Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Thoughts on the Clark County GOP PCO meeting last Saturday.

I've been in politics many years.

Starting as a campaign volunteer during Bob William's halcyon political days when he ran for Congress, through the heady days of the miraculous Linda Smith congressional victory through numerous local campaigns... working on legislative staff for almost 6 years... holding down the seat of Executive Director for the Washington State GOP... fighting the both the ballpark scam and the CRC Scam for almost a decade.... fighting against the corruption and indifference of Jaime Herrera and Brandon Vick... attacking the democratian for trying to destroy their political opponents... Peter VanNortwick, Brent Boger, Don Benton, David Madore, Tom Mielke, myself and others... making the painful, personal decision to oppose my RINO brother-in-law's re-election as a county commissioner... holding the pot smokers accountable for their lie of a campaign... struggling against the hatred of those shilling and lying for the idiocy of the charter...

In everything from my degree to my work, politics is in my blood... my DNA... my professional reason for being.

So, I was not terribly surprised at what I unfortunately observed last Saturday.  My PCO is Marc Boldt; who, having filed for PCO, has failed to attend a single PCO meeting, sources tell me, in 2.5 years.  I knew he would blow this meeting off as well, so I thought I'd go and see for myself.

The PCO's are a politically diverse group.  Six primary categories were present: those who foolishly believe that once someone is elected to something, there is no right to challenge any decision or vote they make... kind of a "we broke it, we own it" approach;  the, what I call "Herrera is God" group, led by Carolyn Crain who carries that woman's water like she's getting paid for it... the PaulBots, the non-PaulBot conservatives, the ubiquitous mainstreamers, and those who don't fit into any of those.

On one hand, anyone disagreeing with "Herrera is God" is labeled among other things, "divisive." The irony in that observation is that the reverse is also true: those supporting that incompetent, empty-suited, self-aggrandizing coward are being equally divisive; after all, it takes two to tango, right?

The aggregate of all the groups were evenly split, more or less, and that's a shame.

I believe that many PCO's are ignorant.  Many do not understand that among the many roles of the party IS holding those they've supported and expended monies on accountable for that support.

The party... and it's members, of which I am not one... missed a golden opportunity here.

They SHOULD have censored Herrera.  That this congressional district would have elected a bullfrog with an "R" after it's name in the last election does not make Herrera politically bulletproof, as much as her water-totters would like to think.

When the Party censured Boldt, the same people were saying the same inane things, including the democratian.  We were assured by the fringe-left that we were destroying the local GOP.  Crain goes so far as to lie, claiming in a letter that "People are dropping out of the Republican ranks like flies."

To go where?  To vote for who?  And what does any of this have to do with that?

Gross mischaracterization and exaggeration are the order of the day.  I heard some moron get up and complain that the actions of the Party were going to cost the entire country our freedom and we'll have a tough time explaining how we lost our freedom to our children because of this.

I almost threw up.

If Herrera vaporized tomorrow, her absence wouldn't be noted.  She would be replaced, hopefully by someone not owned by Cathy McMorris like slavery hadn't been abolished, and life would go on.

And the fact is here that Herrera got off scott-free and the enemies of the GOP are going to take credit for that.

Face it, Jaime holds everyone in the district in contempt, and that includes the Party.  Her essentially non-existent response to this effort speaks volumes.  (A letter written by somebody else?  Seriously?)  The interference by the Bellevue Mafia vis their ownership of the State Party didn't help, and in fact played perfectly into the hands of those fighting the "establishment."

Political stupidity like Hutchinson's isn't going to get us anywhere.

She spends a great deal of time making the people believe that she's done something to represent them when, in fact, she's done absolutely nothing.

But perception is reality and the more gullible will buy anything with a pat on the head.

Meanwhile, the Party continues unchanged.  Ken Smith, who by all reports is a genuinely nice guy, has not taken the time to become encyclopedic on Robert's Rules of Orders.  So, much of the time he's floundering around, shouted at, and depending on the interpretation of others to make a decision on procedure.
A motion to amend must be germane to the motion to be amended; i.e., no new subject can be introduced under the pretext of a motion to amend (p. 125).
Clearly, the constituting of a new committee had nothing to do with the previous motion, i.e., the censure of Jaime Herrera.

Thus, the censure motion should have been either withdrawn altogether, or voted on altogether; and the motion to form a committee should have been it's own separate motion, unrelated in any way to the censure motion since it cannot be used to amend that motion do to the "germain" rule, without a suspension of the rules... which did not take place.

In this meeting, the side supporting Herrera tried everything they could to jam up the proceedings: what should have taken 15 minutes actually took 3 hours.

So, an amendment was adopted that set up the review committee but did nothing to bring that simple idiot to heel.

The amendment was out of order, I believe, in that it bore no resemblance to the original motion (Censuring idiot-stick)  I also believe that this was a missed opportunity, in that censuring Herrera and then setting up this committee may have sent a message that everyone received.

The fix, then would have been to run both motions in order.  And if the water-totters had the votes, they should have then run a floor motion to kick out the local executive board and take the party back over so it could act as another appendage of that clutz-congresswoman, that permanent back-bencher embarrassment that we never see, never hear from, takes no positions and whose only reason to live is her own re-election.

Instead, what was received is that outside influences like the democratian are getting internal information and the Party is playing their game... badly.

Instead, effectively, nothing happened to cause Hererra to change anything.

Here's the real irony of all of this.  When this "committee" forms and reports: guess what?

The local GOP is going to be right back where they are right now, because she isn't going to change a thing.  When the committee reports, again, that Herrera is voting like Pelosi is paying her, again... THEN what?  And THEN, what will they do?

If anything, all they did was kick the can down the road.  But the can is still there and so is the road.

The fact is that the totality of work by Herrera, if you can call it that, since she parachuted back in here after an 11 year absence, more than justifies her censure and subsequently, her removal from office when it comes to that... because like Steve Stuart and the dems, the only person she's representing in Congress is herself.

So, instead of showing leadership and making a difference, the entire thing was a circus that accomplished nothing except to remind everyone that typically, Republicans around here get elected in SPITE of the Party and not BECAUSE of the party.

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