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The minutes of the state GOP's executive committee has some interesting items. We'll have more later on this.
From an email:
With a quorum present on the conference call, Chairman Doug McKinney called the FRAC meeting to order at 9:05P.M. Those present on the call were:
Mike Ankrom - member
Donna Gosney - member
Gary Howell - member
Bill Snyder - member
Doug McKinney, M.D. - ex-officio member
Marti Riggall - ex-officio member
Cheryl Rust - office staff
Denver McCallister - Co-Finance Chairman
John Burdette - Co-Finance Chairman
Craig Blair - Co-Finance Director
Jonathan Miller - Co-Finance Director
Doug McKinney brought up the important issue of leasing the space at the corner of Greenbrier and Kanawha Boulevard. Some of the advantages/information of the lease space include the following:
Visibility for the party
Fundraising opportunities at space
Proximity to State Capitol providing central gathering place for our legislators if needed
Professional representation of the party
Utility bills similar to present costs of HQ in South Charleston
Craig Blair added additional comments including:
Signage exposure for the party
Tent could be inexpensive addition added in warmer months for social events as well as fundraising activities for legislators
Some rental costs could be recouped with the renting of second floor rooms to legislators
Donna Gosney spoke of potential problems:
Parking could be an issue during the day.
Lease contract does call for 4 dedicated spaces on the property
12 nearby street spaces on Greenbrier and Kanawha Boulevard available although it should be noted that they are first come / first served
John Burdette offered his opinion:
John Burdette leases office space and in that capacity, he offered to the conference call that based on his real estate expertise of Charleston, the rate of $2500 per month is a good value because of numerous factors such as the location, square footage and condition of the building. Also, with the furnishings that come with the lease space, the move-in phase is streamlined as the inventory of items at our disposal is quite extensive.
Doug McKinney also brought up that we could use the CD for the funding of the lease space based on legal advice that he had received. He emphasized to those on the call that due to advice he had received at the previous steering committee meeting, nothing would be solicited in writing from the West Virginia Secretary of State's office so as not to tip the competition to our plans. Furthermore, the FEC refuses to state an opinion in writing.
Bill Snyder offered the opinion that we should proceed with the rental regardless of any FEC opinions, feeling that any penalties are likely to be minimal and affordable.
Gary Howell stated that he had researched the situation, specifically the McCain-Feingold bill and as per Article I, Section 9 and Section 10 of the Constitution, the federal and state government are prevented from passing an ex post facto law. We are safe to use the money in the CD, since it was attained prior to McCain-Feingold. It is fungible. The Chairman assured the committee that money in the CD would be used for the sole purpose of obtaining appropriate office space.
Dr. McKinney asked for a vote of the committee as to whether or not to proceed with plans to move forward. He also told them that he would seek advice from the WVGOP counsel - Beth Elmore - on the use of the CD funds. The vote was as follows:
*Mike Ankrom - recuse
Donna Gosney - no
Gary Howell - yes
Bill Snyder - yes
*Please note:
Mike Ankrom recused himself from the vote as he informed the FRAC that he is related to the owners of the potential lease space. He deemed it prudent to do so as he did not want any appearance of impropriety on his part in this particular piece of business brought before the FRAC.
After the vote was taken, Dr. McKinney asked the dissenting voter - Donna Gosney - if she would be favorable toward the move if counsel or other legal entity thought the use of the CD funds was appropriate. Donna Gosney responded that she would then be in favor of the move to the building at the corner of Greenbrier and Kanawha Boulevard if that were the case.
With a majority of the quorum giving the go-ahead to proceed, Dr. McKinney concluded the call.
Submitted by:
Marti Riggall
Addendum to minutes:
Jim Reed was contacted by the Chairman the following day and stated that he favored proceeding with obtaining the proposed space. He later called back and had driven by the space and reiterated his vote to proceed.
I'll state upfront running a group blog and posting daily is a lot of effort and I commend Roman Stauffer for undertaking it with West Virginia Red.
There's more pressure than most people realize to come up with multiple posts per day on a wide variety of issues important to readers. Some of these issues are very complex. That's why we use links and
Blockquotes
and quotation marks to quote the experts saying things. Plagiarizing is something that's taught early in school is wrong.
One of the important ways the new media of blogs is different than the old media is we're self-policing. Stauffer made a mistake and was caught. We had a blogger here who did something similar and one of our own called the other out on it.
