The Rules are the Rules?

The rules are the rules – unless you’re a long-time incumbent chairman suddenly finding yourself in a really competitive race.

Becky Stoeckel – the absentee Chairman of the 11th Congressional District – is treating you, a delegate to Saturday’s 11th District Convention, as if you were a piece of furniture, to be moved around at her pleasure.

Nancy Pelosi famously said about “Obamacare” that it would have to pass first for everyone to find out what is in it.

Now the 12 year place-holding Chairman of the 11th Congressional District is telling you, a delegate to the convention that is just a few days away that you’ll have to come to the convention to find out how many votes are necessary to win the race.

There was a major rule change this week for the convention Saturday; and even though I’m a candidate for Chairman there has been no official notification about the changes issued to the candidates.

The winner now only needs to receive a plurality vote; a majority is no longer needed in the race for Chairman. This overturns decades of precedent in the 11th, and it overturns the Convention Call voted on and published by the District Committee in February!

These long-time establishment “leaders” always want to make the rules work for them. (This is why so many people hate politics and all the “inside” games played to keep the same people in office, election after election.)

This is a classic case of a last minute change to the original rules known for months and approved by the 11th District Committee. Now, of course, even in a three-person race, Chairman Stoeckel finds herself in a bad spot. So she does what any desperate office holder does – she changes the rules in the hope that she can squeak out a win.

Election four days out? No problem. The next thing you know her handpicked “Rules Committee” has changed the rules everyone understood when they entered the race, and under which the candidates have been running their campaigns.

This kind of back-room last minute rule change cheapens the Republican brand at a time when we need to win over every possible voter in the 11th District.

It would be my honor to have your support for Chairman and I hope to see you at the convention May 19th.   www.mikegforchairman.com

11th District Convention is being held on May 19TH at Oakton High School.

Registration: 9am-11am

Convention Begins: 11am

Becky Stoeckel for Chairman
Becky gets my vote because of how she works with campaigns. She believes the role of chairman should operate as a complement to our Republican campaigns in the 11th District. Her game plan was Tom Davis’s game plan then it became the Keith Fimian game plan because they were the nominees of the 11th. Becky has stood tall behind our candidates and she will continue to do so. She deserves to be returned to the chair of this district’s committee.

David Ray for State Central
David is a master of the rules of our party. And not just at the State Central level. I saw him at a Reston GOP meeting the night of a vote we were having and asked him what he thought of the procedure. He told me he had read the bylaws and then launched into an intuitive critique of the night’s vote. David is always ready to answer questions about our party, or really anything else, and especially about baseball. David is as conservative as we Rs get nowadays. He is a lock to win and rightfully so. He deserves to be returned to State Central.

Bob Patten for State Central
I have a very simplistic reason for supporting Bob; he lives in Prince William County, which offers a significant amount of real state to the 11th District, those precincts deserve a voice on State Central. Bob is a grassroots worker for PWCRC. I first met him as the contact for party efforts at the famous Occoquan Craft Fair, which is a great event. Bob will be a great addition to State Central.

Lillian Vogl for State Central
Lillian gets my vote because she is a believer in the importance of organization down at the precinct level. She sees our party achieving great success from working bottom-up with everything beginning at the precinct level. She believes in boots on the ground, block captains, precinct events and good fundamental grassroots engagement. Lillian will be a great addition to State Central.

My slate may not car pool to Richmond but they certainly can work together. Becky and David aren’t exactly on the same page and I like that. I believe in the benefits of debate, which strengthen our own arguments by exposing faults and inconsistencies which we often overlook. Group think is no good. Competing ideas exchanged in an open and professional setting is one of the greatest characteristics of democracy. My slate represents a pluralistic composition in a pluralist society. I encourage convention delegates to join me in voting for these outstanding conservatives.

