Oregon’s Lame County Republican Party…- Born to Lose
on Saturday, November 17, 2012
Oregon’s Lame County Republican Party
Born to Lose !
By Scott Rohter, November 2012
In Lane County the Republican Party just elected and in some cases they re-elected the very same people who led them to failure in the last two General Elections! These are the same people who were behind a concerted effort to nominate both John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012… long before the Republican Primary ever got started… all the way back in 2009 and 2010. They are Paul Barnett, Bill Young, and Duncan Murray. These are the same people who along with Alan Alley and his team of so called “experts” at the State level and their superiors at the National level are responsible for our stunning defeat at the polls in 2012. Of course you realize that by electing these same people to be your leaders again, that you are rewarding their failures with success, and you are almost certainly guaranteeing yourselves even more failures in the future. -Scott Rohter
Dateline: November 15th, Springfield Oregon – Lane County Republican Central Committee Meeting.
Oregon Republican Party State Chairman Allen Alley must be living in his own little dream world, and apparently one-half of the elected members of the Lane County Republican Party are right there with him. Remember the lyrics from the 1970s hit song “Stuck in the Middle with You”? “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you.” It used to be a big hit back in the day…
Once again the Lame County Republican Party proved why most or Oregon’s Millenials and Gen X’ers don’t become Republicans. Unfortunately the Democrats have already appropriated the donkey to be their Party’s mascot, but perhaps the RNC might want to lease or borrow it ?
The first order of business at the Lane County Republican Central Committee Meeting was to change in the by-laws having to do with the way that delegates are chosen. Many of us elected PCPs had never even seen the proposed rules changes that we were being asked to vote on. They were not even aware of any attempts to change the by-laws until after they got to the meeting! But that is the way that the Lane County Republican Party likes to do things… And that certainly explains the lack of enthusiasm that most young people have for our local Republican Party.
These proposed rules changes and the way in which they were brought to our attention reminded me of the shenanigans that the GOP pulled at the National Convention in Tampa when last minute changes to their Rules were foisted on the National Delegates by a few of the Party’s insiders.
There was no effort to read or explain what these rules changes were about before we were asked to vote on them…only a brief explanation by a couple of suspicious insiders Dennis Morgan and Shaylor Scalf. I guess it wasn’t important to them to explain the details of the changes to the other elected precinct committee people.
There was no literature handed out prior to the meeting to explain to PCPs why the rules changes were even necessary. It was as if we were all just supposed to vote for the new rules changes based upon what?
I raised my hand at the Central Committee Meeting and I also held my head up high and I said that you can’t expect the precinct committee members of this Party to vote on rules changes that they know anything about! That sounds to me like something Democrats would do, and in fact they actually did do something like that back in the 111th Congress. That’s when Democrat Nancy Pelosi asked other members of her Party to vote for the the Affordable Care Act without even reading it. She said “We nee to “pass this Bill so we can find out what was in it.”
This is the same attitude that most of the members of the Lane County Republican Party Executive Committee seem to have. Their attitude seems is that it isn’t necessary to question anything that they do. The changes to the by-laws were being pushed by local Republican insiders. Allen Alley, the State Chairman was there to lend his support to the attempt to change the rules to suit himself, and of course to support the people who will be supporting him in bid to become Oregon’s next Governor in 2014.
Over my objections and the objections of others, the rules changes were approved by the slimmest of margins.. At first it seemed like the motion to approve the new rules had failed, but after a hand count it appeared that it passed. I know of several so-called conservatives that that didn’t even bother to attend the meeting. How can we expect to win when conservatives don’t even bother to attend such an important meeting once every two years. I am very disappointed in all of you who chose not to go to the meeting. Your votes could have changed the outcome of the elections for Party officers. Shame on You!
The next item on the agenda was the speech by Allen Alley, our current Oregon Republican Party State Chairman. It was the most amazing bit of self-denial that I have ever personally heard in my life. REALLY! It was the most unbelievable bunch of misappropriated and misapplied statistics that I have every personally witnessed! I know it was supposed to be a pep talk, but “criminy” it was anything but motivating. To be inspirational you first have to begin with the truth. But the whole basis for Allen Alley’s enthusiasm was a lie! He maintained that there is actually good news for Republicans to be found in our 2012 election defeat. GOOD NEWS??? I find no such solace in our Party’s defeat at the polls either in Oregon or anywhere else in America for that matter. I had to keep from banging my head against the back wall in protest over his blatant disregard for the truth and the outrageous spin job he did trying to perpetrate his lies.