The best thing for Stauffer to do, and I mean this with all sincerity, is to admit he made an error in judgment and move on and not do it again. I say this out of feeling of goodwill from one blog founder to another even if he is on the other side of the aisle. And I also say it as a representative of blogtopia who wants blogs to be taking seriously.
People sometimes fear admitting mistakes will cause them to lose credibility, and we have those people on our side of the blogosphere too. The opposite is true, however. Roman Stauffer and the other activists at West Virginia Red are doing important posts to turn the direction of the West Virginia Republican Party in the direction they want it to go. I don't agree with that direction, but I commend citizen activists for their involvement.
Blogtopia may seem like anarchy at times, but the same rules about plagiarism apply here as they do elsewhere.
West Virginia Democratic Party Chairman Nick Casey had a great line in this Associated Press story on GOP crowing about Appalachia.
But even if Obama does become the Democrats' candidate, the party says he won't write off Appalachia.
"The Republicans under Bush were, unfortunately, able to get a lot of votes up and down the Appalachian spine in 2000 and 2004," West Virginia Democratic Party Chairman Nick Casey said.
Casey believes the Republicans were able to do that by appealing to voters on issues like gun control, which is deeply unpopular throughout Appalachia. He sees the Republicans trying the same strategy this year, noting presumptive Republican nominee John McCain's visit to a St. Albans gun store this month.
But Casey thinks issues like the economy, health care and the war in Iraq are voters' foremost concerns this year.
"I always ask West Virginians if they know anybody who's had their gun taken away, and then I ask if they know anybody who's had their health insurance taken away," Casey said. "Nobody knows anyone who's lost their guns, but everyone knows someone who's lost their health care."
By the way, considering how few offices the West Virginia Republicans hold in the state, GOP Chairman Doug McKinney should focus on his inability to lead the Republican Party to victory before he begins to give advice to Sen. Barack Obama where he should and should not campaign. Considering how he threw his own evangelicals under the bus, the state Republican party's financial problems and the McCain camp's inability to find a campaign director for West Virginia, McKinney might want to focus on his own work.
While I'm pointing out people who should focus on their own issues, yet another expert on Appalachian politics disagrees with Daily Kos front pagers and the news media who put all of the emphasis on Obama's trouble in the primary here on racism while overlooking other issues.
After Clinton defeated Obama by huge margins in West Virginia and Kentucky, some political analysts began questioning whether the Illinois senator has an "Appalachian problem."
It's more a case of Democrats in general having an Appalachian problem, argues Philip Ardoin, a political science professor at North Carolina's Appalachian State University.
Even if Clinton wins the nomination, he argues, she'll find it hard to win over voters in the central and southern parts of the region.
"I don't see it being a bigger problem for Obama than for other Democratic candidates," he said. "Any Democrat is going to have a tough time winning West Virginia and Kentucky."
The problem with national Democrats in recent elections since Al Gore in the 2000 race is they have taken the state for granted. The state was one of four that went to President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Instead of coming to the state and campaigning across it talking about real issues of importance, Democratic presidential candidates come in and think they just need to outpander the Republicans on the coal vote to win, an outdated strategy. If your well is polluted because of moutaintop removal runoff and there's not enough distance separating the Democratic candidate from the Republican candidate, you can bet people are going to cling to God because no one else is looking out for them.
What Obama should do is spend some serious time in West Virginia so people become familiar with him. Quit pandering to the coal vote and focus on other issues, such as healthcare. Steal Nick Casey's line about guns and health insurance.
McKinney's advising Obama not to come to West Virginia. I say Obama should and use Ronald Reagan's line that even though West Virginians might not be for him as president, he'll be a president for them.
Maybe that's what McKinney fears. He knows retail politics plays big in West Virginia and Obama's a very persuasive candidate. Obama didn't campaign hard enough in the state personally for the primary. Hopefully that's a mistake he won't make again.
In a move that may well be too clever by half, the West Virginia GOP decided to hold a nominating convention on Super Tuesday (Feb. 5, 2008) this cycle. Their thinking is more people will pay attention to them if there are some (but not all?) of the delegates at stake earlier in the process. [For some reason they still want to stick W.Va. tax-payers with a bill for a primary later in the year, too. So much for Republicans as the W.Va. party of fiscal responsibility.]
The deadline for registering as a GOP convention delegate is this Friday. The W.Va. GOP plan was to have so many delegate registrations they'd need county-level mini-conventions to vote on delegates through-out early January before their big convention on Feb. 5. It would be a great plan if, well, there was any Republican presidential candidates who actually excited Republican voters.
