OPINION:
The Republican National Committee’s midwinter meeting seldom gets any attention, as no one particularly cares who runs the RNC. This year’s Jan. 25-27 meeting in Dana Point, California, will garnish national attention. Rank-and-file Republicans expect a chairman who spent $100 million and lost stunningly for the third time should step aside or be replaced.
If reelected, Ronna Romney McDaniel will be the longest-serving and least successful chairman in recent history. Since November, she has blamed the candidates, her consultants, the state parties, and even the conservative nonprofit Turning Point for losses.
If Ms. McDaniel wins, expect an internal revolt by the million GOP volunteers last cycle that begins with fierce opposition to each co-chairman members, one man and one woman in each state and party chairman. But the volunteers who may show up to vote in statewide internal elections were on the ground for our disasters and have less discretionary income to spare. They are mad.
The donor class is establishment moderates who do not like controversy, just as big business avoids controversy. Ms. McDaniel is banking on a vote based on her ability to raise money again. But managing the funds and using them effectively is crucial. Spending on designer clothing, fresh flowers, limousines and resorts does not play well.
Ms. McDaniel has a built-in advantage, however. Her competition is conservative. Conservatives vote for moderates when they must. Moderates and RINOs (Republicans in name only) have been known to break their primary promises and not support the conservative in a general election. Last month, Ms. McDaniel claimed that although Republicans lost, the campaigns she oversaw were a great success. What campaigns were left out? Like these moderates, Ms. McDaniel is admitting that she picked winners and losers with party resources.
That the GOP establishment deters conservative participation is not new. Soon after the George W. Bush administration ended, moderate John Hager, a Bush assistant secretary for special education, ran the Virginia GOP. Although paid by the party, his 22 staff donned red reelection campaign T-shirts and openly worked for his reelection at the Virginia GOP meetings to elect a new chairman. The Virginia co-chairman of the RNC, Morton Blackwell, did not wait for the attendees/voters to choose the new chairman. He, too, supported Mr. Hager.
Mr. Blackwell opened his remarks by saying that Mr. Hager was so effective that my husband, a known conservative and chairman of the ACU/CPAC, had endorsed Mr. Hager. I did not stand up and call him out, although the temptation was great. I met Mr. Blackwell in the aisle and said in a normal voice that this was untrue.
A common ploy, the vote was delayed an hour with claims that “the microphone does not work” and “we are working on issuing the ballots” delays. I stood with others at the back of the room, confirming that my husband had not endorsed anyone. I begged conservatives not to leave before the vote as the delay had its intended effect. The microphone had an amazing ability to count votes, and once enough conservatives had left, it would work again.
Instead, the Virginia GOP elected former delegate and conservative Jeff Fredericks chairman. He created an actual budget and ran the party evenhandedly — to the extent allowed. Immediately after the meeting, Mr. Blackwell, Mr. Hager and his team met on the floor to discuss how to oppose the election’s results — and oppose they did. Their “funny business” made life hell for the party and its candidates. Virginia has elections every year.
Parliamentary governments do not have the same internal pressures because factions are free to split off and re-form. New York state has a Conservative Party separate from the Republicans. Until recently, when those two parties agreed, their statewide candidate won. The coalition elected U.S. Sen. Jim Buckley, later undersecretary of state for President Ronald Reagan, then a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Mr. Buckley turns 100 on March 9. Both parties endorsed George Pataki for governor, who governed as a disappointment to conservatives.
Called the Great Silent Majority in Nixon’s time, conservatives take a long time to rile. Like Virginia years ago, the rank and file have noticed that the party does not attempt to win all the elections they can.
Republicans support states rights’ in government. The party may soon discover that state parties (and money) can also thrive without central governing.
• Donna Wiesner Keene was a Reagan, G.H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush administration appointee at the Department of Education and director of government.
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