Activism 101
While I was visiting family over the holidays, I got an email from a reader - a sincere, lovely lady who was troubled about the state of the Minnesota GOP. Her concern was the GOP's "excited" support of Ray Cox for the SD25 Special Election specifically and of "squishy" (as I call them) Republicans in general. Her concern is not isolated to a few "malcontents" as some within the party may try to tell you - I hear that complaint from Republicans all over my Senate District as well, which is why I thought I would expand on my answer to her here.
One of the things that grass roots activists need to remember is that the BPOU is responsible for endorsing candidates. Those who live in Senate District 25 have as much say in who Senate District 1 puts up as Senate District 1 has in who SD 25 will put it! It's that simple. If the delegates to the SD25 BPOU Endorsing Convention feel that Ray Cox is best suited to their district, then that is who they are going to put up. They are the ones that live in the district and who know it best. Putting up a hard core Conservative may not work for their district. Again - they are the ones who have the final say in the matter.
Who makes up the BPOU Endorsing Convention you ask? The BPOU Endorsing Conventions are made up of residents of the district who had previously attended precinct caucuses and had been voted to represent their precincts at the BPOU level. So if you are unhappy with the candidates that your BPOU is putting up, you have the ability in your hands to start the change....get thee to your precinct caucus! Go to caucus and put your name in the hat to be a BPOU delegate! If you want input at the Congressional District level or the State Level you can put your name up for Congressional District Convention delegates (this year), State Convention delegates (this year) or even State Central delegates (next year) at the BPOU convention levels as well. You may even be recruited (as I was) to a spot on the BPOU Executive Committee if you are not careful. THOSE are the folks that make the BPOU decisions.
Once the Endorsing Convention has picked their candidate it is the job of the State Party to get that person elected. They don't care how solid the "R" is behind that person's name. All they care about is that the candidate is properly endorsed (or if there was a primary, then the primary winner) by the appropriate convention! That is the job of the state party - to win elections. Everything that they do is geared toward that one single goal.
Can you imagine what would happen if the State GOP tried to step in tell a Senate District or County just which candidate they should run in a race? I can tell you from experience that the BPOU leadership would not take that kind of "interference" lightly! That is why the State Party supports whatever the BPOU's give them to work with.
I hope this explains some of the dynamic of who gets what support. More importantly, I hope that this will get you to realize just how important February 5, 2008 will be for the state of the Minnesota GOP! If you don't like the direction it is going in right now, sitting home on Feb. 5 is not going to fix it....only your presense on caucus night will do that. I plan on being at my precinct caucus location - will you? You say you don't know where to go? That's no excuse. The Minnesota GOP has a wonderful precinct finder on their website. Simply plug in your full address or your zip +4 and you will know where to go. It's that easy. No pre-registration is necessary and new attendees are welcomed with open arms!
There really are no excuses. See you caucus night!
One of the things that grass roots activists need to remember is that the BPOU is responsible for endorsing candidates. Those who live in Senate District 25 have as much say in who Senate District 1 puts up as Senate District 1 has in who SD 25 will put it! It's that simple. If the delegates to the SD25 BPOU Endorsing Convention feel that Ray Cox is best suited to their district, then that is who they are going to put up. They are the ones that live in the district and who know it best. Putting up a hard core Conservative may not work for their district. Again - they are the ones who have the final say in the matter.
Who makes up the BPOU Endorsing Convention you ask? The BPOU Endorsing Conventions are made up of residents of the district who had previously attended precinct caucuses and had been voted to represent their precincts at the BPOU level. So if you are unhappy with the candidates that your BPOU is putting up, you have the ability in your hands to start the change....get thee to your precinct caucus! Go to caucus and put your name in the hat to be a BPOU delegate! If you want input at the Congressional District level or the State Level you can put your name up for Congressional District Convention delegates (this year), State Convention delegates (this year) or even State Central delegates (next year) at the BPOU convention levels as well. You may even be recruited (as I was) to a spot on the BPOU Executive Committee if you are not careful. THOSE are the folks that make the BPOU decisions.
