Glenn Murphy redux?

 Some of you might remember about two years ago when YR National Chairman Glenn Murphy resigned after he he was arrested for committing sexual assault against a male member of his local Young Republican Club. While Jay Leno was busy telling jokes about Murphy to embarrass all Republicans with his actions, Erick was giving kudos to the Georgia YRs here on Peach Pundit for standing strong stand against Murphy and refusing to support his campaign even when his opposition had dropped out. At the time I was the State Chairman and had received a tip that Glenn had done something similiar before while he was in college. I thought the past action would be enough to seriously embarrass the YRNF if it came out, but never expected history would repeat itself so soon after Murphy’s election.

Now the Young Republicans may be poised to make a similar mistake again.

Well, once again it is time to elect new national leadership for the YRs and many YRs in other states, like lemmings to the sea, are poised to make a similar mistake. However, in this election, Georgia may be with them.

The candidate this time around that YRs SHOULD be a bit leary of is Rachel Hoff, National Committeewoman of the DC YRs. Rachel has a great record as a hard worker for Republican candidates, and no one can deny that. The trouble is, for the past 4 years, the Democrats have used her as a poster child for Republican hypocrisy when the GOP has cried “voter fraud.” While it may not be as exciting as a good ol’ fashion political sex scandal, unlike Murphy, the evidence of the past crime has been out on the web for years. 

Let’s step inside the WayBack Machine and go to the year 2004 (Wow, we didn’t have to go too far back on that one, huh?). In 2004, Rachel was working on the John Thune U.S. Senate race against Tom “Tax Cheat” Daschle. During the final days of the campaign, Hoff and 5 other Republicans were arrested and plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of voter registration fraud. According to the Sioux Falls, South Dakota newspaper, the Argus Leader, the group escaped stiffer charges because the Attorney General could not find any evidence of any of the registrants, mostly college students, attempting to vote.

The arrests and guilty pleas were a popular subject on liberal blogs, including the DailyKook DailyKos for months.

Rachel’s arrest has become an issue once again, and fodder for leftist blogs, when Rachel announced her candidacy for National YR chair. Ben Smith of the Politico contacted Rachel for his story which appeared last month.

In commenting how it would seem hypocritical after the GOP has accused the Democrats, ACORN, and other liberal groups of fraudulent voting practices, especially in the 2008 elections, we now have a candidate to lead the Young Republicans who has actually been convicted of it.

Smith noted, “The lack of indication of actual fraudulent voting didn’t get in the way of a large-scale GOP effort to claim voting fraud in the run-up to last year’s election, but Hoff said in an interview that she didn’t see a connection.”

Rachel may not see the irony in that connection, but many Republicans who see that same kind of irony in Obama choosing a tax cheat to head the IRS should be very suspect of the baggage she would bring to the YRs’ top post. After all, if the YRs are a get-out-the-vote organization, what kind of message is sent by choosing a someone who plead guilty to voter registration fraud to lead it? Same message Obama sent when he appointed a tax cheat to head the IRS.

As the old Southern expression goes, this dawg just won’t hunt.

For the 26 year old Hoff, her time may still come, but not until she gets through a few more Presidential election cycles without an arrest and can legitimately chalk the 2004 infraction, made just 4 years ago when she was 22, up to a “youth indiscretion.”

While even I don’t like to get into internal YRNF or GFYRC battles here on PP, just like we spent weeks discussing the RNC race, which is just as internal as the YRNF race, just as Jay Leno’s jokes proved, you can’t completely separate the youth wing from the entire party. If there is a scandal to tell, the media will link everyone with a “R” by their name to it.

As for now, I would encourage all of our grassroots leaders to let their local YR leaders know that right now is not the time to supply the Democrats with a new weapon in for their arsenal to cloud the issues in 2010.

The Georgia YRs have a great record of supporting and standing up for ethical leaders nationally in the Young Republicans, even when it wasn’t popular to do so. Some Georgia YR leaders have been actively campaigning for Rachel here in the state, making excuses for her recent past or saying we should “look forward.” One club, whose leadership is fully aware of her past, is poised to endorse her at their next meeting. However, there are several Georgia YR leaders who continue to make the stand.