Remember the Coalition of Confederates who want to push the Republican Party’s cart down the road of their agenda, and out Republican officeholders, versus electing Republicans to office?
They’re back at it, and this time – through an anonymous e-mail they’ve sent out – they’re demanding that the South Dakota Republican Party hold a summer meeting in the election year… which they’ve never done before, because there’s this thing we all went to called a convention:
From: SD_Coalition_of_Counties <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2024 2:41 PM
To: [email protected]… (and others – pp)
Subject: Rquest to Convene a Special Meeting of the South Dakota Republican Party Central Committee
You don’t often get email from [email protected]. Learn why this is important
[DISCLAIMER: This anonymous email account is being used merely for convenience purposes, as all county chairmen/chairs are equals in this matter, and not all signatories below are members of the “Coalition of Counties” at this time.]
Chairman Wiik and State Executive Board members,
In conjunction with discussion and consensus with several regional directors, we the undersigned county chairpersons/chairperson designees of the twenty-four (24) counties listed below hereby exercise our designated authority under Section I, Paragraph 7-B of the South Dakota Republican Party Bylaws in light of your prior agreement as expressed in your July 28 email response to our request to convene the State Republican Party Bylaw-required Summer Meeting and therefore now initiate the call of a necessary Special Meeting of the State Central Committee on August 24, 2024, in Oacoma, S.D. Based both on our GOP Bylaw requirement for such a meeting and given the pending pivotal issues facing the Party in the upcoming general election, the necessary purpose of this Special Meeting is to deal with pressing general election issues and other related State Central Committee matters.
Accordingly, we are herewith forwarding this call of the pending Special Meeting to Secretary Oakes in order for her to officially distribute/notice-up the same for the State Central Committee by on or before August 6, 2024, to all State Central Committee members in order to formally notify said members sufficiently in advance of such Special Meeting with the following information included in such notice of meeting:
Subject: South Dakota Republican Party State Central Committee Special Meeting;
Date: Saturday, August 24, 2024; Time: 9:30 am to 2:30 pm;
Where: Cedar Shores, Oacoma, S.D.;
Call of Special Meeting Notice: General Election information discussion & campaign strategy coordination and other related State Central Committee matters;Pizza lunch to be provided at the meeting location [committee members to provide their own for beverage(s)].
For any State Central Committee members who may want additional notification of this Special Meeting by USPS mail, if any, please advise the State Republican Party Secretary.
As called by and through the following State Central Committee county delegation members:
Chairman, Aurora County
Chairman, Bennett County
Chairman, Bon Homme County
Vice Chair, Butte County
Chairman, Campbell County
Chairman, Charles Mix County
Chairman, Corson County
Chair, Custer County
Chairman, Davison County
Chair, Deuel County
Chair, Fall River County
Chair, Hand County
Chair, Hanson County
Chair, Harding County
Chairman, Jackson County
Chair, Lincoln County
Chairman, McPherson County
Chairman, Minnehaha County
Chair, Pennington County
Chairman, Todd County
Chairman, Tripp County
Chairman, Turner County
Chairman, Yankton County
Chair, Ziebach County
Well, first off, can they call a meeting based on an anonymous e-mail? If they were “undersigned county chairpersons/chairperson designees,” wouldn’t they normally send their demand in writing? Otherwise, anyone could send an anonymous e-mail and demand a meeting.
Secondly, what do they hope to accomplish? Several in this group have contributed towards the toxicity in the SDGOP which has crippled it’s fundraising ability. Is their goal to try some kind of half-baked takeover?
I’m hearing through the grapevine that the SDGOP chair has already told them that he’s not going to be in attendance. So, if the officers don’t show up, how exactly do they intend to conduct business?
Beyond that, who is going to foot the bill for the meeting? I don’t recall renting the big room at Cedar Shores as being free? (Much less the pizza, understanding that committee members to provide their own for beverage(s)). Not sure anyone on the list can incur bills for the State Republican Party.
