by various crooked stiltworks of questionable strength.
So one night (daytime there) China’s gov’t puts its banks on notice to immediately suspend any further loans to American institutions. The next morning Paulson & Bernanke are in Washington begging for handouts from a destitute US gov’t for the purpose of buying off toxic financial assets from the banks. Later still no banks are stepping forward to get rid of any such assets, Paulson lines up the top players and forces gov’t money and partial ownership upon them- and now no such toxic assets will be purchased and the money will presumably go to other purposes. So other industries and even municipalities begin to line up at the door with the hand outstretched.
How completely bizarre. And in the midst of it all, though most of the bailout amount is still unused, close to two trillion or something has been monetized, printed from thin air so to speak, by the Fed and distributed. But they adamantly refuse to disclose where its gone- prompting a Bloomberg lawsuit.
What’s even more bizarre is that any American elected official would allow the sun to rise on even one more day of this insanity- except for one thing- that’s how they get their money to fund their schemes as well, the Fed is the goose that keeps plopping golden turds of untaxed revenue (debt) into their laps to fund their ongoing credit card spree.
Early in his tenure as Fed Chair, Alan Greenspan warned the Senate that the charter of the Fed itself should come up for regular reconsideration, that such economic institutions should be examined regularly for a determination as to whether its wise to renew that charter. That has never happened in the nearly hundred-year existence of the Federal Reserve. The doctor warned the patient that they might be suffering from an excess of doctoring, and the patient only bristled at the suggestion of hypochondria. Well, the patient is putting the doctor in that new Mercedes every couple years, so the doctor got busy injecting ever more jazz into the patients bloodstream, at the patients request, and what we have today is a debt addicted society in a world that has reached the limits of its ability and willingness to further extend that credit.
The spree is over, and the housing bubble collapse didn’t cause that, it is rather because of that. Time to set a budget that we can actually more than cover and begin to chip away at that debt.
November 18th, 2008 at 3:21 am
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