Once the Endorsing Convention has picked their candidate it is the job of the State Party to get that person elected. They don't care how solid the "R" is behind that person's name. All they care about is that the candidate is properly endorsed (or if there was a primary, then the primary winner) by the appropriate convention! That is the job of the state party - to win elections. Everything that they do is geared toward that one single goal.
Can you imagine what would happen if the State GOP tried to step in tell a Senate District or County just which candidate they should run in a race? I can tell you from experience that the BPOU leadership would not take that kind of "interference" lightly! That is why the State Party supports whatever the BPOU's give them to work with.
I hope this explains some of the dynamic of who gets what support. More importantly, I hope that this will get you to realize just how important February 5, 2008 will be for the state of the Minnesota GOP! If you don't like the direction it is going in right now, sitting home on Feb. 5 is not going to fix it....only your presense on caucus night will do that. I plan on being at my precinct caucus location - will you? You say you don't know where to go? That's no excuse. The Minnesota GOP has a wonderful precinct finder on their website. Simply plug in your full address or your zip +4 and you will know where to go. It's that easy. No pre-registration is necessary and new attendees are welcomed with open arms!
There really are no excuses. See you caucus night!
Labels: 2008, Precinct Caucus
posted by The Lady Logician at
2:28 PM
6 Comments:
This post is just plain wrong about the structure of the MN GOP Party.
The State Party has no obligation to help any BPOU candidate.
It can support those it wants, and can not support a non-endorsed candidate - but it is under no obligation to help candidates that do not support the Party, endorsed or not.
SD 25 can endorse anyone it wants, and the state party can tell them - He's your guy, you get him elected.
(You are also wrong about the primary winner - the winner of the primary does not get automatic endorsement, again it is up to the State Party to decide if they want to endorse the non-endorsed winner)
By
Anonymous, at 2:45 PM
You are correct that there is no "obligation" for the party to support ANYONE. However, the party does not pick who the Senate Districts run and the they do not pick who runs! They pick who they will support post primary or post endorsement not before.
The accusation was why the STATE PARTY supports Ray - I answered that accurately.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 3:17 PM
The deeper point is that, whether you are a delegate or not, you cannot complain about whom the convention endorses if no other candidate challenged for the endorsement! If you think the endorsed candidate is not a good enough Republican, find a better one! That's how Michelle Bachmann first got elected, and I think that has worked out rather well.
The second thing that activists and delegates need to do is to make the endorsement equivalent to victory. That is, if someone can go directly to the primary and then get elected, we don't need an endorsement process and we're likely to get somebody considerably more "moderate" than any of us would like. If the BPOU endorses someone, they need to pull out all the stops and get them elected! It seems obvious, but obviously it's not obvious enough.
J. Ewing
By
Anonymous, at 6:08 PM
JE,
The issue is that at these conventions no one is allowed to challenge the pre-chosen candidate.
There was a challenger in SD25, but the delegates were told no questions, just vote for the chosen one.
So when the endorsement process is broken as it has been for both some small and large (Gov for example) there are some who say - If a small group want to pre-chose the candidate, then they can also do the work to elect them - especially when the candidate is lacking in supporting the party's goals.
That is the elephant in the room that some (MDE) don't want to address because they are part of that problem.
Would Ray and for that matter Pawlenty won endorsement in a fair fight - probably, but no one knows.
By
Anonymous, at 2:04 PM
Anonymous,
Even if there was this "grand conspiracy" within the BPOU to keep Glen from gaining any traction in the endorsement convention, he ran in the primary. There is nothing anyone can do to keep his supporters away from the polls.
I agree that there is much in the party process that is broken and I will gladly admit that this appointment process didn't give ANYONE any time to campaign. However, there is nothing that could have prevented Glen from usurping Ray in the primary....NOTHING AT ALL!!!!!! All he had to do was get people to the polls.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 4:19 PM
The point I was responding to was that JE was saying is that the endorsement should be the end of the process.
My point was the endorsement process is broken - not a grand conspiracy - Just leadership saying, we don't have time to listen, we told you who is going to win so just shut up.
And if during the convention the party says we don't want to listen - then they should not be surprised when the people say the same thing when called on to help.
By
Anonymous, at 5:17 PM
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