Letter to Republican Second District Convention Delegates

nicubunu_RPG_map_symbols_Circus_TentThe following letter was sent to Delegates and Alternates to the 2014  Second Congressional District Republican Convention which takes place this Saturday in Ottumwa, Iowa.  Yours truly is Alternate Delegate # 101 out of 104 alternates.  Alternates are assigned their number and seated in the absence of Delegates sequentially.  We wonder what poor Alternates 102-104 did to offend Chairman Chairwoman Chairperson Chair Davidson.  We had the honor of being last, momentarily at least. All we know is that we want to party with 102, 103 & 104.

To: Second District Delegates and Alternates

Veritaspac.com is a Scott County Iowa based journal of political
opinion focused on helping Republicans keep true to a conservative
agenda.

We are particularly focused at this time with keeping the  District
and State platforms in tune with relevant issues of the day. We
believe the proposed Second District platform to be an excellent
example of meaningful issue identification and a conservative call to
action.

We applaud that it has not fallen pray to obfuscation, weak
platitudes, and avoidance of important issues such as the platform
that came out of Scott County under the influence of Chairperson Judy
Davidson, now seeking election to the State Central Committee.

That the proposed Second District Platform reinforces much of the
current state platform and adds commendable items for referral is to
its credit. It reflects an appropriate understanding that platforms
are statements from the grassroots that speak to politicians and help
to prioritize their efforts.

Regrettably the Scott County Platform was gutted and rewritten,
without notice to grassroots attendees at the precinct caucuses. Had
there been such notice of intent to severely consolidate the platform
into a collection of platitudes, it is undoubtable that that would
have resulted in an organized response, debate, counter proposals,
and delegate selection throughout the many precincts.

The attempt seems to have been to create a collection of a few
categorized generalities in order to obviate any platform discussions
at the precinct and caucus level in the future. The "word" being  ...
don't bother to bring a pointed concern about a local, state, or
federal matter that needs remedying or an action item - the party
platform has everything covered in a few platitudes and generalities
about "beliefs."

The "caucus" becomes the occasion to submit your straw poll vote or
dollar in the buck bag and go home. We are to have confidence that
"leadership" will handle the issue part from there. Of course it
turns the caucuses into little more than a primary. County convention
will be reduced to listening to speeches from politicians, delegates
into props . . . rather than in part to update an agenda for them to
respond to and be held accountable to.

This is being sent to you in part to warn against such attempts to
make platforms irrelevant to the issues of the day -- a collection of
blandishments and pointless generalities. The links provided are to
articles posted on the veritaspac.com website which expose and
criticize the  Scott County manipulations and hopefully put
conservatives on guard regarding such ill-conceived ideas elsewhere
in the state.

Included is a link to a full textual comparison of the previous Scott
County platform and a summary article of some of what was left out or
ridiculously obscured. The avoidance of mention of  key timely issues
we believe you will find astounding.

A defense of meaningful platforms is linked to as well, along with an
array of links to other articles of interest regarding Scott County
Republican Central Committee Politics.

This is the second time that a manipulative approach disregarding the
integrity and traditions of the caucus to convention process has
occurred in Scott County under the leadership of Chairperson
Davidson. No less because of her then allegations about other
factions, other states can point to  Iowa's third largest county of
late and credibly use it as an example of why Iowa should not be
awarded its special "First in the Nation" status.

County Chair Davidson was responsible for an atrocious assault on the
integrity of the presidential selection process which of course does
not end on precinct caucus night. The State Chair of the Romney
campaign was appointed to sit on the Nominating Committee, and no
other candidate organizer, with the purpose to pick delegates for the
remainder of the process.

Appearances were bad enough, but then that committee designed
exclusionary rules resulting in subversion of fair minded unity
building proportionality to the awarding of delegate positions. 
Those positions, are important to the integrity of the fulfillment of
Iowa's presidential caucus to convention process.

Ron Paul supporters were unfairly given less than one half the
delegate positions their caucus night turnout warranted. They still
would have been only 20% of the delegate strength. It was a pathetic
power play. The matter is chronicled in the category Scott County
Republican Matters within veritaspac.com.

Similar tactics were used against conservatives in the eighties and
nineties by the then establishment -- manipulations and exclusionary
tactic to disallow fair representation at various levels.
Conservatives cannot properly endorse perpetrators of such tactics
used against them for positions of higher responsibility now.

