A political party is not primarily an adjunct to candidates, candidates are adjuncts to a political party’s purposes.
State Central Committee and National Delegate candidate Judy Davidson is primarily a non-issues candidate (she basically says so)
Personal beliefs notwithstanding, it is as if issues are generally above her responsibility or “pay grade.”
We are hoping for candidates more dedicated and capable of defending a conservative Republican agenda.
Twofer candidate for State Central Committee and National Delegate (and rumored to be pursuing the National Committeewoman spot) Scott County Chairperson Judy Davidson has circulated to delegates and alternates self-promotional materials in pursuit of the district authorized offices. Nothing in her material or in her past performance gives us any confidence she has changed to be anything more than an enabler of the status quo that has miserably failed at or broken promise after solemn promise made as regards stopping various aspects of the Obamanation. The Republican Party has been weak and vacillating in the face of budget disasters, pork spending, and has funded execrable policies with little or no fight. It won’t get better with the same sort of enabling functionaries still in charge.
A political party’s platform represents its collective purposes, but a party remains largely fallow, a tool of insincere or irresolute seekers of legislative office unless its purposes are specific enough to be relevant to issues of the day and its organization calls its candidates to those tasks. Ms Davidson in our observation has been part of the effort to gut platforms into meaningless collections of platitudes. We hope to see people elected who have not been part of the problem and have championed issues more seriously than the superficiality of what they merely say they are for.
Consider local Chairperson Davidson’s introduction of herself to delegates and alternates:
My motivation is simple; putting a Republican into the White House, electing Republicans in every level and corner of this state and maintaining our First in the Nation status. I will not use this position to advance any individual agenda or issue. My political passion is to work for YOU, the members of the Second District, our candidates and the over 1 million Republicans in the great state of Iowa. (snip)
In November of 2014, I made the proposal to members of the State Central Committee that we remain neutral during the caucus process. This historic proposal was passed unanimously and showed that we would be fair and welcoming to ALL candidates as they visit Iowa. I also voted to encourage Governor Branstad, the Republican caucuses in the Iowa House and Senate to remove all state and state controlled funding from Planned Parenthood using all methods at their disposal.
At the National Convention, I will serve in a fair and just manner. I will respect the process and the wishes of the voters. I will be transparent and will represent Iowa with honor and dignity.
We want candidates for party leadership who are dedicated to defending and implementing a conservative platform and not merely being in service to candidates and office holders regardless of their indifference or even subterfuge toward the purposes of the party. Such office holders and office seekers won’t change unless the party leadership “motivates” them to. That is not part of Ms Davidson’s primary motivation as revealed in her letter.
Ms Davidson says she won’t push an “individual agenda or issue.” But typically, if any matter is to be pushed it is one at a time. So we are not sure what she meant especially in light of her gratuitous mention of being one of the many on the State Central Committee calling on Governor Branstad and the Republican legislative caucus to defund Planned Parenthood. While we would have to see the letter to be sure we doubt it was more than a perfunctory role.
Real devotion to issues would include “incentivizing” the Republican legislative caucus and pushing public opinion on issues addressed in the platform. Leadership would include calling the Republican caucus and the governor to task when they do not try or go against Republican principles. Accordingly, was there a resolution complimenting the House caucus for its attention to restraining the state budget this session and specifically calling the Governor to task for proposing one that was larger than the Democrat senate proposed?
Ms Davidson has been incredibly deficient as a spokesman for the party in advocating its principles in public venues available to her in the county. Compared to her counterpart in Rock Island county she has chosen to be almost a non-entity. Even the Web site presence is little more than a notice board with no persuasive or educational value. It is a largely wasted resource.
Calls for superficial neutrality as regards candidates by Ms Davidson are less than convincing to us given our observation of her performance as county chairman in 2012 and the nomination of delegates to the district and state conventions. The nomination committee and the “process” she was part of was stilted, not transparent nor did it include any official representative of the various candidates. Not only was there no attempt at proportionality and fairness in delegate nominations, the Ron Paul people (we supported rival candidate Santorum) were outrageously minimized as to what should have been their proportion of delegates.
Ms Davidson’s performance was described in these pages throughout the 2012 process. We argue that her contemptuous approach toward fair treatment of Ron Paul organizers helped create the State Central Committee imbroglio at the time and the regrettable approaches by Ron Paul supporters at the national convention that year. All Ron Paul people wanted in Scott County was proportionality and Ms Davidson helped deny them that fairness. Turnabout as fair play “served” to justify a take no prisoners approach by them when they could.
As far as we can tell the structure of the nominating process in Scott County was no less subject to manipulation this year for lack of official identified representatives of the various presidential candidates. Even a nod to appearances would call for each camp to have a designee sit on the nominating committee with the task to supply names generated by the campaigns of active and interested delegate candidates in proportion to their candidates’ performance at the caucuses.
Suspicion arises from looking at the first 25 alternate delegates from Scott County where there appears a distinct dearth of known Cruz supporters. We simply do not believe the nominated process used and endorsed by Ms Davidson produces confidence or likely fairness or transparency. The information about her daughter’s official complaint about the Trump campaign does not encourage an anticipation of objectivity.
We presume Second District delegates have less controversial alternatives for both positions.
R Mall
