No Democracy in the GOP

If You Want Democracy, Vote for a Democrat!

Staunton News Leader: GOP members reveal split among party

One of two things. Or both. Either this split in the Staunton GOP demonstrates the weak leadership of Anne Taetzch (who blogs as “Elle” at In-politically Correct), or it illustrates how anti-democratic the Republican Party is. Or both. I’ll pick both.

As I understand it, the June meeting of the Staunton GOP was cancelled because Taetzch was having surgery and wouldn’t be able to attend. (What kind of organization falls apart if the Chairman can’t make a meeting? A weak one, that’s what kind.) So, as they assert, a group of the members led by Secretary Andrew Clem (although Taetzch is now questioning the validity of Clem's election), following the committee by-laws and/or the Republican party plan, called a meeting to heal the rift. Seems reasonable to me. If your Chair cancels a meeting, you ought to have the ability to meet anyway – it’s an important power for the members to have to avoid being rail-roaded by committee leadership. But than Taetzch declared the meeting “illegal” (hey, if it was illegal, why didn’t they call the Sheriff?) and arranges for the state party to rule the same, without citing any basis for their decision.

Lots of irony here. The group that wanted to have the meeting is being labeled renegade, and yet that is the faction of the local party that (successfully) supported the incumbent in the local Republican Primary. So if they’re “renegades” for backing the incumbent, and the dominant faction backed the pretender to the throne, I think a better term for the dominant group is Revolutionaries and the incumbent faction would be Counter-revolutionaries. Except, wait, that means the Revolutionaries are still attacking the group that is tied to the incumbent, and isn’t he their candidate, too? The pretender, after all, was beheaded on the 12th.

To make it even more interesting, the Revolutionaries, led by Queen Anne, are aided by the Augusta County Republican Committee, ruled by Kurt Michael and Lynn Mitchell (SWAC Girl) and Chris Green (Spank that Donkey), who – so the Counter-revolutionaries say – have interfered in the Staunton Committee. I don’t know all the details there, but it sounds like they have a reasonable gripe there, based on what I read in the blogs. (Too bad there aren't any Republicans in the county with the courage to challenge their leaders, whose negativity brings shame to their party.)

The bottom line is that it’s a mess of their own creation. The Revolutionaries are completely insincere when they say they’ll support Hanger in November. How can they possibly mean that and still attack his supporters the way they have? And Hanger and the Counter-revolutionaries need to find the guts to tell Anne (and Lynn and Kurt and Chris) that their kind of politics is a thing of the past and is unwelcome in the party. In the meantime, the voters of this area should get the message: Democracy in the Republican party is dead. If you want Democracy, vote for a Democrat.

(Cross-posted at Cobalt 6)