I did my part in the booing. I voted for him in the General Election; but I certainly did not in the primary or the run off. I am with Shawn Hanley on the fact that we need to elect Republicans to our state offices and not former democrats. I suspect that the reason he wanted Tricia for Chairman is because that would give him access to the party treasury and make it easy for him to pay off his debts. There are only two problems that he would have and they are Randy Evans, Finance Chairman and Bob Mayzes, Treasurer, and both of them are honest. However, one of the points of Tricia’s campaign was that she would replace the Finance Chairman. We need to find some real Republican opposition for Nathan in the 2014 election.
This is where Governor Deal gets confused. He said; “I do think it’s important though, that the party has a good working relationship with the elected officials, whether it be the governor or members of the General Assembly.”
Its the other way around. He and the other politicians need to make sure they are working hard at their relationship to the party and the people. Sometimes they forget that they work for us. They showed us their resume and we hired them. If they are causing problems and they have problems working with us, they get fired.
Amen.
The only thing I can figure here is that Deal took his 2010 big margin win over Roy Barnes as a mandate to do whatever he wants, like the Democrats did in 2008. In fact, his big win in 2010 was more a vote against Barnes combined with the huge wave of GOP wins over the Democrat ideology, NOT a love-fest for Nathan Deal. He seems to have missed or has ignored that fact. The LAST thing Deal should have done was attempt to force his candidate Tricia Pridemore on the Republican and conservative faithful, when we had to hold our noses to vote for him.
We already had issues with his terrible personal finances and non-disclosure until AFTER the runoff; this blatant attempt to control the party, it’s $, and it’s support of future candidates smells to us like Chicago politics, and we’re NOT having it here. We the people are not stupid and Deal and Pridemore’s actions sure seemed to treat us as if we were; I hope they learned that lesson here. You work WITH the party, not co-opt it as if the members are ‘sheeple.’
Good points. As you said, Deal won big over Barnes, but what he doesn’t seem to acknowledge is that he barely squeaked out of the primary and the run-off. In a state comprised the way Georgia now is, that is by far the more telling endorsement to rely upon.
Just remember Nathan was born a Democrat in Hall County. Democrat Statism surges through his veins. Being a Conservative Republican is un natural for him. That is why he voted YES for;
1. Community and Housing Re development Act.
2. No Child Left Behind
3. Patriot Act
4. Homeland Security
5. Prescription Drug Act
6. Unconstitutional wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
btw … many other very Statist legislation over the years he abused and tormented us while serving in the US House of Congress Idiots.
Give the man a break … he is Democrat that is trying to live in our world. It sort of like trying to decide whether your straight or not. Am I? No. Maybe. Yes. No. Am I?
This is so stupid. For starters, he wasn’t born in Hall County – he was born in Millen and grew up in Sandersville. As for the efforts of some to purge the party of all those who were former Democrats – I don’t understand the obsession with taking the party back to being an inconsequential minority party with no influence. If it wasn’t for former Democrats, a minority party is exactly what the GOP would be in Georgia.
Governor Deal does not understand how his own party structure works and I still think he is clueless. The governor is not the head of the GAGOP and the boos at the convention should serve as a reminder of that.
Governor Deal was given the right to speak at the convention because he is the governor. He had every right to speak as the governor, but he used the end of his speech to step outside of his role as governor and into the role of candidate booster. It was inappropriate and if he understood his role relative to the state party he would have understood that.
Frankly, Governor Deal’s approach to the state party chairman’s race was stupid. There is no other possible description of his actions. The governor greatly over-estimates his influence with the grassroots.
He should understand that he needs the grassroots, not the other way around. Grassroot GOP workers don’t want special favors, or kickbacks or contracts with the state; they want good government, which is what Deal was elected to do. He has nothing else to offer them.
The Georgia GOP grassroots still has much to offer the governor, though. They can vocally support his initiatives; defend his actions and contribute to his legal fund. Some of them might support his potential re-election run. Those numbers were greatly diminished based upon his recent actions.
It was unfortunate he got involved in this at all. He seemed to just become stubborn about it and resist common sense when it was clear it was doing nothing but costing him points with members of the party.
In Matthew, there is a passage that says, “Live by the sword, die by the sword”. One could day the same about the Governor’s influence. If not for him tapping her as his hand picked choice and using the power and presitge of his office, Tricia would have ended next to Carter whatever his name is, but his influence then capped her chances of success due to what seemed like his heavy handed approach.