Back to the convention plans. They want to have 1,446 party members attend as delegates -- all in order to select 18 of the 30 votes for the Republican nominating convention.
So, how's that process going so far? The Charleston Gazette has the details.
Facing a Friday deadline, West Virginia Republicans have more than 1,100 delegate slots to fill - just over three-fourths of the total - for their ambitious Feb. 5 presidential candidate nominating convention.
Fred Thompson has 55 delegates who intend to support the actor and former Tennessee senator at the "Tsunami Tuesday" event. That's the most so far of any White House hopeful, according to the latest roster posted online Friday.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney follows with 49 delegates wishing to represent him. Ron Paul of Texas has 38. The Texas congressman is edging out former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his 37 committed delegates.
Three of the other presidential candidates registered with the convention - Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter and John McCain - each has at least one delegate. The remaining two, Alan Keyes and Gene Zarwell, have none yet.
Another 148 delegates aren't backing any candidate, giving each GOP contender a chance to win them over at the convention. Organizers hope that will help lure the candidates to the Charleston Civic Center on Feb. 5, when 20 other states are holding caucuses or primaries.
However, organizers have also planned for 1,446 party members to attend the convention as delegates. Only 344 have registered since Nov. 1.
The nominating process provides an illuminating window into which candidates are generating the most interest in the state -- among Republican "notables" and grass-roots activists:
Both Thompson and Romney have two state party officers and two county GOP chairmen among their Feb. 5 convention delegates. However, Thompson also has 11 legislators, while Romney has one.
Among the notable Republican Party figures committed to candidates:
- Thompson: Senate Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer; House Minority Leader Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha; former Congressman Mick Staton.
- Romney: National Committeewoman Donna Gosney; state school board Vice President Priscilla Haden; former state Supreme Court Justice John McCuskey; Sue McKinney, Harrison County GOP chairwoman and wife of the state chairman.
- Giuliani: Wood County Commission President Rick Modesitt; Sens. Frank Deem of Wood County and Vic Sprouse of Kanawha.
- McCain: Mason County Commissioner Miles Epling; Fayette County GOP Chairman Gary Lilly; former lawmaker and veteran lobbyist Larry Swann.
- Huckabee: Ashley Stinnett, head of the state's Federation of Young Republicans.
- Hunter: Marion County GOP Chairman Andrew Sabak.
- Paul's roster, meanwhile, suggests a more grass-roots appeal; 35 of his 38 delegates are at-large.
The advertisements with a Sprouse endorsement of Giuliani practically write themselves, don't they? The public record of their private lives do show a striking similarity in the "family values" department.
More telling, among Republican presidential candidates only Ron Paul is generating any grassroots excitement in West Virginia. Wouldn't it be ironic if the story coming out of the West Virginia GOP "attempt to be relevant on Super Tuesday" is a surprisingly good Ron Paul showing?
Not to worry, the WV GOP has a plan to make sure that won't happen. There's no way all those empty seats will be filled between now and Friday. Instead, in the very least democratic process possible...
County party committees will have a chance to fill empty delegate spots after the Nov. 30 deadline. State GOP Chairman Doug McKinney can later pick people for seats left unfilled by the county committees.
So, there you have it. Barring an unlikely surge of grass roots interest in the Republican nominating convention between now and Friday, November 30, the candidate receiving over half of the W.Va. support for the Republican presidential nomination will be picked by Republican party officials.
Florida and occasional West Virginia resident John Raese is sounding more and more like a potential Republican challenger to Senator Jay Rockefeller. At the Marion County Republican Executive Committee's annual dinner, covered here in the Fairmont Times West Virginian, Raese speaks with a lot of bluster about Democrats and about the environment.
But quite humorously in my opinion Raese also unintentionally shot down the entire "Unleashing Capitalism" campaign that the West Virginia Republicans have spent months building up.
Raese said:
He also bashed Forbes magazine for knocking the state's business climate, recently ranking it 49th.
"My family has been doing business in West Virginia since 1905. A lot of people have done business and done very well in West Virginia," he said.
"We have more natural resources in West Virginia than all but two other states, Texas and Louisiana. We have the finest work force of anywhere in the United States."
Rightwing author Russell Sobel and West Virginia GOP Chairman Doug McKinney keep tellng people at every opportunity how awful the state is for business.
"'Unleashing capitalism' will be our party platform next year," McKinney said. "Our philosophy will be, 'It's the economy, Stupid.'
"We've spent too much time in recent years on gun control and abortion.