There is a very simple choice for District Chair: John Whitbeck.  He is the best conservative choice to continue stability and sanity in the 10th District, and to help Republicans keep winning elections in the district

The Rest of your simple choices :
Kay Gunter for State Central

Eve Barner for State Central

Gerrie Smith for State Central

For the 11th District Convention, I endorse Brian Schoeneman for RNC Delegate !!

I’ll be at the 10th District Convention – see you there!

Publius Publicola

The strange thing about all of this is why so late? The majority vote proposal was made months ago. There seems to have been plenty of time to correct any errors and alert the public. Why not let everyone know that the decision for how the vote would be decided, no small thing, has not been finalized. Nobody likes changing the rules after the game begins, it’s just not cool, and making last minute changes, the convention is this Saturday, is even less likeable. But this isn’t really a rule change because the proposed rules from the call are just proposed rules. If you are running for one of these offices then you should know this, but the public should know this too.  These rules are for everyone, candidates and voting delegates.  Delegates don’t know this stuff. This kind of confusion only turns off the mildly involved. So the real damage is that right there; we could lose supporters and volunteers over these perceived games. 

But all of this is not a done deal until the convention begins. The final say is on the convention floor, so amendments can be presented and voted on, but it may not be worthwhile for or appealing to a majority to vote for staying longer.

We’ll leave it to the audience to speculate who benefits from this most. This will make the convention much shorter, so the delegates on the convention floor will probably be ok with it. One ballot means you can still get to the kids baseball game, so expect the plurality vote to stand.

This post was updated at 2:50pm 5-16-12.

Red NoVA has learned that there has been a major rule change for the 11th district GOP Convention this weekend. In the race for District Chairman, the winner only needs to recieve a plurality vote. A majority is no longer needed.

This is big news and a major blow to the two challengers: Terry Wear and Michael Giere.

DEVELOPING STORY… 

I’d thought I’d ask the readers of Red NoVA what they thought. Take a moment to vote and/or comment.

I will say one thing – I was shocked that one candidate, Barbara Bowie-Whitman did not show up. Instead, Morton Blackwell spoke for her. While it was explained that she is helping to plan her school’s reunion and Morton gave a good speech for her, I overheard a few Delegates say that they thought it was incredibly insulting to ask for their votes and not even show up.  I’m very glad that George Croft won!!

Next week is sure to be busy, with both the 10th and 11th district GOP Conventions. I’ll be doing a Red NoVA poll for VA 10 and VA 11 District Chairs later today.

Former First Lady of Virginia Susan Allen will be at the VA Victory headquarters this week to help build support for our Republican candidates. For Non-Allen fans, this is not a George Allen event. This is a Republican event. All of the surveys say “The Republican Nominee” instead of  Allen, Radtke, Jackson, Perkins, or Vaughn. If you support ANY Republican candidate, you need to be at the VA Victory headquarters on Wednesday. This is an event in support of the Republican party and will benefit all of Virginia come November. I would take any of the primary candidates over Kaine or Connolly and this Wednesday is the opportunity for our community to rally around the conservative cause. Come support the Party and and you’ll help whoever our nominee is win in November.

Please do not let Obama steal the minority vote in Virginia, again. It has become a constant source of annoyance that the RPV has ignored the need for recruitment within the party ranks, not just of racial minorities, but women as well. This year is more important than ever.

We need to reach out to all minorities and let them know we need them, and more importantly, what we as a party have to offer them. We cannot accept the minority vote being left to Obama because we have not provided the information and outreach necessary to educate.

Thankfully, I was raised in a way that allowed me to see the benefits of a hardworking and free society. Some minorities have become victims of their dependency on the welfare system and we need to shine a light on the benefits of being a self-dependent citizen in our government. The RPV needs to step up and highlight the core Republican values that the members of the party have learned to love and believe in.

My plea to the RPV is to start using its resources to promote the party, and not let Obama and the Democrats to, once again, steal the minority vote in Virginia. Let’s start acting like the big tent party that we claim to be.

GOP Loyalist

Terrence Boulden