Political Football

Neither Bear or Hawkeye football carried into January, but politics remain.

January was a struggle, completing the County Caucus and watching Rudy’s chances for the republican nomination diminish day by day. Iowa was particularly painful as I had to manage a balance between running Rudy’s county efforts and running the county caucus. In most cases the county efforts prevailed.

The Iowa Republican Party (RPI) is dysfunctional. Just today one of the county chairs from my district sent a blistering email to most of the republican hierarchy in the state, complaining about the lack of communication, grass roots engagement and over all dysfunction of RPI. All of this was enforced by the newspaper reports that Ray Hoffman, the Chairman of RPI had just resigned – later in the day we heard (again through a newspaper article) that a new Chairman was unanimously voted in (swell).

Anyway, about the caucus. We drew over 1220 voters and it was a mess. I have been complimented by many people for my efforts but a lot of people were involved and worked hard, and it was still a mess. Here is one email I replied to a disconcerted caucus goer – complaining that the event was not very well organized…

Well I was the organizer for the caucus so you can blame me for your woes. In my defense I spent over 200 hours of my personal time organizing the caucus including 2 weeks vacation and on the phone calling people for the last 2 months on weekends. Those calls included 4 people your state congressman gave me who thought would help for your township. All turned me down, and no one attended from your township to pull from in 2006.

There were 50 volunteers who helped including 10 from the Community College Republican Club, 10 from the Republican Women’s Group and central committee members as well as temporary chairs – no one from your township.

We registered over 200 new Republicans in less than an hour in a first ever “same day registration” mandated by a new Iowa law. Though crowded, some over crowded and mistakes made – most precincts and townships ran fine.

I did focus on organizing the larger caucus groups, making sometimes 10 calls to get a commitment to find the ones who finally ran them. Those that had no chairmen were supposed to be joined with other townships in the cafeteria but that never happened, alas, they were overwhelmed themselves. Won’t blame them for that… At that point I went to two of those smaller townships myself to get them started and proceeded to laugh with some friends from one that I didn’t know were Republicans and got yelled at from a guy from the other who thought I should have spent 200 and ONE hours prepping for the chaos that ensued.

I drove 60 miles round trip on Christmas Eve Day to talk to two township caucus leaders who were caucusing on their own as they usually do.

We also had one or two caucus chairs that could have done a better job. We need to work with them. We had 30 people attend pre-caucus training session in December that no one had conducted before and some of us traveled to Mt Pleasant for other training.

One caucus chair we decided at the last minute should stay home due to health problems and a couple stepped up that night volunteering to run that precinct as you did yours.

We fed 250 people and raised $700 and another $500 in general donations for the scholarship fund at the soup supper.

Now we know who to contact for your township. Again, thanks for helping on the 3^rd. We promise to use our lessons learned to improve the process for the next large group, which we will not expect in 2010 but do hope the party grows.

Please remember this is fully a volunteer effort and we could use volunteers.

Keep up to date on Republican happenings by viewing the county website http://muscatinecountygop.org which I maintain in my spare time as a volunteer for county republicans and my role as secretary of the central committee.

Regards,

Then there was this story – Link

I asked a local well known businessman to give the speech for Rudy. Initially I was hoping to get Tommy Thompson to attend and speak for Rudy but that would have been nuts in hind-site and the campaign decided not to send any surrogates in to speak.

Today, I am still organizing data (caucus chairmen, delegates, alternate delegates, junior delegates) we still need to get the platform planks posted and organize other county convention issues.

Next caucus even though we don’t expect as large of a crowd, we will plan for it and have registration and check-in INSIDE the precinct or township room locations.

Our County Rudy totals, however small – ranked 5th of the 99 Counties in Votes for Rudy by total votes cast.

Now about Rudy. I still firmly support his candidacy. I’ve hesitated writing this because it sounds like some paranoid conspiracy theorist but this campaign has made no sense to me. But first yesterday in Naples:

I thought I would write this – putting a stake in the ground before Jan 29 (the FLA primary).

The media has been declaring Rudy’s campaign dead since Iowa, but let’s think about this.

Rudy’s numbers started to tank with this fake story. Link

You can read story after story I’m posting on this site documenting the bias against Rudy.

The political pundits seem to want to be the shining face of the 2008 race, not allowing the candidates and certainly not the facts tell the story.

Tonight the pollsters were off by double digits forecasting Obama’s win. The Rudy staff still thinks Rudy will win Florida even though media pollsters have him behind by double digits today. The NY Times seems to have picked up on the absentee ballot program Rudy’s team has been working on the ground all month, and Romney’s team is now spinning how little time Mitt has spent there. (lowering expectations)  Be prepared to see Rudy’s numbers get propped – the pollsters need to hedge their bets. (sad)

Have you noticed almost every talking head (including radio talk show host) seems to be supporting a candidate? Free Advertising, and ZERO of it is for Rudy. James Carville and Paul Bagala were removed from CNN reporting because of their obvious shilling for Clinton – because Obama complained. IS that ALL you have to do? (but it’s only until after the Democrat Convention, so we’ll still see them shilling for a Dem later)

People see McCain and Rudy as similar type candidates (moderates) but they are very different. McCain, IMO is too old – he would be older than when Reagan was first sworn in if he wins; and he’s already said he’s in it for one term only. Rudy is much more fiscally conservative – and McCain is just too prone to compromise – something that is useful in the Senate but not as a leader of the free world. I’ve told people McCain is my 4th or 5th choice, with Rudy my 1st 2nd and 3rd choice. Romney is 5th or 6th, no one else is on the list.

And what is this about McCain picking Lindsey Graham for his VP?  Bleh!

Just something about Rudy that is strong, knows his mind, sticks to it, tough on crime and prosecution of the terrorists’ war on us.  I like his stat programs, AND I’m pro choice in the same way Rudy is… We can’t legislate morality, we must change hearts and minds… But he would still appoint judges that don’t re-invent law. Tough guy with a heart – Link.

To watch these politicians duck and weave is disconcerting. The media is making a game of this race and not listening to what Rudy says – he never planned to play to win in any state before Florida. (even though Rudy has raised as much money and appeared in Iowa and New Hampshire about the same number of times as McCain did) Rudy just keeps telling his story and putting out white papers on what he would do and gathering some great people around him like Ted Olsen, Bill Simon and Steve Forbes (and check out the video at the bottom of the page).

Whether Rudy’s strategy makes sense can’t be known until Jan 29. To decide and pronounce otherwise is to affect election results. Deciding election results is no more the media’s job (as much as they would like it to be) as it is right to announce the “forecasted” winner before the polls close.

All the talking heads saying “Rudy’s campaign is dead” haven’t spent much time on the ground in Florida.

Will write more later. Rudy is my guy – and is right for 2008 -this is why (video)

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