For Mr. Alley it seems to be all about positioning his key supporters in the various counties so he can make a second attempt to run for Governor in 2014. He is spending much of his time and money in pursuit of that goal, and everything about current Oregon Republican Party politics seems to be directed now on his next attempt to run for Governor. All I can tell you is that he ain’t getting my vote no matter who he is running against! I will sit this one out if I have to. And even without my vote he will still not do any better than Chris Dudley did in 2010. It wasn’t bad enough that he was picked to be our State Chairman just in order to avoid internal Party infighting. It was some sort of a consolation prize after losing his bid to become the Party’s Gubernatorial nominee in 2010. But now he wants to take another bite out of Oregon’s Gubernatorial apple… Well not with my help!
Allen Alley kept telling us what a promising picture the 2012 election actually was for Republicans. One lady in the room who was a precinct committee person blurted out, “I don’t believe that! If all that you are telling us is true then why did we lose the election so badly”? The Electoral College vote was 332 to 206. That is more than 60% for Barack Obama and about 40% for Mitt Romney. Quick to respond to one of his wayward sheople Allen said, “I am glad that you asked me that question. We lost the election because Democrats are better at getting out the vote. We have actually done studies on that.” Oh really! I wonder if he has done any studies on how many Republicans would actually turn out and vote if the Republican Party ever nominated a REAL CONSERVATIVE. Maybe then they wouldn’t have to cattle prod some of the more reluctant Republicans into voting. And oh by the way, the Democrats weren’t so effective at turning out their base as you claim… Barack Obama actually got less votes in 2012 than he did in 2008, over six million less votes as a matter of fact. Here are the actual numbers according to Wikipedia, which is no conservative bastion.
Comparison
2008 Barack Obama 69,456,897 popular votes 52.9% 365 Electoral College Votes
2012 Barack Obama 63,448,632 popular votes 50.7% 332 Electoral College Votes
The overall voter turnout for the 2008 election was 61% Nationwide
2008 John McCain 59,934,814 popular votes 45.7% 173 Electoral College Votes
2012 Mitt Romney 59,634, 222 popular votes 47.7% 206 Electoral College Votes
The overall voter turnout for the 2012 election was between 58% and 60% pending final adjusts.
The conclusion from the raw data is that Barack Obama and the Democrats did worse than they did four years ago, but that they picked up seats in Congress and retained the White House because the Republicans and Mitt Romney did not capitalize on the opportunities that they had. In other words they did not make the best use of their political advantage. They put forward a rather weak candidate who was perceived as a flip-flopper and a political gamesman without any real core conservative values. That is not the base of this Party’s fault. It is the Establishment of this Party’s fault.. You cannot pry some Americans into voting for a candidate that they don’t actually like any more than I can force them to read my articles and actually learn something. But the Republican Establishment thinks that if they just had a bigger stick then maybe they could force those people to get out and vote! It ain’t gonna happen that way. Maybe they should give us a better candidate every once in a while instead of channeling Teddy Roosevelt! The only time that some people will get out and vote is if they actually like the candidate they are voting for…Go figure!
But Allen Alley is a product of the Republican Establishment way of thinking. The self-proclaimed “statistical wonk” went on and on with an array of his own statistics “Everywhere you look in every county we actually did better than we did in 2008”, he said. “In every county Romney actually got more votes than John McCain did four years ago.” (Well that really didn’t take too much now did it Allen??) “We even improved our position in the Hispanic community, more than the Democrats did.” I know that means a lot to people like Allen Alley… but he actually mean to say that the Republican Party pandered to them don’t you think?? I guess our illegal alien friendly Republican State Chairman didn’t see the statistic that found almost 70% of Hispanics in areas like Los Angeles still voted for Barack Obama no matter what the Republicans said or did and in spite of all of the pandering by fearful Republicans. They make me sick… The fearful Republicans actually make me more sick than the illegal aliens do!