Regrettably, some Ron Paul proponents took Chair Davidson's
disunifying / caucus integrity damaging conduct as the prime example
of how party affairs are conducted. Their rally cry could easily have
been "look what they did to us in Scott County," and the evidence
would be undeniable. These are  examples of the abuse of power and
conservatives should not award the prime perpetrators.

In order to grow the Party, as opposed to serving as a functionary
promoting club membership, temporally benefiting from the people
running from the disaster of Obama, Party leadership has to be
fearlessly involved in articulating the differences between the
parties, promoting and defending its policies and seeing to their
implementation.

We see none of that in Scott County. It does not require a
chairperson to be frequently out front,  but on occasion it would
serve to demonstrate substance to personal assertions (which we do
not personally dispute) of being personally "pro-life - traditional
marriage - second amendment - fiscal responsibility" as candidate
Davidson's campaign literature states.

At least one would not expect to see support for the removal of
action items from the platform implementing those views as she did.
Gone is the call for a Human Life Amendment, gone are action items
correcting the denigration of the Second Amendment (indeed it is not
even mentioned), gone is opposition to the retention of the remaining
Varnum decision judges, and absent without justification is support
for a Balanced Budget Amendment.

We often hear of Party leadership in other counties using their
position to responsibly articulate Republican values. We rarely if
ever see it here. If a leader is not going to personally use the
bully pulpit afforded by their position on behalf of Republican
policies, then a prime avenue readily available today would be
effective use of the Web site.

Unfortunately the Scott County Web site has been purposely limited to
being little more than a calendar of events and notice board.  No
provision is made even for helpful links of an education or research
value.  Instead what is present is an   internal Blog page which has
not seen a post in months, a Twitter page link that is not
operational, a Flickr page that had its last post in the fall of 2012
and Facebook postings that are primarily regurgitations of the
calendar. The exceptions being some occasional cheerleading posts.
The News page has gone months without a post, there being just not
much happening in the world of politics.

Some organizational documents have been recently added, (oblivious to
how embarrassing they are) but readily available internal
communication avenues promised last May (mail boxes) have never been
implemented. We have no doubt it is about personal control rather
than facilitating open vibrant party communication while avoiding the
security problems with Facebook.

Veritaspac.com contains much to document leadership problems in Scott
County, which often serves as a microcosm of problems at the state
and national level.  Nevertheless the overwhelming number of posts
imparted to our site are commentaries on topics such as Obamacare,
exposing Media Bias (especially local), Obamanomics, Polling, Energy
& Climate, Electioneering, Party & Candidate Integrity matters and
much more. The posts are often pithy and not for the faint of heart.
It also contains over 180 (and growing) categorized links to other
publications along with other features.

Please consider referring to our Web site to substantiate this
commentary and as a resource useful to Republicans concerned about
keeping the Party true to a conservative agenda.

Roger Mall, Chairman
Veritaspac

DIRECT LINKS TO REFERENCED COMMENTARY:

Links related to platform issues and Scott County

The Silly Scott County Platform

Somebody Tell Scott County Republican Leadership That Bill Clinton Supports Photo Voter ID

More On Scott County Platform — Key Matters Missing or Downplayed –
Pathetic attempts to lure “demographic” unicorns into the tent won’t work . . .  saddle horses could bolt

Republican Candidate Recruitment in Scott County Races Lacking
Democrats  –  two unforced errors –  Republicans five

Legislators Still Trying to Increase Iowa Fuel Taxes
Scott County Republican Party Muted

Nuances Do Not Turn Out The Base
Has David Axelrod been reading Veritas??

The Don’t “Scare,” Don’t Inform, Don’t Challenge, Don’t Focus, Don’t Be Relevent, Don’t Do Anything Platform

Incomprehensible

Platform Rescue Effort

More Questions About the SCRCC Constitution . . .
Giving to Democrats Gore Any Oxen?

Platform Vandalized, Delegates Made Into Props

The Delegate Irrelevancy Platform

Platform (Page)
Side by side comparison of Scott County 2014 platform with 2012/2010

Links related to the 2012 Precinct Caucuses

Raw Deal — Part One

Raw Deal –  Part 2.2

Raw Deal — Part 2.3 Exclusionary Tactics

Scott County Republican Matters
Scroll to March and April of 2012 for much more 2012 Caucus commentary. Peruse for many other articles about Scott County

 

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