The fallout from Scott County Republican Chairwoman Judy Davidson’s failure to insure at least appearances of evenhanded treatment of presidential preference camps, especially Ron Paul supporters, leading up to and after the convention was entirely avoidable. Had there been obviously unbiased treatment afforded everyone, that fair treatment would have only enhanced Chairwoman Davidson’s position as Chair and allowed the Scott County Convention to run smoother, ending with a universal feeling of fair play, even in the give and take of arguable matters, and served to protect the integrity of the caucuses and Iowa’s first in the nation status.
Different people and the same people got different stories at different times from Chairman Davidson as to whether there were enough people interested in being delegates from Scott County precincts to fill the authorized compliment of 123 delegates to district and state Republican conventions. Chairman Davidson told the Quad-City Times (QCT) “Everybody who expressed an interest is on that list ” Yet the Scott County Republican (SCR) blog site indicates there were more people interested than there were slots available. The later statement, would reflect an unusual course of events in Scott County Republican history. Of course if one keeps calling and calling the right people, going beyond already established interest, in desperation to achieve a desired short-changing of a candidate preference group, a similar result could be achieved in any given caucus year.
Chairman Davidson’s statement was challenged during and after the county convention and to the QCT. No correction to the QCT was issued by Chairman Davidson and the SCR blog post does not comport to that timely statement to the press. The SCR blog version also conflates delegates and alternates. Too many Ron Paul supporters have stated that they desired to be delegates or alternates, submitted notification at the caucuses or later and were never called, or the SCR nomination committee never deigned to include them. Too many not to raise legitimate concerns about the degree of fairness employed. If the Chairwoman’s interest was unity, Ron Paul supporters should have received two or three times as many recommended delegates as they received from her nominating committee.
Ron Paul supporters can be expected to see the conflation as a dodge to avoid responsibility to be fair in the apportionment of delegates, the key component of the delegation. As stated in Raw Deal Part 2.2, no experienced political organizer with an eye toward the national convention, and worth their salt, would settle for alternates instead of delegates, when egregiously shortchanged in delegates. But of course even in combination Ron Paul supporters were still shorted as compared to their caucus showing and elected caucus and county convention delegate strength.
The potential damage perpetrated to the integrity and confidence necessary to sustain Iowa’s first in the nation caucus status, inadvertent or otherwise, by the Chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, and his honorable resignation to make amends and insure faith in the process, was well known before the delegate nomination committee appointed by Scott County Chairwoman Judy Davidson began its work. Accordingly a keen sense of responsibility to the caucus system and fairness to presidential preference camps should have been the order of the days and weeks that followed. It does not appear to be that that was the case. Instead the Chairwoman embarked on or allowed what appears to be an effort to insure that delegates who go to district and state are more likely to favor her or those whose political ambitions she favors the most. In either case it can be argued that she has appeared to build support for her purposes based on exclusionary tactics rather than leadership and arguing issues.
Elementary Fairness at the Caucuses Not Followed for County Convention
The first exclusionary tactic or leadership shortcoming because of appearances, is keenly evident in the composition of the district and state nominating committee under the control of Chairwoman Davidson. While being a matter of pulling teeth to even get a timely list of the people on the committee it is evident that the committee has no identifiable Ron Paul supporters. Now most mere precinct caucus chairs knew enough about appearances and fairness to make sure that each presidential camp had representatives to assist in the collection and in the counting of preference votes during the caucus straw poll. However Scott County Chairwoman Judy Davidson felt she had no such compunction even as a matter of appearances when she knew Ron Paul supporters were on edge. Rather than invite them and other preference camps to participate in the nomination process, she excluded them.
Interestingly, by all indications after all actual precinct results were in, a fair distribution of delegate strength to the district and state conventions based on presidential preferences would still overwhelmingly reflect presidential preferences other than Ron Paul, two to one at a minimum, and with some likelihood that the Ron Paul delegate strength would wain with his political fortunes, or move to other preferences as the caucus and primary season progressed. That is the nature of people and the process. But was settling for the appearance of fairness and the overall integrity of the process enough for Chairman Davidson and her supporters?
The specter has been raised that the genesis of Chairman Davidson’s tactics also appear to be personally politically self serving . . . not just anti-Ron Paul delegates. Rumors exist that Chairman Davidson is intent on making a run to be Republican National Committeewoman or for other Republican Party office at the upcoming district and state conventions. Loyal delegates in abundance from one’s populous home county are necessary in the preparation and successful fulfillment of such a run. And so is some travel. Chairwoman Davidson has traveled to at least one down-district county central committee meeting with John Ortega, district member of the State Central Committee, for a friendly appearance.
Although candidate preferences might be used to predict more or less who might be inclined to support such a venture, this is not to suggest that elements of the group selected by the nominating committee were apprised of any such aspirations by Chairman Davidson, perish the thought. However it might be surmised, based on closeness to her, that individuals from the nominating committee might have such knowledge . . . or perhaps just relied on their own unbecoming indifference . . . or perhaps animosity toward Ron Paul supporters.
Imposing Subjective Criteria
The appearance of an exclusion process at least as regards Ron Paul supporters is not limited to the composition of the nominating committee as compiled by Chairwoman Davidson, (exclusive of Ron Paul representation). The criteria that we are told that the committee used, only revealed the day of the county convention, if any of it has any validity, which I doubt in the circumstances, would only be valid within a process that was focused on selecting from within identified presidential preference camps, toward picking individuals from that preference pool, not to limit a camps share, which is how the criteria appear to have been used. Below is the first written statement regarding the criteria available to Scott County Republicans, and posted only after the county convention.
Guidelines Used to Determine District/State Delegates
Please see the guidelines below used by the nominating committee for district and state convention delegates. These guidelines were stated at the county convention. The nominating committee had almost 300 people express interest for the 246 open slots. The critera below was used since the committee actually had more people interested than slots available.