What a bunch of horse pucky Alan Alley was serving up at our Central Committee Meeting, and abject irrelevant statistics. “I was on Oregon Public Broadcasting he went on to say.” Yes I know Allen, please don’t remind me”, I thought to myself. That is part of your problem Allen… your fascination with everything liberal. You agree to go on these progressive venues and then you let liberals make you look like an old fool! “We actually got more votes than we did in 2008”, he said. NO ALAN, WE DID NOT! Mitt Romney actually got 300,000 less votes than John McCain did in 2008. Romney carried two more States and thus got a few more Electoral College votes but he still got less popular votes even with the additional two States…and that doesn’t even begin to take into consideration that there are over ten million more people in the country now than there were four years ago… Just in order to keep pace with the population growth he would have had to get approximately five million more popular votes than John McCain did four years ago… Instead Mitt Romney got 300,000 less votes! Is that what you call good news, Mr. Alley??
But Allen Alley is making the rounds right now and visiting all of Oregon’s thirty six counties to be there when they hold their Central Committee Meetings because he is trying to shore up his core group of future campaign workers so he can have another more successful run at the Governor’s office next time. That would be in 2014. That’s what his presence in Lane County Thursday evening at our Central Committee Meeting was all about! There was a motion of no confidence made at the beginning of the meeting against him. I believe that all of the Republican Party leaders should resign from Reince Priebus all the way down to Allen Alley who had their minds made up a long time ago, long before the Republican Primary ever began, to support Mitt Romney. I seconded the motion of no confidence in Alan Alley, but it failed of course. People don’t actually want to believe the truth about a man as likeable as Allan Alley is. However a later motion of no confidence against Rob Kremer, the Vice Chairman of the Oregon Republican Party did actually pass!
Mr. Alley thinks that he just needs a bigger hammer or a bigger crow bar to pry reluctant Republican voters out of their Lazy Boy’s and get them to vote. He also thinks that if he tries just a little bit harder to convince the members of the Party with his firm grasp of statistics that he could make us all see the political pot of gold at the end of the Republican rainbow. But there is no pot of Gold and there is no political rainbow for us right now unless we drastically change our ways.
Here is the actual truth amid all of the horse pucky. There were 332 Electoral votes for Barack Obama, and 206 Electoral votes for Mitt Romney. That is better than 60% for Obama and only about 40% for Romney. The popular vote was narrower it is true. The victory for Obama there was only by about 3%. In other words about 1.5% of the vote or about one and a half million votes would have changed the entire outcome of this election! If you don’t think that Libertarians are dangerous then just think about this… That is the exact amount of votes that Gary Johnson siphoned off from the Republican Party. It is also about the same amount of people who live in America and did not vote in this Election because they are Jehovah’s Witnesses. And it is just a little bit more that the number of other Americans who don’t vote because they belong to Amish, Mennonite or other ana-Baptist denominations which don’t vote. But we lost!
We lost at the National level. We lost at the State level. And we lost at the County level. We lost 4 seats in the Oregon Assembly and picked up no seats in the Oregon Senate. We went from a 30/30 split in the Assembly to a 34-26 Democratic majority, and we gained no seats in the Oregon Senate. We lost 8 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. We lost 2 seats in the U.S. Senate. And we lost the big one! We lost the White House. We also lost every statewide race for office in Oregon from Congressman to Secretary of State!
There is no golden nugget of good news buried deep inside this haystack of horse puck as Allen Alley declares there is. He must be delusional. After the results of our local Party elections for chairman were announced. I walked out of the meeting in protest. On the way out the door I met one of the members of the Executive Committee named Terri Moffett. There is no more loyal establishment figure at the local level than she is. She was smiling broadly at me because her moderate wing had regained control of the Lane County Republican Party. And she was smiling… Do you comprehend the irony of that?
Every moderate Republican candidate that they put forward in the last election got their hats handed to them. In Oregon they lost seats in the Assembly and gained none in the State Senate. In Washington they lost seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. And most importantly they lost the White House. Yet she is smiling at me as I walk out the door in protest because her side won the battle for internal control of the Lane County Republican Party. For the life of me I do not understand what she was smiling about. Her side only won because many conservatives didn’t even bother to show up at the Central Committee meeting. And now we can only expect to get more of the same hair brained decisions that we have had in the past, and more of the same loser moderate candidates to run for public office in the future. Is that actually something to smile about?
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Select Related Articles
http://www.lessgovisthebestgov.com/Oregon-Republican-Party-reluctant-to-move-right.html
Outside Corroborating Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Oregon_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Oregon_State_Senate_elections,_2012
R
Good article TB.