Bearing Drift has the first salvo of the robocalls against Bob McDonnell in an effort to “Save Jeff”:
A strong majority of delegates like you voted for a new chairman in 2008. You signed up, turned out, and rejected the false choices offered by the elite establishment.
Now the elites, led by first vice-chairman Mike Thomas, instigated by Bob McDonnell, want to undo the decision of grassroots Republicans.
They plan to use little-known rules in the Party Plan to decapitate party chairman Jeff Frederick.
The elites hate the results of the 2008 convention. This angry band wants to control party fundraising and structure.
They fight against truly pro-life, pro-gun, low-tax candidates.
Theirs is a party taking orders from tax-raising, anti-gun, pro-abortion officeholders in Richmond.
Call Mike Thomas, tell him to knock it off. You know what he’s doing. Call him at (000) 000-0000. That’s (000) 000-0000.
Tell Thomas the grassroots decide who the chairman is. Not clever rule manipulating elites.
Authorized by Grassroots Republicans.
I’m sure this will be treated as the effort of an overzealous group of supporters, but you don’t spend that kind of money on a statewide robocall without someone close to Frederick knowing about it.
Thoughts?
UPDATE: The Washington Post has this article up today. Ouch.
I am annoyed. This needs to go away. He needs to step down – regardless of who is right and wrong – we need to focus on winning elections – and no one is doing that right now….
Agree. This moron is ensuring his removal will cause maximum damage to the GOP. Look at his first emails when he discovered what was coming down.
If he’s fired in April the party had better be ready for him to run again in May at the convention. He’ll do his best to screw McDonnell, Bolling and anybody else he can in the process, too. He is beyond a poison pill.
He is insane.
It appears the calls came from CCAdvertising / Joseph Gabriel’s group. They did a lot of work for Frederick in the past and J-Fred made him a delegate to the RNC in exchange. They have much invested with J-Fred staying chairman.
Nice. So much for changing the way RPV did business as Frederick promised. Not using cronies as vendors for phones and mail or your own companies for websites were what was pledged to convention goers.
Way to be an utter hypocrite, Jeff.
I and another party have been asked to meet with an RPV member about Bob McDonnell and his cooperation with Tim Kaine relating to the non-attorney employee issue at the Division of Child Support Enforcement. McDonnell’s a loser…he and the Repubs who preceded him at the A.G.’s Office clearly just failed to exercise their oversight of that agency as Virginia law required…because of them, there are probably 1,000,000 unenforceable child support orders currently throughout Virginia…nevermind the TENS OF THOUSANDS ILLEGALLY JAILED PURSUANT TO THOSE ORDERS.
That’s a blog post, Dave. I’d be curious to read it.
Hey Shaun;
I know you have never been a big Fredrick guy, and you were a Hager fan, so I understand your natural tendency to be on this like duck on a junebug!
But I think you know me well enough to know that I know what I am talking about, and I just wanted to extend a head’s up to you to avoid being too terribly dogmatic about any facts here, most of which are not even in the public yet, nor does the existence of allegations serve as proof of the veracity thereof.
The facts will show soon enough, that not only did Jeff not”Declare War on McDonnell”, but that the opposite is actually true, and with that declaration, by association war was declared against the 75% of delegates who supported Frederick.
I believe that a careful examination of one’s logic will eventually lead most free thinkers to conclude that McDonnell is responsible for the tearing apart of the Republican Party just when he needs it most.
Further, that by their own logic from last year as they declared,”we cannot change horses in midstream”, that their assertions now are in direct opposition to last year’s convenient position.
Moreover, the allegations against Jeff were hatched under the cover of relative darkness, as the operation always is, and SCC members were lied to when threatened with legal action by the leadership of the coup if they were to talk about the situation.
I have sought the advice of legal counsel who assure me that there is no possible way Members could be subject to legal actions under the circumstances.
The only reason for such coercion is the fear of the light being shined upon the dirty play by those who cooked up the unsubstantiated allegations, and to prevent a situation where they could be forced to show proof thereof.
These Daly-like tactics were never intended to be known by the grassroots of the party;
Rather Frederick was supposed to just curl up, go away and die at the order of the Supreme Commander Comrade McDonnell.
He did not wither, and now, as they cannot prove false allegations, they have had to march out the consequent barrage of elected officials, who I promise you never wanted a piece of this political poison, to give them some much needed credibility.
As was the case with the coup against McSweeney in the 90′s so, I suspect, will this assault on all who supported Frederick in unprecedented numbers be shown to be exactly that when all the truth is finally brought to the light.
You know I love you, man, but I think you might want to step back and punt the ball and wait for the next possession for your own credibility’s sake.
Thanks for all you are doing for conservatism in the blogosphere, and for all the help you have been to me as I have gotten involved as well!!
I’m keeping an open mind, to be sure. Obviously, there is little to nothing I disagree with Jeff on principle — but the FEC document sure doesn’t look good.
