I’d heard about this for several weeks now, and it seems to be a bit of a lesson for those in the hard right of the GOP who want to turn out people who have worked to build the party for years.
You can certainly up-end things. But, there’s always a possibility that those that are tossed out might decide that they can go do their own thing. And the new people will have to start from scratch:
According to pre-election disclosures from last October, the county party held $15,530 in net assets, largely earned through small-dollar direct contributions and proceeds from party functions such as the annual Lincoln Day Dinner.
On Dec. 7, Duane “Butch” Becker, the outgoing treasurer, used these assets to write a check for $12,000 to the District 18 Republican Political Action Committee, an organization formed one week earlier by three now-former members of the Yankton County GOP’s executive board: Becker, Vice Chair Roger Meyer and State Committeeman Greg Adamson.
“We’ve had no cooperation. They haven’t given us anything. They are not giving us past minutes, email addresses, the Facebook account. They’re not helping with the transition whatsoever,” Stacey Nickels, the newly elected treasurer, told Forum News Service. “They took our money and ran.”
I notice how the new committee members are howling to the press that “They took our money and ran.” Well, up until the new committee took office, arguably, “they” very possibly had every right as the committee as an organization to do so. For a group that’s coming in, they were very happy to push the existing committee (a.k.a. “they”) out, until they found that the new group possibly didn’t get the benefit of the finds that “they” raised.
That’s the problem. Too much of “us” and “them” going on within the GOP when everyone’s goal should be to build the organization, and not simply be about who is in charge, so they can push the others out of the big tent. We’ve heard it for quite a while from the hard right wing of the party, on how once they’re in charge all the RINO’s and fake Republicans are going by the wayside. And as they’ve taken the leadership in a few County organizations, they’re finding that mmmmmaybe they need some of the skills, knowledge and resources the previous group built along the way.
Such as in Minnehaha County. They’re arguably as hard-right as Republican County organizations come. Last time we had this far right of an organization, it was Lora Hubbel in charge of the group. And they just collapsed in terms of their ability to raise funds and prestige in the community. They claimed that they wanted to work on fundraising in one breath, yet in literally the next the new chair Shawn Tornow is attacking the State GOP Chair for attending to a sick child during a vote.
Maybe they’ll figure it out. Maybe they won’t.
But hopefully they haven’t cost the GOP too many elections in the meantime.
The overton window has shifted.
The present GOP moderates, in my opinion, are hard left by failing to acknowledge election issues, corruption, and not *cough* putting American First where it counts (the treasury).
Yes, we fear that Party organization in some of our most prominent and important counties have fallen under the leadership of rank amateurs with little organizational experience or administrative skill. This trend is destructive of the many advances our proud Party has made over the last generation which has produced margins of victory which stun the rest of the nation. Too bad that solid reputation has to be threatened by people of little accomplishment and less promise. I’d protect the hard earned funds of the county Party organization as well. That is just good stewardship.
The peaceful transfer of power depends on a large pool of candidates with experience.
What causes problems is entrenched leadership that doesn’t realize this and seeks power until the death bed, after which reasonable and effective knowledge transfer is impossible.
Conservatism is good.
But wasn’t the legislature and SD bureaucracy ready to shut us down and force sh0t side effects on all of us?
Maybe we’re in a situation where the easy stuff was handled, but a colossal failure was only averted due to luck, and the failure was seen by everyone.
Working hypothesis:
This idea, I believe, has the mind share, which is why the SD senate just went total fascist and America-last (free speech is absolute and only dangerous to the extent leadership has degraded our discernment through incompetent power-sharing).
John Dale, the peaceful transfer of “power?”
What power?
This is a serious question. What power does a county party exec board have, other than the power to host fundraisers and hope people show up?
Candidates and office holders are under no obligation to attend Lincoln Day Dinners, and if they don’t want to deal with the local county party they can organize their own events.
The new officers who just seized these hills will quickly find out they are sitting on dung heaps. Minnehaha County’s new chairman has already shown he doesn’t know what his new job is.