Perhaps a better option would have been for Tricia to run for a more appropriate level for her experience, like county chair of Cobb, district chair or even lesser state party officer and then run on her record instead of the coat tails of a recently elected Governor and a slew of other politicians to which she gave donations.
Agree. His involvement was a negative for everyone, including himself.
I was on the aisle directly across from the Cobb County delegation and some people were so outraged they could barely speak when he endorsed Tricia from the podium. Was it like that in your part of the section?
Bibb county, for the most part, is pretty even keel in the emotions department. We strongly back candidates, but there is not a whole lot of drama in the long run. Perhaps it is the reflection of our past and current chairmen, Sherrie and Suzanne. But the overall feeling is that the Governor was out of line.
We were somewhat tired of the Cobb delegation taking their drama to the floor of the convention. I think alternates should be elevated by and only by random lots. Any other mechanism is open for abuse. Also, you cannot decide on the rules to use when the issue is at hand, since then people will simply vote for the outcome they want, rather than a fair process.
I spoke with someone from, I think, the Forsyth County (tho it could have been another North Georgia county) delegation and was told that they actually use a scorecard to elevate alternates.
Party members get points based upon what they have done for the party. Everyone knows how to get points and that those rankings will be used for things like elevating alternates ahead of time. It’s all in the open and transparent.
That is the key. Who you are going to vote for is a lousy way to decide who gets elevated, unless we want a permanently split party with lifelong grudges keeping delegations apart.
Hank Burnham (Clarke County) was denied a seat on the floor and his GOP resume (including the founding of the Jeff Davis County GOP at the age of 18) is as long as my arm. All he wanted to do was be able to cast a vote for Sue. I don’t know for sure if that prevented him from being seated or not, but it smells.
I remember Mr. Burnham when I was a teenager and he lead the Madison County party. He was there and Mrs. Gunn was in Jackson and both were great. Later, when I was in college Republicans he helped us too and supported all of our candidates. What jerks! and then they put a guy in who nominated himself? Sadly, it does not suprise me. The Clarke County party was often condescending to the UGA Republicans when I was there. They expected us to support them but they would never support us.
It was Forsyth. Good people there. They use the same scorecard to decide on who gets to go a s a Delegate instead of an Alternate. Party participation is one of the criteria. It is not fair to have a first time convention attendee knock out someone who has been coming for years.
Me, too. I was told they use it for multiple things, so it sounds pretty useful. I didn’t find out a lot because it was a random conversation. I get involved in a lot of those, but this was particularly educational.
It was something along the lines of party participation, (attending meeting and events), financial support to candidates and the party, volunteering for a campaign, and one other category. I’m not sure of the exact details. I don’t know how many meetings one would have to go to to qualify as participating in the GOP, how much money one would have to give (It could be $5, or $50), or how much time on a campaign (30 minutes or more?)
After talking to all perspective Delegates, they are ranked, by how many of each category they satisfied. 4 out of 4 were Delegates, and 0 out of 4 were not considered. That keeps someone from coming to a convention who has never has been involved, or never worked on a campaign from becoming a Delegate.
4 out 4’s and 3 out of 4 might be Delegates and 2 out of 4’s would be seated as an Alternate before a 1 out of 4. That’s how I remember hearing about it anyway. Shoot Ethan Underwood an e-mail and I’m sure he can explain it better than I did.
Thanks Doug. It might be too specific to enact state-wide, but any county that makes part unity a priority might make a special rule about it. I am the permanent rule’s chairman for Bibb county, I will definitely look into this and bring it to the attention of our ExCom.
I participated in this scorecard at the 9th District in the Forsyth delegation.
I see no other way to do it fairly and frankly it should be weighted on the scores given for;
1. Republican candidates you gave money to – highest score $500.
2. Republican candidates campaigns you worked on – the more the better.
3. Did you march in the GOP Parade – I kid you not.
4. I forget the others.
Rest assured the questions were pertinent and I don’t know how else the Forsyth GOP would do it.
Though you don’t get extra points if you donate more than $500 to campaigns and having worked on three GOP candidates campaigns there is no extra credit. I learned this the hard way.
having been active in several local parties at various stages in my life, i must say i’m very skeptical of any “ranking system” and how it might be manipulated by those in power to maintain their status quo and turn off newcomers trying to become active…
@Doug. I answered the scorecard. It didn’t really weight attendance at conventions, it was more weighted on grassroots work. For example, one criteria was how much was donated to candidates.
