Wednesday Hodgepodge

GO-P.U.M.As Meet

I know this is a bit harsher tone than in my previous posts on rebuilding our Republican Party, but I really feel we are closer to civil war than reconstruction.

Yesterday Doug Gross summoned GOP leaders from across the state to a meeting about the future of the Republican Party in Iowa. Now I’m all for Republican’s of all persuasions working on rebuilding our party, but I don’t think one select group of people coming up with a plan and shoving it down peoples throats is going to produce anything but another pissing match.

Word on the street is that the Gross meeting focused on who the next Chairperson of the Republican Party should be, and who should be the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2010. This is where I take issue with these types of meetings. First, having a meeting about who should lead the effort at RPI is pointless unless you have some representatives from the SCC at your meeting. I’m pretty sure the SCC wasn’t represented and if it was, that person who was involved will not have the power to sway the committee that is 70% in lock step together.

Additionally it is pointless to suggest that somehow the party has to unite behind a gubernatorial candidate just 7 days after the 2008 elections. This is why we have primaries and I happen to be one who thinks they are a healthy exercise. In fact I think we would have been better off having that primary vote between Vander Plaats and Nussle in 2006, because they way it ended up nobody was happy. Plus we all know that regardless of who is in control of the state party, the party only focuses on the biggest campaign in the state. So if you win the gubernatorial primary, you gain control of the party.

What we need is a compromise where both factions of the Party give a little and win a little. For the Social Conservatives they need to really take their responsibility in selecting a chair seriously. There shouldn’t be any “we hopes” or “I thinks” they need to make a decision that makes sense to everyone in the Party. A solution might be to pair whoever the chair is with a strong co-chair who is from the other faction of the party. Now I don’t mean any disrespect to our current co-chair Leon Mosley who our grassroots loves and is a great supporter of our Republican candidates. It is my belief that we are at a time when we need more hands on the rudder. A strong co-chair also needs to be a spokesperson for the party who can lend a hand in fundraising.

On the other hand people like Doug Gross need to stop throwing pot shots at Scheffler and social conservatives. What good does that do? Heck if he was so upset about the direction party he could have ran for a central committee position, national committeeman, or put hat in the ring for chair. The problem our activists have with these types of people is they like to play quarterback, but they don’t want to go through the two-a-days of training camp.

Scheffler and Gross, along with their supporters need to lead by example and come together. Neither can succeed without the other. Gross needs the SCC to put in place a chair that satisfies his people but doesn’t go against the strong moral convictions of the social conservatives. Scheffler and the SCC need Gross and his fundraising abilities to fund what should be an extensive voter turnout program the likes that we haven’t seen in Republican campaign efforts in Iowa. Having secret meetings and throwing out pot shots over the treatment of a long time GOP icon who is now dead gets us nowhere.

Need some extra cash for the Holiday’s

So I was putting together my Christmas shopping list and realized that I might need to scale back this year. But then like a message from God, Brian Williams came on my TV and explained to me that if I was three months behind in my mortgage the federal government would intercede and lower my monthly payment. So don’t worry kids there will be a Christmas after all!

If I wanted to own Ford, GM or Chrysler I’d buy their stock

OK just going on the record here this is a terrible idea. GM says they are likely to file bankruptcy in January, and Ford says they are out of operating cash and they owe the UAW a huge chunk of money stemming from a 61 billion dollar agreement they made with the union to take over the pension plans for their workers. So let’s just say the Feds give the auto industry another 25 millions, does that make these companies solvent for what another 3 months?

I know the Dems want to keep these union workers employed, but how much money can we as a country afford to give these private companies? Look I’m all for giving them incentives to create more efficient vehicles, electric cars, and so on, but these companies must be able to stand on their own. I know it’s hard to comprehend but we just might have to let them fail. And who knows through what might seems like a catastrophe could come emerge the next great American industry.