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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (4379)	1/5/2009 2:26:10 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

RNC chair race: 'Everyone is ... pissed' By ALEXANDER BURNS \| 1/4/09 5:49 PM EST Text Size: As Republicans struggle to determine the future of their party after a tough election, intraparty tensions have flared over three forums next week that may prove crucial to determining the winner of the six-way race for the chair of the Republican National Committee — a post that will hold considerable sway over the direction of the GOP. “Some people are pissed off at [Americans for Tax Reform President] Grover [Norquist]. Some people are pissed off at the Conservative Steering Committee. Some people are pissed off at [current RNC chair] Mike Duncan. Some people are pissed off at social conservatives. The social conservatives are pissed at leaders in Congress,” said a Republican consultant who has worked with the RNC. “Everyone is basically pissed.” The busy upcoming week begins with a debate hosted by the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform on Monday, a set of meetings hosted Tuesday by a group of RNC members calling themselves the Conservative Steering Committee, and finally a special meeting of the full RNC on Wednesday. Just three weeks later, the 168 RNC members will meet again in Washington to elect their next chairman — an officer tasked with enormous fundraising and managerial responsibilities, and with the potential to be an important carrier of the Republican message. “I think that what’s said, the responses to the candidates at all of these forums, are going to be distributed out to all the members,” said Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Gary Jones, who supports former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell’s bid for the chairmanship. The Conservative Steering Committee’s Tuesday session — which, along with a straw poll to be held there, will be open to only some members of the RNC — has rankled some excluded members and has helped prompt the call for an unprecedented special open meeting of the party committee Wednesday. “There’s no doubt in my mind the full meeting on Wednesday is a direct consequence of the nature and the way the Tuesday thing was handled,” said one RNC member who has not endorsed a candidate in the chairman’s race. “I think almost nobody knows anything about what they’re going to vote on,” said a Republican strategist connected to one of the campaigns. “I think they threw this thing together and they’re making it up on the fly.” The strategist wondered if voting procedures were even in place: “Is it all just coming in to Bopp’s e-mail address?” RNC Vice Chairman James Bopp Jr., who leads the Conservative Steering Committee, said questions about Tuesday’s voting procedures were “ignorant.” “Exclusivity, if that is the complaint, is simply an attack on the right of free people to meet and associate with each other. Trying to use the RNC as a club to try and stop people from meeting together is like looking for a government bailout,” said Bopp, who added that the conservative group had grown to some 90 members. “We’ve sought out and invited every conservative member who agrees, you know, with our goals.” Bopp said votes would be cast according to guidelines laid out in a Dec. 12, 2008, conference call and that members of the group who could not be present would be casting ballots by e-mail. But with some RNC members calling the legitimacy of Tuesday’s meeting into question, the committee’s Wednesday session has become all the more important, according to the same member — and there’s a hint of anti-incumbent sentiment about the whole affair. politico.com