The RPI did it, nine members* decided the caucus system is too dangerous

• Former insurgents pulling up the ladder behind themselves

So early word is that the Republican Party of Iowa  (RPI) State Central Committee voted nine to eight, a bare voting majority, to implement without serious input from the grassroots dramatic (pathetic) changes to Iowa’s Republican National Convention (RNC) selection process.

We will update you on the specifics as they become available but if we understand the summary information we received correctly a committee composed of two members from each of Iowa’s four congressional districts will nominate who are to be the delegates to the RNC every four years.

We are not aware at this writing that that committee has any obligation to even approximate proportional representation according to caucus results. That may be impossible, but all the more reason to leave it to the individuals and “camps” directly vying for the positions. Even if there were a first ballot pledge requirement for all nominees, a potentially very weak manipulable feature, what will stop the employment of such a committee’s own biases in the selection as to resiliency after that and all matter of other factors? What is to prevent a set of biases being built into who is put on the committee or who they select?  The grassroots will no doubt be seriously encumbered in order to make changes on the state convention floor.

It would be no comfort to even have the nominating group come two by two out of the district conventions as that limits grassroots involvement as political events transpire and various “preference groups” coalesce or bargain.  This works to have the current power structure determine who will represent the candidate preference groups rather than the candidate groups themselves. This is an effort to limit the grassroots and unbecoming as such.

We have no doubt this is intended to work to homogenize the delegation, build in more likelihood of loyalty “responsiveness” to the current power structure, allow for rewarding donors more easily, and or influence the selection of the “politically correct” according to the nominating committee’s view, regardless of the authentic grassroots view.

Serious conservatives remain insurgents in the Republican Party, even though they are the majority in many or most states. This is a phenomenon that continues as those who run as conservatives “grow in office” and seek to pull up the ladder behind themselves. Some of the people who support this would be nowhere had the then current power structure been possessed of such manipulable rule features.

This willful implementation was done without serious involvement of the grassroots.  Something like this should only be considered methodically after every county Republican organization has been given time to have this on its well announced agenda, and then with time for committees and debate and then issue their recommendations. That it was done with the “authority” of a one-vote margin rather than consensus is all the more egregious.

R Mall

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