Posts Tagged → republican party
An open letter to Patrick Henderson
Dear Patrick,
Years ago, you were a sweet kid from Western Pennsylvania, beginning your career in the state legislature. Working for state senator Mary Jo White and the senate environmental resources committee gave you lots of opportunity and exposure to political issues, outside issue groups, and the overall political process, including the executive branch. You were smart, interested, thoughtful, and principled, and although we occasionally disagreed I really enjoyed working with you….. way back then.
But something changed. You changed. You seem angry, hateful, even. Even towards people who have done nothing to you, at least that they are aware of; although I write this for myself, I write knowing that many other individuals have experienced the same unfair, undeserved treatment from you.
Your role in the Governor’s Office the past few years seems to have been largely dedicated to using state government to settle old scores with real or imagined “enemies” of yours (they were not Tom Corbett’s enemies, that’s for sure, although after you alienated them they aren’t up for helping Tom now), or to create new vendettas as you demonstrate that you have influence over government functions. For now.
At Governor Tom Corbett’s inaugural back in early 2011, you treated my wife Vivian rudely, to her face, despite her sweet nature and she having never met you before. She did not deserve that. Was it your way of getting at me, trying to hurt me, one more time? Whatever your purpose, it was petty behavior unbecoming someone in your senior, public role.
It is difficult to accept that you have become this way, but it has become a universal truth in Harrisburg that you are, in fact, angry at the world and determined to get even with everyone in it, whether they are guilty (of what?!) or innocent.
I suspect a lot of this negative change is a result of your cocoon-like experience inside the Republican Party, where you have been sheltered from the real world for your entire career. Like all of the other professional staff on the Hill, in both parties, you merely must meet a technical standard, not a performance standard.
Meeting a technical standard means that you, and other professional party people paid by the taxpayers, must merely show up for work and stay out of trouble with your elected boss. If you were held to a performance standard, then you’d be in a world of trouble. Other than using your public position to hammer away at “enemies,” what performance for the public have you achieved on the taxpayer’s dime these past three and a half years?
Taking risks, making sacrifices, meeting real deadlines, making personally uncomfortable decisions — none of these are part of the professional life on the Hill, although I am confident that you or others in those roles (even friends of mine) would disagree. We taxpayers who underwrite your salary see it differently.
As a public servant, Patrick, you are subject to writing like this. You may hire an attorney to try to get this off the web, and I sarcastically wish you good luck with that. I stand behind everything written here, as you well know, and if I am pushed to do so, I can certainly provide any necessary evidence to support it.
Good luck with your career, Patrick. Unless you are recycled back into the Republican Party, and God knows I really hope you are not, because I think you are a huge liability to our party, you are destined to work in the private sector. Here is some valuable advice: Don’t treat people in the private sector the way you treated them when you were in the public sector. You won’t last five minutes. Other than that, I hope you enjoy your family and show humble appreciation for all of the good things that God has bestowed upon you.
–Josh
Party Endorsements Damage Freedom
Party endorsements are common practice in Pennsylvania. A vestige of the bad old days of smoke filled back rooms, where party bosses selected candidates to receive party support and favors, endorsements have come under fire in recent years.
The most compelling reason is that voters feel disenfranchised. Another reason is that endorsement processes appear to favor weak, moderate, wishy-washy candidates who do not stand on their own merits or strong personal character, but rather people who will do and say what they are told.
Feeling fed up with milquetoast candidates who seem to stand for nothing but being everything to everyone, increasing numbers of Republican voters are rejecting the party endorsement process.
Pennsylvania is one of the last states to do endorsements, and the effort to end it is from the ground-up, led by grass roots candidates as well as former elected officials now on the outside of the party. Rick Santorum and Sam Rohrer are two examples. Santorum is running for president, and Rohrer for US senate.
Governor Tom Corbett recently endorsed Steve Welch for the US senate nomination, but it may boomerang. Welch was recently a registered Democrat who apparently voted for Barack Hussein Obama. I met Welch, and he publicly denied voting for Obama, but like others in the room at the time, his disavowal seemed untrue to me and was met with great skepticism by the conservative activists in the room.
It’s likely that Welch will come under fire for this as well as his unclear positions on important policy positions. He does come across as a heck of a nice guy. But more and more conservatives want gritty leaders who will stick to their guns, and they reject endorsements that promote candidates like Welch.
My own wish is that the Republican Party not make any endorsements.
UPDATED: Tea Vs. Establishment Battle comes to Dauphin County
Aside from the epic power struggle over Lebanon County’s Republican Committee, and a smaller but equally strenuous 2010 battle in York County between 912 Patriots and entrenched Republicans, which ended in the summer of 2011 in favor of the Tea Party insurgents, Central Pennsylvania, and Dauphin County specifically, has not seen such a contest.
Until now.