Those county convention delegates who expressed interest in attending
Those who have given of their time and talent to strengthen and build the
party and help elect Republicans for the 2010 election and previous volunteer service
Those who have served on the 2010-2012 Central Committee
Those who had served in a caucus leadership position for the 2012 caucuses
Party leadership
Current and previous elected officials
Loyal Republican activists
County Convention delegates
Those who expressed interest at their caucuses
Presidential campaigns
Lincoln Club members
Elements of the criteria, for the most part inappropriate and a redundant mishmash inconsistently applied, should only be used by the nominating committee to identify other delegates after all fair quotas for each camp are fulfilled and then first applied to remaining individuals elected at the precinct caucuses, and then perhaps go on to fill the authorized delegate strength if preference camps cannot fill a fair allotment. The criteria invented by the committee sets no limitation to any factor. For example they get to decide on quotas for personages they want to include “off the books” not those provided by the rubes in the caucus electoral process.
It should be emphasized that the criterion were never promulgated at the precinct caucuses, and never promulgated to any preference camp between January 3rd and the day of the county convention and delegate vote. No underdog preference camp should be expected not to cry foul in the case of such apparent manipulation. The committee provided no mechanism for members of preference camps to even know why they were being excluded or to rebut any contentions used against them, knowledge the committee could in no way hold omnipotently.
Given the results, the secrecy, the inconsistency, why wouldn’t Ron Paul supporters suspect the “criteria” were contrived more as a CYA statement, to provide for their wholesale exclusion and on conditions impossible to thoroughly or even handily evaluate? Strangely (actually not so strange) no hierarchy is actually specified in the criteria. If the first item is intended as such, arguably the most compelling item in a presidential year, apart from the redundancies and vagaries elsewhere, then a full proportional compliment of Ron Paul supporters could have been easily provided for.
The criteria are unfair as regards notice as well. If delegate and alternate status is a benefit, or enhanced possibility of such status is a benefit, or if these criteria are to be used for exclusionary purposes then that needs to be set forth by resolution of the Central Committee or part of the bylaws, not an unelected nominating committee unbeknown to and unrepresentative of presidential preference camps, implemented without concurrence from the Central Committee.
The “guidelines” should be available to and made part of the official deliberations of caucus and county convention electoral activity. Instead the nominating committee has set itself up as prosecutor and judge for people who didn’t even know the time date and place of the trial. They are substituting their judgement for that of the nearly 6000 Republican caucus attendees who said in effect: “this and that person should go on, and in some cases perhaps, not that one or that one.” All this contrivance apparently to avoid giving one preference camp a fair quota.
The inclusion of membership in the Scott County Republican Lincoln Club, a special donor ranking of the organization, as even one criterion for being a delegate, is tawdry to say the least. One wonders if too much of Illinois’ political waters have lapped up on Scott County’s shores. One wonders if it is legal, but that might be a fine point the campaign law expert on the committee already checked. But the inappropriateness is obvious when one considers the image it presents to blue collar working Republicans. Get a clue people.
Forthrightness and a Stacked Deck
There is the appearance of other exclusionary tactics by the Chairwoman. Exclusion of information regarding the nominating committee’s presidential preferences. That is very relevant because presidential preference is relevant to the process leading up to the national convention, and the nominating committee and its functions are part of that. Whatever former era of good feeling existed in past cycles, the Chairwoman knew that Ron Paul people were intensely interested in the process, they wanted and had a right to be treated fairly and she had an obligation to all Iowa Republicans to avoid the appearance of bias and protect the image of the caucuses and our first in the nation status.
The nominal official nominating committee consisted of Carol Earnhardt, Judy Davidson, Dee James, Brian Kennedy, Carol Crain and Jane Murphy. Four of them are current members of the Executive Committee, so much for encouraging widespread involvement and sharing tasks. I refer here to the nominal committee because former SCR Chairwoman Kay Wagner also made calls. Others may have been involved but for some reason that possibility was never emphasized.
Members Crain, Davidson, Murphy and Wagner I believe were Romney supporters by the caucuses in 2008, and I would guess member Earnhardt. I believe member Earnhardt was a McCotter supporter in 2012 up until he dropped out and she presumably would have landed somewhere. As previously pointed out in these pages member Kennedy is a maxed out contributor to the Romney campaign and lists himself as an adviser in some capacity, past or present. Member James’ previous or current preference I am unaware of.
It does not matter to this thesis in that no known person to the Ron Paul camp was involved, but it is additionally shocking as a matter of appearances for a high intensity nomination battle. Several of the nominating committee members may well have supported someone other than Romney in 2012, but the point is there should be no secrets if appearances and confidence is to be maintained. If they are honestly neutral and did not vote in the caucuses then one wonders if that was the criterion for their service, and if so then why was maxed out Romney contributor Brian Kennedy included? Chairman Davidson was out of the country for the caucuses, a fact she seemed to have taken pains to avoid mentioning at any convocation, so she cannot be accused of voting for any candidate on January 3rd.
However in supervising and serving with her appointed committee, one can wonder if Chairwoman Davidson was aware that official or unofficial member Wagner is reported to have inquired into a prospective delegate’s inclination toward Ron Paul with another party prior to making that particular call? One doubts that such inquiry was part of an effort to get enough Ron Paul delegates. One suspects that others on the team may have had similar musings.
We are talking about a duty to protect the integrity of the Iowa Caucuses and our first in the nation status AND a process that leads to the nomination of the President of the United States. Obligations in fact and appearance ensue. We are also talking about Republican Party cohesion looking forward to a crucial and intense battle where servants hearts are needed across the battlefield. Exclusionary tactics have no place.
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