You got the same score whether you donated $500 to one candidate or $5,000 to three candidates.
The next question was campaigns you worked on. You did not get extra credit for working on three campaigns or one.
Few points were given if you regularly attend GOP Monthly meetings, but a specific question gave a score if you marched in the GOP parade.
For all of you I’ve thought about this off-and-on for weeks. I have no idea how you would do this better than what was done in Forsyth County. I’m sure all would like to hear more ideas.
@ Bill, I would add a category for voting in GOP primaries. That might not have helped you, but I think it’s a fair thing to ask. (BTW, I appreciate your donation to the storm victims.)
@ Jay, don’t think it of a way of turning off new comers trying to be active, think of it as a way to show others what figurative dues are needed to pay in order to represent the party.
What confuses me is that Governor Deal had to know that there was NO upside to including his statement of support for Ms Pridemore in his speech. There was NO possibility of changing anyone’s mind; in fact, it probably lost some votes for her.
So, if he didn’t know what was going on, he’s got a staff problem and he needs to clean house. If he did know and went ahead, I can only ascribe it to a troubling level of arrogance. Either way, it’s a problem that the Governor needs to fix.
I can’t read his mind, so I certainly don’t know. It may have been that he believed if he failed to do so, people would think his support had wavered. My gut feeling is that it is a case of underestimating the passion with which people want the GAGOP to remain independent of the influence of elected officials.
A pact with Sue; that I can’t imagine. He dissed Sue on so many occasions, including Sat AM at the breakfast, immediately after Sue had been incredibly complimentary and gracious to Gov & Mrs. Deal. Also by not inviting Sue to the rescheduled inaugural gala a couple weeks ago, ignoring her help in getting the man elected.
I think that he knew how close the race had gotten, and thought that he had to say something to try to sway those who hadn’t decided…but was clueless as to how it would inflame those who resented his involvement. So his tactic backfired.
{ 36 comments }
He received a round of boo’s when he endorsed TP.
I did my part in the booing. I voted for him in the General Election; but I certainly did not in the primary or the run off. I am with Shawn Hanley on the fact that we need to elect Republicans to our state offices and not former democrats. I suspect that the reason he wanted Tricia for Chairman is because that would give him access to the party treasury and make it easy for him to pay off his debts. There are only two problems that he would have and they are Randy Evans, Finance Chairman and Bob Mayzes, Treasurer, and both of them are honest. However, one of the points of Tricia’s campaign was that she would replace the Finance Chairman. We need to find some real Republican opposition for Nathan in the 2014 election.
AMEN and AMEN
boo! (in abstentia)
This is where Governor Deal gets confused. He said; “I do think it’s important though, that the party has a good working relationship with the elected officials, whether it be the governor or members of the General Assembly.”
Its the other way around. He and the other politicians need to make sure they are working hard at their relationship to the party and the people. Sometimes they forget that they work for us. They showed us their resume and we hired them. If they are causing problems and they have problems working with us, they get fired.
Nathan gets confused easily.
Amen.
The only thing I can figure here is that Deal took his 2010 big margin win over Roy Barnes as a mandate to do whatever he wants, like the Democrats did in 2008. In fact, his big win in 2010 was more a vote against Barnes combined with the huge wave of GOP wins over the Democrat ideology, NOT a love-fest for Nathan Deal. He seems to have missed or has ignored that fact. The LAST thing Deal should have done was attempt to force his candidate Tricia Pridemore on the Republican and conservative faithful, when we had to hold our noses to vote for him.
We already had issues with his terrible personal finances and non-disclosure until AFTER the runoff; this blatant attempt to control the party, it’s $, and it’s support of future candidates smells to us like Chicago politics, and we’re NOT having it here. We the people are not stupid and Deal and Pridemore’s actions sure seemed to treat us as if we were; I hope they learned that lesson here. You work WITH the party, not co-opt it as if the members are ‘sheeple.’
Good points. As you said, Deal won big over Barnes, but what he doesn’t seem to acknowledge is that he barely squeaked out of the primary and the run-off. In a state comprised the way Georgia now is, that is by far the more telling endorsement to rely upon.
And by no means was it a mandate.
Exactly. He should have used this convention to unite the party since half of us did not vote for him in the primary.
Just remember Nathan was born a Democrat in Hall County. Democrat Statism surges through his veins. Being a Conservative Republican is un natural for him. That is why he voted YES for;
1. Community and Housing Re development Act.
2. No Child Left Behind
3. Patriot Act
4. Homeland Security
5. Prescription Drug Act
6. Unconstitutional wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
btw … many other very Statist legislation over the years he abused and tormented us while serving in the US House of Congress Idiots.
