Last night I put up this post – a Presser by the Coos County Republican Committee sent out by Eric Catman, the Coos County Chair:
Expressing no confidence in New Hampshire Republican State Committee Chairman Jennifer Horn
Be it resolved that we the members of the Coos County Republican Committee do hereby issue this resolution due to recent actions of Chairman Jennifer Horn in her handling of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.
Whereas the recent attack on longtime New Hampshire Republican State Committee Treasurer Robert Scott by Chairman Horn has distracted the party from its objectives…
Well, THAT didn’t take long – the Area 1 Vice Chair Vicki Schwaegler seemingly immediately ran to the media in full out damage control (some reformmating, emphasis mine):
A no-confidence vote taken by members of the Coos County Republican Committee against New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Jennifer Horn Wednesday night via conference call was not an official act, according to the party’s vice chairman, Vicki Schwaegler.
Please note that she is not THE Vice Chair – that would be JP Marzullo; Vicki is only 1 of 5 AVPs; in fact, this next part of the article is absolutely wrong:
Schwaegler, who represents Carroll, Coos and Grafton counties, sent out a news release late Wednesday night saying she had spoken with committee members and found that no formal meeting was held.
No, she does NOT represent the three Northern Counties – look at the NH GOP By Laws to see who she really represents:
C. Area Vice Chairmen: The Area Vice Chairmen shall be officers subject to the direction of the Committee and its Executive Committee. The Area Vice Chairmen shall work at the direction of the Chairman in carrying on the work of the Party and implementing the policies of the Committee and its Executive Committee. The Area Vice Chairmen shall, subject to the direction of the Chairman, serve as liaisons for party affairs in their respective areas…
While each of the AVPs are elected by the State Members from those Counties, it is clear that their function is to be the representatives of the Chair. Not bottom up but top down, and to be a functionary of the NH GOP Chair – the very person who the Coos County Repubs have no confidence in. Given the email thread in which it is clear that NH GOP Chair Jennifer Horn was attempting to delegitimizing NH GOP Treasurer Robert Scott (using the FEC reports in an attempt to discredit his refusal to give her signatory authority on the NH GOP bank accounts, given her tax liens), it makes perfect sense that it continues here:
“A select group of roughly 10 (of 32) individuals held a conference call that did not have a majority of voting members present because it was not properly notified,” Schwaegler said. “Even those who were on the call expressed outrage that certain members betrayed the Coos Committee by sending out a press release about their internal discussions,” she said.
Notified – maybe, maybe not. Dunno as I’m not on the email list like I am for a number of other Committees. But heck, I’ve been in a lot of meetings where a lot of folks are missing, but work still gets done. Face it, life is nothing more than a set of ever shifting priorities and sometimes meetings just don’t get attended. I had that happen last night – I missed 1,2, 3, 4 meetings that I could have been at last night due to family needs. C’est la – people make decisions and being a Republican is not always the highest priority in the big scheme of things.
Before the release went out, state Rep. Leon Rideout, R-Lancaster, confirmed the conference call vote. “There was a no-confidence vote taken. I was under the impression it was for internal party use. The fact that it is out there in the press is distressing to me,” Rideout said. “There seems to be almost constant issues in the press on the internal fighting between the chairman and the state (party) treasurer Mr. (Robert) Scott,” Rideout said.
Well, there IS an internal fight going on – and has been for quite some time, and stuff like this is NEVER just for internal consumption. Look, we here at the ‘Grok are usually fingered the bad boys in this kind of stuff as “can’t they just shut up about other Republicans??” (the answer is “No, we can’t – stuff matters too much to let it keep going Leftward and away from our foundational roots; get used to it”). However, this is beyond us, at this point; frankly, if Leadership can’t get its act together, that has to get fixed (re: that old phrase “the fish rots from the head down”).
As far as the next and last part?
Schwaegler said in her release: “Republicans across the North Country and throughout New Hampshire strongly support Jennifer Horn’s principled leadership and efforts to revive our party. It is a disgrace that some people are trying to help the Democrats by undermining Republican efforts to take back New Hampshire and restore fiscal sanity in Concord and Washington.”
Oh please – a couple of shovels of dirt sent into a sinkhole isn’t gonna fix this one. Trying to couch this in terms of “If you are criticizing the Party, you are helping the Dems” itself is a VERY losing message. The message should be “get it fixed” rather than “follow us in lockstep”. The ‘Grok has been trying to revive the Party since 2006 – not to pull it Rightward but in seeing that the Country has gone off the Founders’ rails, the Republican Party ostensibly is in the best position philosophically to serve as that fulcrum point to fix that. Not Rightward – but downward we should go. No, not in a chosen path of managed decline as Mark Steyn writes of, that I personally saw in the Carter Administration, and again now. Downward, as in turning away from the unAmerican and foreign born philosophy of small groups of elites ruling over the masses (be it a Monarchy, a Mob leadership, Socialism, or Communism) which are PROVEN to be failures (and no, there will NEVER be “the right people to implement such).
Instead, we should go down to our roots and return, not to the actual times long ago, but to the mindset and action of re-implementing a limited government in which Civil Society (apart and distinct from government) is lively and vibrant and is a platform for that most radical of ideas – that Individuals should hold the power to make decisions for themselves and not others for them.
Principled Leadership – we here at the ‘Grok were more than willing to give Horn a chance after backing the Andrew Hemingway. We were cautiously optimistic (emphasis on the former word in that phrase than the latter one) – but what we are now seeing is neither Principled or Leadership.
I disagree with Vicki – this comes across as damage control. And you are absolutely wrong, Vicki – you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid whose soft, slick taste says ‘never criticize the Party”. Rubbish – what you are asking for is to ignore that which is wrong and which needs to be fixed. You are asking people to close their eyes and to NEVER “question authority”. This is about questioning the actions those that represent the rest of us Members and seeing ‘this is not how Leadership is supposed to “represent” ‘. That is wrong and a wrong characterization of the problem. This is not about undermining an effort – this is about honesty and putting our stated philosophy to action up and down the hierarchy.
