Local GOP splintering over … what, exactly?
Valley Democrats are clashing over ideology. Valley Republicans are clashing over … well, it seems their very existence.
“Time to rebuild, and move forward,” commented Chris Green, the author of the Spank That Donkey political blog, in a post on his blog last night, after a contentious ACRC meeting that led to a mass exodus of local Republicans from the committee.
It depends on whose side you’re on as to whether you will characterize the departure of the 56 committee members as resignations or excommunications. The issue has been brewing since the first of the year, according to local GOP blogger accounts, when party chair Bill Shirley reportedly brought up in a meeting of the executive committee of the ACRC that a number of committee members were in violation of a bylaw requirement regarding regular meeting attendance and suggested that they be purged from the committee’s membership.
David Karaffa, a now-former member of the executive committee who is among those who resigned from the party Tuesday night, said in a comment posted on the Augusta Conservative blog that he argued against the move at the January meeting and that the executive committee agreed to drop the matter at that time.
The issue came back up for discussion this month, Karaffa noted in his blog post, and the executive committee went forward with the removal of members who had missed three consecutive party meetings or more from the membership rolls.
It would appear that this wasn’t merely a clearing of space on a database of people who weren’t still very active in the local GOP. Among those on the delete list were three party vice chairs, Jason Bibeau, Tom Nelson, a former Augusta County Board of Supervisors candidate, and Lynn Mitchell, the author of the SWACGirl blog and a member of the GOP State Central Committee. All three formally resigned Tuesday night, along with Karaffa, the chair of the Beverley Manor magisterial district GOP, and four other magisterial district chairs.
It’s hard to say that the splinter is along some ideological fault line. Mitchell is closely allied to former Augusta Republican chair Kurt Michael, who was ousted from his position last year after a dustup with State Sen. Emmett Hanger dating back to the 2007 GOP primary in the 24th Senate District in which Michael led a group of local Republican Party chairs in backing ultraconservative Scott Sayre’s nomination challenge that ultimately fell short. But it had appeared up until Michael was pushed out as chair that Michael and Mitchell were aides de camp with the likes of Green and Steve Kijak, another local party veteran who is the author of the Rightside VA blog.
Green and Kijak are clearly now quite vocal critics of Mitchell, Michael et al
“The truth of the matter is, that if the dissidents in this group….. who legimately were booted for not showing up to three called meetings… worked just 1/10 as hard against the democrats, as they did to unseat… our current chairman, (who was chosen by them when kurt michael resigned)….. where would we be? Some people absolutely crave power,” Green wrote on his Spank That Donkey blog last night.
Kijak wrote on Rightside VA in response to a comment from a local Republican who wrote that Kijak holds hatred for Michael and Mitchell instead of “hatred” the word “tolerance” would be a better descriptor, “for it has gotten to a point where many are fed up with the manipulation and tactics used by these individuals to control and direct people. They have been doing it for years and there is a long list of very good people and strong grassroots workers who are now “on the otherside” because they saw the manipulation and treatment of others by M&M for what it was. A long list and you know many of the tactics used.”
Kijak and Green were elected to vice chair slots at the Tuesday committee meeting, along with Craigh Shrewsbury, the husband of Augusta County Commissioner of the Revenue Jean Shrewsbury, a Hanger ally.
Mitchell in a letter posted on the Yankee Phillip blog this week said she wanted to “apologize on behalf of Republicans for your removal at a time when we are trying to grow the Party. We have an extremely important election year coming up when volunteers should be recruited, not removed.”
“Thank you for your years of volunteering. I will see you in the Republican unemployment line,” Mitchell said.
Karaffa in his comment on Augusta Conservative was more direct and to the point. “I cannot in good conscience continue to stand by and support the persons and actions that have been taken by this committee’s leadership,” Karaffa said. “I refuse to be associated with a leader or an organization that allows this type of corruption and dictation. I ask you to take the time to scrutinize this situation for yourselves, take a hard look at who is giving up power to pursue the support of their principles, and who is sacrificing their principles in the pursuit of power. Then make your own decisions.”
- Story by Chris Graham
Related posts:
- Local GOP chairs endorse Hanger Item by Chris Graham It’s official – Emmett Hanger has received the formal endorsement of local Republican Party leaders in Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County...
- Has the local GOP passed its moderate wing by? The Politics Beat column by Chris Graham freepress2@ntelos.net One guy gets more votes, the other guy has friends in high places, and you can guess...
- Michael calls meeting Item by Chris Graham freepress2@ntelos.net Just who is the elected leader of the Augusta County Republican Committee is still up in the air - officially, anyway....
- Winners and losers in the 24th GOP primary Column by Chris Graham Emmett Hanger beat back the challenge of Scott Sayre to win renomination as the Republican Party standard-bearer in the 24th Senate...