McKinney and many other rightwingers constantly badmouth the state's business climate, which is unusual for civic leaders who normally try to help attract businesses to locate in their community instead of repulse them. I guess they forgot to tell Raese that if he becomes a candidate he's not supposed to talk about businesses doing well in West Virginia.
West Virginia Republican Party Chairman Doug McKinney went into a hissy fit earlier this week because MoveOn.org put out a factually accurate ad about Gen. David Petraeus' history of misrepresenting the facts. (Remember when Petraeus claimed the Iraqi military and police would be providing all of the security in the country soon because he was in charge of training them? That was in 2004. How'd that work out?)
From that, McKinney called MoveOn's fact checking a slur against all of the troops (talk about a leap in logic, but Republicans are ruled by emotions and not facts.) and called on Senator Robert C. Byrd and others to condemn MoveOn.
MoveOn.org's malicious attack on General Petraeus and our nation's troops should be condemned by West Virginia Congressional Democrats immediately.
"After trying unsuccessfully to block funding for American soldiers and second guess our commanders on the ground, this radical left-wing organization has resorted to launching slanderous assaults on our nation's brave men and women who are fighting the War on Terrorism. As the father of a United States Marine, I take personal offense at this attack.
But MoveOn's ad was rather mild compared to the name-calling of Petraeus from another obviously far left dirty hippy, Petreaus' superior officer, CENTCOM Commander Admiral William Fallon:
WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer.
The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century".
Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's personal distaste for Petraeus's style of operating and their fundamental policy differences over Iraq, according to the sources.
I'm sure McKinney will be just as quick to condemn Admiral Fallon for his "slanderous assaults" just to remain consistent.
Otherwise, McKinney is a hypocrite.
Maybe McKinney should take a moment and think before he speaks - nah!
The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus's agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq to Congress.
In a highly unusual political role for an officer who had not yet taken command of a war, Petraeus was installed in the office of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, in early February just before the Senate debated Bush's troop increase. According to a report in The Washington Post Feb. 7, senators were then approached on the floor and invited to go McConnell's office to hear Petraeus make the case for the surge policy.
Fallon was strongly opposed to Petraeus's role as pitch man for the surge policy in Iraq adopted by Bush in December as putting his own interests ahead of a sound military posture in the Middle East and Southwest Asia -- the area for which Fallon's CENTCOM is responsible.
The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."
By the time Fallon took command of CENTCOM in March, Pakistan had become the main safe haven for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda to plan and carry out its worldwide operations, as well as being an extremely unstable state with both nuclear weapons and the world's largest population of Islamic extremists.
Plans for continued high troop levels in Iraq would leave no troops available for other contingencies in the region.
Fallon was reported by the New York Times to have been determined to achieve results "as soon as possible". The notion of a long war, in contrast, seemed to connote an extended conflict in which Iraq was but a chapter.
Fallon also expressed great scepticism about the basic assumption underlying the surge strategy, which was that it could pave the way for political reconciliation in Iraq. In the lead story Sep. 9, The Washington Post quoted a "senior administration official" as saying that Fallon had been "saying from Day One, 'This isn't working.' "
One of Fallon's first moves upon taking command of CENTCOM was to order his subordinates to avoid the term "long war" -- a phrase Bush and Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates had used to describe the fight against terrorism.
And I'm sure McKinney will call on vulnerable Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito to condemn the remarks made by House Minority Leader John Boehner, who called the deaths of nearly 3,800 American soldiers in Iraq and the spending of $2 trillion a "small price to pay." I doubt if their families who sacrificed their loved ones would think they were a "small price to pay."
Will McKinney be consistent and call on people to condemn Fallon and Boehner or should we interpret his silence that he approves of their remarks?
"I was appalled to hear Minority Leader Boehner's statement yesterday that the loss of American blood is a 'small price' to pay in Iraq. The loss of American blood is never a small price. This war has stretched our military thin, and in order to be prepared for a new or unexpected conflict we must responsibly redeploy our troops. It's time to refocus our efforts on fighting those responsible for 9/11-al Qaeda-restoring our military to peak readiness, and to protecting Americans from terrorism.
"After four and a half years, $565 billion, 3,759 U.S. troops killed, more than 27,770 U.S. troops wounded, and no exit strategy, I hope to hear the President tonight offer a plan for redeployment and a true New Direction for Iraq, rather than continued commitment to a failed policy in Iraq.
