Republicans can’t even win fixed elections (within their own party) these days.
Exhibit A: The Sussex County election for GOP chair, where our good friend Dave should have been elected — had they not made a positively unamerican scheduling error.
But the national party’s problems surely trump those from our compadres downstate…
Exhibit B: The race to replace Ken Mehlman. Normally, the national party rubberstamps whomever the president (or his peeps) nominate as the next leader of the RNC — much like they do for everything else the president requests. Once Ken Mehlman stepped down in November, the White House put up Florida Senator Mel Martinez. No sweat, right?
Rebellion is brewing among conservatives on the Republican National Committee over President’s Bush’s attempt to “impose” Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida as “general chairman” of the party, who favors “amnesty” for illegal aliens.
“I will be voting against Senator Martinez if he is nominated for any chairmanship of the RNC,” Tina Benkiser, Texas Republican Party chairman, told The Washington Times yesterday.
Bill Crocker, the elected national committeeman from Texas, says that when the RNC convenes here tomorrow, “Absolutely, I will vote against Martinez.”
The conservatives — one of whom accused the Bush White House of “outsourcing” party leadership — say the general-chairman post does not exist under RNC rules, which can be changed only at the party’s presidential nominating convention.
Now they’re getting stuck in a semantic battle so as to limit the embarassment to the party.
Too late.
–ASM
Our rules set our meetings on the first Monday of the month. We called to ask the Fiesta Bowl to delay for a day, but for some reason they declined…