Give the man a break … he is Democrat that is trying to live in our world. It sort of like trying to decide whether your straight or not. Am I? No. Maybe. Yes. No. Am I?
This is so stupid. For starters, he wasn’t born in Hall County – he was born in Millen and grew up in Sandersville. As for the efforts of some to purge the party of all those who were former Democrats – I don’t understand the obsession with taking the party back to being an inconsequential minority party with no influence. If it wasn’t for former Democrats, a minority party is exactly what the GOP would be in Georgia.
Maybe he was “born again” in Hall county?
Governor Deal does not understand how his own party structure works and I still think he is clueless. The governor is not the head of the GAGOP and the boos at the convention should serve as a reminder of that.
Governor Deal was given the right to speak at the convention because he is the governor. He had every right to speak as the governor, but he used the end of his speech to step outside of his role as governor and into the role of candidate booster. It was inappropriate and if he understood his role relative to the state party he would have understood that.
Frankly, Governor Deal’s approach to the state party chairman’s race was stupid. There is no other possible description of his actions. The governor greatly over-estimates his influence with the grassroots.
He should understand that he needs the grassroots, not the other way around. Grassroot GOP workers don’t want special favors, or kickbacks or contracts with the state; they want good government, which is what Deal was elected to do. He has nothing else to offer them.
The Georgia GOP grassroots still has much to offer the governor, though. They can vocally support his initiatives; defend his actions and contribute to his legal fund. Some of them might support his potential re-election run. Those numbers were greatly diminished based upon his recent actions.
It was unfortunate he got involved in this at all. He seemed to just become stubborn about it and resist common sense when it was clear it was doing nothing but costing him points with members of the party.
In Matthew, there is a passage that says, “Live by the sword, die by the sword”. One could day the same about the Governor’s influence. If not for him tapping her as his hand picked choice and using the power and presitge of his office, Tricia would have ended next to Carter whatever his name is, but his influence then capped her chances of success due to what seemed like his heavy handed approach.
Perhaps a better option would have been for Tricia to run for a more appropriate level for her experience, like county chair of Cobb, district chair or even lesser state party officer and then run on her record instead of the coat tails of a recently elected Governor and a slew of other politicians to which she gave donations.
Agree. His involvement was a negative for everyone, including himself.
I was on the aisle directly across from the Cobb County delegation and some people were so outraged they could barely speak when he endorsed Tricia from the podium. Was it like that in your part of the section?
Bibb county, for the most part, is pretty even keel in the emotions department. We strongly back candidates, but there is not a whole lot of drama in the long run. Perhaps it is the reflection of our past and current chairmen, Sherrie and Suzanne. But the overall feeling is that the Governor was out of line.
We were somewhat tired of the Cobb delegation taking their drama to the floor of the convention. I think alternates should be elevated by and only by random lots. Any other mechanism is open for abuse. Also, you cannot decide on the rules to use when the issue is at hand, since then people will simply vote for the outcome they want, rather than a fair process.
I spoke with someone from, I think, the Forsyth County (tho it could have been another North Georgia county) delegation and was told that they actually use a scorecard to elevate alternates.
Party members get points based upon what they have done for the party. Everyone knows how to get points and that those rankings will be used for things like elevating alternates ahead of time. It’s all in the open and transparent.
That is the key. Who you are going to vote for is a lousy way to decide who gets elevated, unless we want a permanently split party with lifelong grudges keeping delegations apart.
Hank Burnham (Clarke County) was denied a seat on the floor and his GOP resume (including the founding of the Jeff Davis County GOP at the age of 18) is as long as my arm. All he wanted to do was be able to cast a vote for Sue. I don’t know for sure if that prevented him from being seated or not, but it smells.
I remember Mr. Burnham when I was a teenager and he lead the Madison County party. He was there and Mrs. Gunn was in Jackson and both were great. Later, when I was in college Republicans he helped us too and supported all of our candidates. What jerks! and then they put a guy in who nominated himself? Sadly, it does not suprise me. The Clarke County party was often condescending to the UGA Republicans when I was there. They expected us to support them but they would never support us.
It was Forsyth. Good people there. They use the same scorecard to decide on who gets to go a s a Delegate instead of an Alternate. Party participation is one of the criteria. It is not fair to have a first time convention attendee knock out someone who has been coming for years.