Keep hammering in the blogosphere!
Nice that even a wingnut worshipper of Jeff like Tim Boyer can’t spell his last name.
But then neither can the chairman.
This kind of reaction, right or wrong on the robocaller’s part, is the exact reason why McDonnell and Bolling should not have gotten involved in this. Should Mr. McDonnell be focusing on his race and actual democrat opponents rather than causing a rift within the party?
These are not smart moves on the part of our candidates.
Edit above: “Shouldn’t Mr. McDonnell….”
It absolutely is a smart move by McDonnell and Bolling. And Wolf. And Cantor. And Forbes. And Goodlatte. And Wittman. And so on and so on.
Frederick is a disaster and an embarrassment. He brings guilt and shame through simple association. He is a lead weight around the neck of any elected republican in this state who is not raising money and providing national level embarrassments on a regular basis. They absolutely have to make this move to ensure their own political fortunes. Frederick needs to be exposed for what he is – a charlatan conservative only out for himself.
You may be right LI. But hasn’t Frederick said he would run for the seat again if he was ousted? All I see is a party fight coming that McDonnell already tried avoiding once by cutting a deal with Bolling.
I just want our focus to be on the Democrats. The real enemies of the party.
That would be great, A.G.
Unfortunately we have a corrupt chairman who has to go.
The State Central Committe is doing its job trying to expunge a destructive force from the party.
Everyone will see how concerned he is with beating Democrats once he’s ousted and then decides to divide the convention and claw back whatever title and position he can keep his hands on.
I tell you, my comparison of Frederick to Napoleon is looking more and more like a home run. Except, of course, Frederick has no real accomplishments to speak of and certainly no military experience, even though he tried to claim so at one time.
OUCH.
Jack,
I don’t disagree with you, but you unfortunately missed my point. I don’t really have a horse in this whole to oust or not to oust situation. Though looking at it from that perspective is showing that this IS going to cause problems for McDonnell. The person I was referencing as focusing on the democrats was Bob McDonnell, not so much Jeff Frederick.
My initial comments were directed at these robocalls being made against McDonnell. There are a few results I see coming from all of this: 1. Frederick is outed, the “undefined party elite” are happy, and Frederick’s NOVA constituency refuses to help this election cycle. 2 Frederick is not ousted, the “undefined party elite” are mad, and Frederick and his supporters refuse to help this cycle. 3. Frederick is ousted, declares to run again at the convention, makes the convention more contentious than it already is (Sorry Ken Cuccinelli, you probably lost Frederick’s block with your joining in), and the party remains at odds for another cycle.
What would be my desire for this election cycle is a win for the Republicans in Virginia. This demands the full attention of all of our candidates. If the State Central Committee wants to remove Frederick, fine. But why do candidates like Bob McDonnell feel the need to join in? Don’t they have much more important things to focus on right now?
Ashton is on the money.
I would add this. The fact is, State Central Committee (not to mention names, but some initials like Tucker Watkins, Jim Rich and Mike Wade for example) went after Jeff first. The entire establishment spoke up for Hager last year, and reminiscent of Florida 2000, can’t admit that they lost. Once McDonnell, et.al. decided to pile on, the old rule that the aggressor sets the rules kicks in.
The grassroots represented by the 70% of US who voted for Jeff last year was expected to take this lying down. And here’s where Ashton’s so dead on. The politicians though it made sense to start a civil war just in time for their own convention. That AIN’T Jeff’s doing. Saying Jeff declared war is kinda like saying we declared war on Japan in 1941. Technically we did, but look who shot first…
I got one of those robocalls myself and thought it was fairly unremarkable. I’m not at all convinced that Jeff has anything to do with the calls, but perhaps someone SHOULD represent the 70% of us who voted for him last year. For those who think it’s a good idea to start throwing out unsubstantiated or half-substantiated charges with near-criminal overtones, PLEASE don’t start crying now when someone responds with a fairly standard response in politics, which primarily, from the text of these calls, involves questions of public record and political motivation, not personal smears.
And one more thing:PLEASE let’s stop calling State Central the party’s “grassroots.” That’s like calling Obama’s Cabinet “grassroots Democrats.” SCC has, for virtually all of my 17 years in the party, been pretty much the most liberal Republican subgroup in Virginia, mostly composed of party hacks whose heroes are the likes of John Warner. Liberal, and hopelessly elite and insulated from a grassroots that fails to understand how many of our elected leaders have been sabotaged by SCC.
The “grassroots” are the folks at last year’s convention, and 70% of them (I mean, of Us), voted for Jeff. Nobody’s asked us how we feel. Personally, if they can prove illegal conduct, accountability is needed. If, as usual, this is sour grapes over the rejection, in open convention, of the elites by the grassroots, Go, Jeff, go!
As usual, Rick says it far better than I can, and I notice no one is capable of proving him wrong……