- Michael departure bad news for GOP, good news for Dems The Local Beat column by Chris Graham freepress2@ntelos.net The Republican Party is going to miss Kurt Michael – big time. Michael affirmed in a blog...
I think Mitchell generally means well. I simply think she is in over her head politically. Maybe I’m wrong there and perhaps she is some master political operator but in my interactions, I just don’t sense that she has that ability.
Lynn isn’t the best strategizer, I would agree, but she is/was a valuable team player, a very valuable team player. I honestly think the local GOP is worse off having pushed Lynn and Kurt et al aside. I said that last year when Kurt got kicked off the island as chair, and I mean it today. Kurt is/was a master organizer, and he had put together a damn fine team that I think now is hopelessly splintered.
All I know is what I read in the blogs.
I thought, Surely they can’t be serious.
It doesn’t seem smart to push out so many hard-working leaders.
Steve Kijak and Chris Green have been blogging today to wonder aloud about my motives in writing about this. Nothing sinister politically from me on this. I’m a curious observer of the local politics scene as I have been the past 15 years of reporting on it, and this move to purge the rolls of 56 volunteers is quite curious itself.
I know and respect many of the people involved in this fight and have for years. Admittedly I know Kurt and Lynn better because Kurt was the GOP chair and Lynn has pretty much been everywhere the past several years. I know Steve well, too, and talked at length with him on the phone and had a nice surprise visit to my office several months ago.
I know what is being said as to what the issues are between the parties. I also know, or maybe I should say suspect, that there’s a lot more to this than what is being said.
Thanks for sending me to their comments. I’ve asked a few questions on my blog and we’ll see if I get any answers.
I’ve only been in the Valley five and a half years so I don’t know the local scene. But this makes me very curious.
Good questions, all. I’ll be checking the blog today to see what you hear back.
Comments are up. What do you think?
Thanks for throwing some readers my way. (Or trying to.) Your comment to the effect that a minority seems to be throwing out a majority is an interesting observation. I’m not sure I see that as much as I do perhaps a split down the middle between Hanger moderate-conservatives and Michael right-conservatives. That one’s not a perfect descriptor, admittedly, because Chris Green was one of the more vocal anti-Hanger forces in the 2007 primary, but he’s now siding with the group that is in power as a result of the power struggle that the Hanger forces ended up winning.
So he’s a Hanger-on?
I take my info from yankeephil’s blog, where Wednesday he reproduced a 2008 election pamphlet and noted how few of that leadership group remained.
Take 56 away from any of the local Democratic committees and what do you have left?
Chris Green siding with the “Hanger forces”?
After working most og the Gilmore campaign while I was working and supporting the Goodlatte campaign I find it hard to describe Green as part of the “Hanger forces” or siding with them.
Mike, Chris who is the chairman we all know that, would benefit in both traffic to his site as well as his party would benefit by continuing to drive or highlight any possible scenario that pits Senator Hanger against any future “Ultraconservative” in the future…
In fact I do not consider myself as part of the “Hanger forces” and I will say that many of the remaining people on the ACRC, as well as the several who are now once again interested in returning\joining the local party, are NOT avid Hanger Force types for they also have questioned him on his spending ideas and policies at times. But when you look at the alternative of a David Cox (Democratic party candidate) or Arron Sime in the last election you support those which you agree with more in hopes of “Change”…
As far as the 56 that left how active were they if they missed 3 consecutive meetings?
Does the Waynesboro Democratic Party have at least 56 on their members roll?
Come to the next meeting.
See for yourself the workers that remained and what they have done to support our candidates in the past. ALL blogs have spin, see real actions for yourself…
RightsideVA
Steve Kijak
Good zinger there, Stevie Boy. I’ve got an e-mail list of 270, and I had 300 at my Election Night Victory Party last November. How many did you guys have for yours?
(Trick question. You didn’t have an Election Night Victory Party last November.)
This is why I don’t get this purge. We work so hard to get people to sign up and work with us. I can’t imagine telling 56 people to go take a hike. But I am still new to this. Maybe there is some logic to it that will come to me in my old age.
Now Chris, that wasn’t nice.
You know you’re invited to Bob McDonnell’s Victory Party in November. We’ll have plenty of crying towels available for you.
btw, Did you like how Moran threw out “Global Crossing” last night? Guess his people read your endorsement of McAuliffe and the comment string.
The 300 at my Victory Party last year were Waynesboro-only. The Staunton-Augusta party had another 300. Warner, Obama et al had their own somewheres else.
I’d go to the GOP Cryin’ In Our Near-Beer (Again) ’09 Fest on one condition. That you do a better job than the folks did in Waynesboro in ’08. A crockpot with little sausages and a small-screen TV isn’t going to keep me there for more than a couple of minutes.
Gotta save money to pay all those extra taxes on the rich.
Bada bing!
Lynn is terrible. Just awful.