Now, that open competition has fully arrived, and it may become open warfare. Oh sure, there have been some past skirmishes. The first skirmish involved former Dauphin County commissioner Lowman Henry being dumped in 2002 by the party in favor of a candidate the inner circle liked more; that planted a seed of factionalism.
Two years ago those rumblings erupted forcefully during the PA-17th Congressional District Republican Primary race, when traditionalists advocated party endorsements and the outsiders wanted an open primary, in the American spirit of “May the best person win.” That is, may the highest merit be rewarded with the highest accolades and well-earned support. No more skulduggery to edge out unwanted candidates and strong leaders by insiders whose interest is perceived by some to be retaining power and control.
In 2010, the outsiders prevailed in one way, with only one GOP Dauphin County group doing an endorsement (the Susquehanna Township GOP Committee). The other challenge came from a committee member, Alan, who unsuccessfully challenged party chairman John McNally for that chairmanship. Challenges are uncommon, and it was a second seed planted next to the Lowman Henry tree, or maybe it was fruit from that tree.
Soon after in 2010, those outsiders became identified with and then known as “Tea Party” activists. Their view was that they were merely seeking to return America’s conservative movement and Republican party to essential American traditions and principles. The way they were viewed by the established, inner-circle GOPers was with disquiet.
When the open insurrections began, no one thought they were more than disagreements between liberal and conservative Republicans.
Now, an open power struggle has erupted for the heart and soul of the Dauphin County Republican Party.
On the one hand are more conservative Republicans, feeling shunted aside and unappreciated, despite their significant sacrifices and hard work for the party. Some others had declared their interest in or intentions to run for certain seats, only to then find themselves carefully dissected from those seats in the new redistricting. Their own party did that dissecting.
Dauphin County GOP Chairman John McNally has declared his candidacy for the newly created and open state senate seat carved out of retiring senator Jeff Piccola’s district. York County businessman Steve Johnson has indicated his interest in the same senate seat. Johnson ran for lieutenant governor in 2010 among a slate of eight candidates.
UPDATE: Bill Seeds, a long time supervisor of Lower Paxton Township, is declaring his intention to run for the same senate seat, as is the York County Clerk of Courts. Each group is using the tried and useful divide-and-conquer method, as they cultivate new candidates from the opposing candidate’s county.
McNally has temporarily handed his chairmanship to Dauphin County commissioner Jeff Haste, with the expectation that McNally will re-occupy it if he loses to Johnson. However, long-time GOP activist and congressional candidate Toni Gilhooley has stated that she will seek the Dauphin County GOP chairmanship.
State representative Sue Helm is now challenged by a 26-year-old attorney, Jenna Lewis, who is endorsed by the GOP establishment, including much-liked Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico and her own father, Judge Lewis.
Susquehanna Township is a changing political landscape, where Helm, a well-known businesswoman, barely held onto her seat two years ago against Democrat activist Gene Stilp, of The Pink Pig fame.
Conservatives unhappy with Helms’ past performance now find themselves having to choose between Helm or the very young, inexperienced, and untested Lewis. Given that Lewis has the establishment wagons circling around her, the outsiders are quietly rallying to Helm.
What intrigues me is how the Tea Party began in Lebanon and Berks counties, when then-senator Arlen Spector spoke a lot of hogwash to fed-up American Joes. The Tea Party spread to Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Massachussettes, where Republicans swarmed rickety barricades manned by corpulent, unprepared Democrats.
Now what? With the Lebanon County Republican Party firmly in the hands of the pluralistic Tea Party, will Dauphin County go the same way? And if it does, will Perry County and Centre County follow suit?
Centre County is, after all, the home turf of state senator Jake Corman, known to many as the “Silver Spoon Senator” for having casually inherited his father’s former senate seat. Corman voted for the legislative pay raise and remains one of the very few elected officials upon whom rural Pennsylvania taxpayers have not yet sought revenge.
Like Perry County, Centre County is a deeply conservative region ripe for the same frustration and political dynamic that changed Lebanon County and has now landed squarely in Dauphin County.
Corman’s presence could be the spark that lights those other Tea Party fires.
Stay tuned.
Politics As Usual: Loyalty, Disloyalty, Etc.
Politics is the proverbial “sausage making” process, a series of steps that in the aggregate results in something recognizeable and useful, but as individual steps, it looks pretty gross because along the way you get to see what goes into it. It ain’t pretty.
And so it has been for yours truly, lately, one of the political sausage makers. Happy to help, happy to get messy, take risks, make sacrifices, work hard to see some people move up…focused on the outcome. But also expecting help cleaning up after the party.
Nothing bugs me more than disloyalty. Perhaps that expectation is an inverse result of my own fierce loyalty. Even kids know the importance of loyalty, and there’s nothing quite so frustrating as watching someone benefit from your own team spirit, risk taking, sacrifice, and commitment to the success of the group, and then waltz off at the end of the party without helping out.
Call me naive, but I do expect more from the adults who run our government.
Thanks, guys. Guys…?