I would like to find out more about this score card method they use.
Me, too. I was told they use it for multiple things, so it sounds pretty useful. I didn’t find out a lot because it was a random conversation. I get involved in a lot of those, but this was particularly educational.
It was something along the lines of party participation, (attending meeting and events), financial support to candidates and the party, volunteering for a campaign, and one other category. I’m not sure of the exact details. I don’t know how many meetings one would have to go to to qualify as participating in the GOP, how much money one would have to give (It could be $5, or $50), or how much time on a campaign (30 minutes or more?)
After talking to all perspective Delegates, they are ranked, by how many of each category they satisfied. 4 out of 4 were Delegates, and 0 out of 4 were not considered. That keeps someone from coming to a convention who has never has been involved, or never worked on a campaign from becoming a Delegate.
4 out 4’s and 3 out of 4 might be Delegates and 2 out of 4’s would be seated as an Alternate before a 1 out of 4. That’s how I remember hearing about it anyway. Shoot Ethan Underwood an e-mail and I’m sure he can explain it better than I did.
Thanks Doug. It might be too specific to enact state-wide, but any county that makes part unity a priority might make a special rule about it. I am the permanent rule’s chairman for Bibb county, I will definitely look into this and bring it to the attention of our ExCom.
I participated in this scorecard at the 9th District in the Forsyth delegation.
I see no other way to do it fairly and frankly it should be weighted on the scores given for;
1. Republican candidates you gave money to – highest score $500.
2. Republican candidates campaigns you worked on – the more the better.
3. Did you march in the GOP Parade – I kid you not.
4. I forget the others.
Rest assured the questions were pertinent and I don’t know how else the Forsyth GOP would do it.
Though you don’t get extra points if you donate more than $500 to campaigns and having worked on three GOP candidates campaigns there is no extra credit.
I learned this the hard way.
Thanks! Very interesting. Gives me some things to think about.
What if you just rode on the float in the parade instead of actually marching? Maybe the guy has a bum knee or something?
Thanks, Doug.
having been active in several local parties at various stages in my life, i must say i’m very skeptical of any “ranking system” and how it might be manipulated by those in power to maintain their status quo and turn off newcomers trying to become active…
I have that skepticism too, Jay, but I am still interested. Trading outright manipulation for reduced manipulation is still a win in my book, though.
@Doug. I answered the scorecard. It didn’t really weight attendance at conventions, it was more weighted on grassroots work. For example, one criteria was how much was donated to candidates.
You got the same score whether you donated $500 to one candidate or $5,000 to three candidates.
The next question was campaigns you worked on. You did not get extra credit for working on three campaigns or one.
Few points were given if you regularly attend GOP Monthly meetings, but a specific question gave a score if you marched in the GOP parade.
For all of you I’ve thought about this off-and-on for weeks. I have no idea how you would do this better than what was done in Forsyth County. I’m sure all would like to hear more ideas.
@ Bill, I would add a category for voting in GOP primaries. That might not have helped you, but I think it’s a fair thing to ask. (BTW, I appreciate your donation to the storm victims.)
@ Jay, don’t think it of a way of turning off new comers trying to be active, think of it as a way to show others what figurative dues are needed to pay in order to represent the party.
What confuses me is that Governor Deal had to know that there was NO upside to including his statement of support for Ms Pridemore in his speech. There was NO possibility of changing anyone’s mind; in fact, it probably lost some votes for her.
So, if he didn’t know what was going on, he’s got a staff problem and he needs to clean house. If he did know and went ahead, I can only ascribe it to a troubling level of arrogance. Either way, it’s a problem that the Governor needs to fix.
I can’t read his mind, so I certainly don’t know. It may have been that he believed if he failed to do so, people would think his support had wavered. My gut feeling is that it is a case of underestimating the passion with which people want the GAGOP to remain independent of the influence of elected officials.
He could not have more effectively sabotaged her campaign.
It’s as though he and Sue had a pact during the entire campaign.
A pact with Sue; that I can’t imagine. He dissed Sue on so many occasions, including Sat AM at the breakfast, immediately after Sue had been incredibly complimentary and gracious to Gov & Mrs. Deal. Also by not inviting Sue to the rescheduled inaugural gala a couple weeks ago, ignoring her help in getting the man elected.
I think that he knew how close the race had gotten, and thought that he had to say something to try to sway those who hadn’t decided…but was clueless as to how it would inflame those who resented his involvement. So his tactic backfired.
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