I predict the SDFRW will become the Go-To organization for candidates who want to set up coffee and conversations, luncheons, dinners, meet and greets and watch parties. Their events will draw the crowds and donors, while the new local parties fade into irrelevance, babbling about how all the wrong candidates are winning primaries and everybody but them is corrupt.
This all could have been avoided if the traditional Republicans would show up rather than going to country club meetings.
That is pretty childish of the outgoing officers. That doesn’t surprise me at all with the current state of the GOP.
the former leaders made personal commitments to donors on behalf of their party offices about how their funds would support party goals. you could argue that moving the donors funds to an affiliated pac that keeps the commitment intact, is morally correct. the donors themselves should be contacted by the new leadership, and agree to have the donations moved back to the county party if that’s what they want. keep the faith.
I agree. The old board seems to forget that many of the donations came from the rank and file in the county, not just the people on the old board. I also hope the old board is taken to court over this. and forced to return the money they put into the newly formed PAC. This reeks of fraud! Many of the new board members are the ones who have pounded the pavement for candidates while the board sat on their rears and recruited democrats to switch parties and run for office against conservative patriots.
yet i suspect the money that moved was moved with foreknowledge and permission of the big donors. $3500 was left behind if you do the math, and would account for a lump sum from small donors not affected.
You’re on to something for sure. I talked to many of the new/younger precinct recruits within PRE. They literally had no idea about the history of the people they went to convention to vote for. Very little knowledge of the platform. But they were keenly aware of who they were supposed to dislike. Negativity alone doesn’t bode well but mixed with lack of knowledge (they don’t know what they don’t know) and integrity will not be met with citizens doling out contributions for sure. Minnehaha is a disaster in the works.
As is typical of we fallible humans, the steering wheel of the bus will only be handed over once it’s in the ditch.
you put it in the ditch to get the steering wheel.
So you’re starting off w $3,530. That’s enough for a good start. Remember that, 4 years ago, Roetman was ousted and the newly elected board learned 5 min after their election that the Minnehaha GOP was thousands of dollars in DEBT!! Everyone who was at the Minnehaha Central Committee that day will never forget it. I bet that board (Swanson, Barranco, Stalzer, Wrightsman, Zacharias) would’ve been THRILLED to have $3,530 in the bank considering they had to claw their way out of bankruptcy!
Btw: they ended up zeroing out the debt and raised an additional $35k. They hosted Lincoln Days and free watch parties, they had booths at the fair, they donated $15k to candidates, and they ended up with $20k by the time Swanson & Barranco went off the board two years ago.
If the new Yankton board is smart and organized, and if the donors like what they’re doing, they can raise more than enough money. I suspect they’re upset because they know they aren’t and they won’t.
I remember those days; I remember getting calls from Swanson, Barranco, Wrightsman and Swanger asking for volunteers for different events.
But I bet if you ask any of them; they will tell you it was a full time job.
A job they asked for and did well at.
So pennington, minnehaha and yankton all voted out the moderates……after state chair elections
As I’ve noted at times, please keep it on topic, and no proxy servers.
I was a donor to the Yankton County Republican Party for the past two years. I am incensed that a new PAC is suddenly stealing those funds to feather their own nest. What arrogance! If they are such wonderful fund raisers, why don’t they raise funds for themselves?
And lets discuss the pettiness of keeping passwords and hiding access to the routine operations of the organization. Looks to me like they are sore losers and putting themselves before the party and the people of Yankton County.
So much for claims of being inclusive in the Republican “big tent”. Looks what happens when they lose an election. They become childish and vindictive. And steal funds.
GOP in disarray.
I, too am outraged by the theft of Yankton County Republican Party funds by a small cabal of former elected Republican Party County officials. The arrogance of this small group of entitled people to think that they were anointed and not appointed !!! I attended the last two Lincoln Day fundraisers with the sole intent of contributing to the Yankton County Republican Party. These outgoing candidates who LOST their elections STOLE from the Party, MISAPPROPRIATED party funds to their own benefit, and DEFRAUDED all the Republican voters in the county. Will someone file charges against this band of thieves? And what about the bragging about the petty tactics of hiding Party materials, withholding them, and refusing to provide passwords to Republican Party information. Who would have expected these former icons of Yankton County Republican Party politics to stoop so low! SHAME!!