First Principles

There was a lot of news today about the continuing implosion of the State GOP.  The Clark County (Vegas) Central Committee voted to condemn the RNC chair for (gasp!) supporting the (yes, “the”) Republican Presidential candidate, erroneously claiming rules were violated.  Outside conservative organizations like Americans for Prosperity are overtly announcing themselves as alternatives to sane Republicans looking to invest their time and money to actually elect Republicans.  And the RNC/Romney Campaign very obviously deliberately leaked their plans today to completely bypass the state party.

In one more blow, I learned today that Reno attorney David O’Mara, who has contributed his legal services to the State party since 2004, sent a letter to the state party informing them that he would no longer make himself or his firm available to the State GOP.  O’Mara successfully defended the state party against a pointless lawsuit from a few Ron Paul supporters in 2008, and often provided his legal acumen to the party at little or no cost.  He was “on call” for the party, even when another general counsel had been appointed.  Not only is he a great lawyer, but he has a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge about the party itself, local political players, and the state’s legal culture.

McDonald and Company might be able to replace the legal services IF they can find the money to do it, but that would, of course, take tens of thousands of dollars away from other things the party might want to spend money on (like rent and staff and voter registration efforts).  But election law is an area very few Nevada attorneys are experienced with, and finding someone with those skills who are also sympathetic to the Ron Paul campaign personality cult would probably be a pretty tough job.  And you can’t replace the experience and knowledge O’Mara has, no matter how much money you spend. Not anytime soon, anyway.

I wonder – did the Ron Paul goofballs who “took over” the party and “overthrew the Establishment” understand that this is what they were throwing away? I get the urge to shake things up, but you still have a mission to accomplish.  How many other David O’Maras did they drive away?  Who did they think they were going to get to replace the lawyers and secretaries and fundraisers and accountants and PR people and donors they drove out as being “too Establishment”?

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The implosion of the state party is happening faster and furiouser that I thought possible.  And in a way, this is giving me cause for hope.

Either this is a goose being cooked in a pan or a phoenix rising from the ashes. Either one is a potential symbol for the State GOP - let's hope we pick the right interpretation.

Since October, I’ve suspected that that party needed to just completely burn down in order to rebuild from scratch, but since the election of McDonald, that path was a certainty.  I was just worried the implosion would take long enough that it would impact this and maybe even the next election cycle.

The Romney Campaign/RNC will be focused on the federal races, and it’s been apparent for some time that those organizations have never planned on using or trusting the state party (smart on them).  But the problem with this is the down ticket races.   Really, only a state party can effectively tie candidates together up and down the ticket.  And if PACs are utilized by the national folks, they may not even be allowed to coordinate with local candidates at all.

But now?  The implosion is happening to fast and so catastrophically that the rebuilding might begin sooner than I thought possible.  And we have Dave Buell ALREADY running the kernel (the Washoe County Republican Party) around which a new, relevant state party can form, and form pretty quickly.

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A lot of people contacted me after my posts last week about the Ron Paul Revolutionaries, wondering what actual conservatives who were interested in actually winning elections could do.  Well, here it is.  We have a lot of good organizations to work with, from AFP to the Romney Campaign to the Washoe County GOP. The David O’Maras of our party have a lot of other options now, and I know David at least will likely involve himself in other ways to get Republicans elected where and when he can.

In the meantime, I intend to continue shining a spotlight on the absurdity that the state party has now become – nothing disinfects like sunlight.  And the faster the state party is fully disinfected of the fools who have so spectacularly obliterated its credibility and relevance, the sooner we can rebuild a state GOP that lives up to the potential we began to see last year – one that understands its primary, fundamental purpose is to win elections.