"I also think it's important to put some perspective on the President's speech this evening. As he prepares to ask the American people, our men and women in uniform and our military families for continued sacrifice and commitment to his war in Iraq, I think we should keep in mind his promises and declarations throughout the four and a half years of this war.
"The President started us on this rollercoaster in May 2003, when he declared the mission accomplished and the end of major combat operations. Fifty three months later, the combat rages on, with American soldiers stuck in the middle of a civil war.
"In April 2004, he promised we would stay the course and 'complete the job'-a job that apparently wasn't accomplished.
"In May 2005, Vice President Cheney infamously declared that the insurgency was in its 'last throws.' Seven months later, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld took a dramatically different view, reporting that the insurgency was gaining strength. Twenty eight months after the Vice President's remarks, the insurgency continues to surge.
"In June 2005, the president assured us that as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.
"And in January of this year, when the President announced his surge plan, he said he was firm with Iraqi leaders that our commitment wasn't open ended. He said, 'If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people.'
"Here we are, nine months after the surge plan, and the Iraqi government has not delivered on its end of the deal.
"The Iraqi government has failed to deliver on 15 of 18 benchmarks outlined by the Bush Administration. While our military has made progress in giving the Iraqi government some breathing room to make political progress, the commitment and sacrifice made by our brave military has not been matched by the Iraqi government. The line has been blurred between assistance and dependence, and its time to match our deeds with our words."
UPDATE 2.
Republicans so eager to condemn MoveOn's critical ad of General Petreaus hate being asked about Boehner's much worse remarks. Still kudos to Senator John McCain for at least not being a hypocrite (unlike ::cough:: WV Republicans):
On the bus, McCain responded to John Boehner's remark that American lives were a "small price" to pay for a victory in Iraq.
Asked about it on the heels of his demanding that Democratic candidates "repudiate" the MoveOn.org Petreaus/Betray Us ad, he grimaced: "He misspoke. With all due respect, every American wounded or sacrificed is the greatest possible price to pay," and we should all be grateful, "particularly those of us who sit in relative safety while those young men and women are fighting."
Hoppy Kercheval has a good column today on the so-far unsuccessful efforts by the Republican Party to find a candidate to run against the very popular Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV-01).
Print StoryEmail StoryThe National Republican Congressional Committee is fishing in West Virginia's first congressional district, but as any angler can tell you, just because you drop a line doesn't mean you're going to get a bite.
The Republican congressional committee has been running 60-second radio commercials in Morgantown, Wheeling and Parkersburg attacking the district's Democratic congressman, Alan Mollohan.
The ad reminds voters that Mollohan's distribution of federal earmarks in the district and his personal finances remain under investigation by the FBI.
The announcer intones gravely, "West Virginians expect more and deserve better."
Why now? There's nothing new in the Mollohan investigation -- if in fact there is still one going on.
And it's the middle of August, when people are going to fairs, getting ready to go back to school, taking their final summer vacations. It's unlikely voters are thinking about the `08 congressional election.
Evidently the Republican ads are a kind of political fishing trip to see if they can stir up any interest in a viable Republican opponent for Mollohan in the critical next election.
snip
Print StoryEmail StoryThe National Republican Congressional Committee is fishing in West Virginia's first congressional district, but as any angler can tell you, just because you drop a line doesn't mean you're going to get a bite.
The Republican congressional committee has been running 60-second radio commercials in Morgantown, Wheeling and Parkersburg attacking the district's Democratic congressman, Alan Mollohan.
The ad reminds voters that Mollohan's distribution of federal earmarks in the district and his personal finances remain under investigation by the FBI.
The announcer intones gravely, "West Virginians expect more and deserve better."
Why now? There's nothing new in the Mollohan investigation -- if in fact there is still one going on.
And it's the middle of August, when people are going to fairs, getting ready to go back to school, taking their final summer vacations. It's unlikely voters are thinking about the `08 congressional election.
Evidently the Republican ads are a kind of political fishing trip to see if they can stir up any interest in a viable Republican opponent for Mollohan in the critical next election.
As partisan as the Bush-Cheney administration has made the Department of Justice (see the U.S. attorney scandal for details), if there was any hint of wrong-doing on Mollohan's part, Alberto Gonzales would have leaked it already. The fact that nothing happened to Mollohan means that fishing expedition failed too. No one is going to run against Mollohan and Kercheval is right: there's only one Capito. Thank goodness. Because the state can't handle more than one doubletalking misleader who's so out of step with the public on the Iraq occupation and worker safety and labor rights.
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