But why do they even want a meeting for the sake of a meeting? If their goal is to ultimately stage some half-baked takeover of the party, I look at it a lot when I’m walking my overenthusiastic Corgi. She barks and yanks on the leash whenever a car goes by as I’m walking her.
What does she intend to do if I let the leash go, and she catches the car? What happens if this group manages to take over a party that they’ve already hamstrung at this point?
The County groups certainly haven’t been honoring their quota arrangements with the SDGOP. So it’s not like they’ve been contributing and building a campaign kitty.
Many spend their time attacking or at least strongly chastising the top elected officials, such as Senators Thune and Rounds, Congressman Johnson, and Governor Noem. They’re certainly aren’t going to start sending them big fat checks. They can and will finance their own campaign operations.
The party has obligations and monthly expenses. What happens when the cash dries up? Which member of the rebel faction is going to step up and sign their name to a note like Craig Lawrence did way back when he was chair. He personally guaranteed that the SDGOP would have cash to operate until they could build things back up, which he did through the support of elected leaders. What about paying the up-front for big events? Dan Lederman fronted in the neighborhood of $60k on his credit cards for the benefit of the SDGOP during the last Sioux Falls Victory party. Who is going to do that?
If there’s some sort of half-baked coup, I’m sure everyone will move them to paying up front. And that’s money that’s not easy to come by, especially now when no one wants to donate to the SDGOP. Imagine it after that group takes over?
It’s all great and well to want to be in charge of the Republican Party. Except you have to be in charge. I’m sure Chairman Wiik would agree – It’s not winning the golden cup, it’s being the person who has the hot potato.
But, by all means, people who want to be in charge, call a meeting. And have fun with that.
an election year is not the time to spend money on anything other than the party election campaigns
These counties might not be going about it the right way but why is it OK for Wiik to do nothing?
Crazy stuff…absolute insanity from the Party fringe…no wonder donations to the GOP are slim, indeed. A total waste of time, money and political energy.
Insaner and insaner, indeed. Sure makes Mr. Oakes and the Libertarians look well oiled.
They have already chased most donors away from contributing to the state party and they will not come back. If a party doesn’t have money to influence races it really doesn’t have much influence at all. So these chairs can all get together and complain- but they are leading an army that can no longer afford gas or ammo.
A fools quest.
Raise your hand if you miss Dan Lederman! Dan was a leader and would not have the party in this situation.
I expect to see some leadership from the governor soon on this issue. Daugaard led the effort to kill it in 2016. Her brand of republicanism is strongest in a closed primary.
Dan couldn’t control those yahoos at the state convention in ’22
That was when they REALLY became troublesome.
Leadership from the gov? She sent Randy Frederick. That’s leadership mf’r.
Pat, if you are going to report information such as this please include the entire context. The original email requesting a date for the summer meeting explicitly defines the reasons for calling the meeting.
“1. To discuss, determine and coordinate an integrated strategy and position of the Republican Party on the various ballot propositions that will be debated and voted on in the upcoming general election;
2. To discuss, determine and coordinate any additional strategy(s) with the Party as related to the pending PUC-race and any necessary county-by-county assistance in the upcoming general election;
3. To retrain/train state central committee members on the use of Campaign Sidekick for critical and trustworthy Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) efforts in the fast-approaching months of Sept.-Oct.-Nov.”
The time for training, campaign strategy, prioritizing candidate campaigns, and organizing GOTV was at the last SDGOP State Central Committee meeting in Pierre, but it was hijacked by you and the people that are now demanding another meeting. Instead of doing the work at the spring meeting, we had to sit through 5 hours of your complaining over the agenda, bylaws and resolutions. Sorry, I am busy August 24th- you can meet with your merry band of idiots but it won’t have the rest of the state central committee there.
I do not recall that the Convention was hijacked this year, as happened a few times of late, and yes the spring meeting was one of those times. We passed Resolutions at the Convention – where are they in final form? I’m a county chair and I never got them in my email. They are not on the webpage. Where is direction on the SDGOP stance on ballot measures coming up? Do we have a plan in place to win, get out the vote, etc.? Not that’s been put out to the group. I am not signing on to this to undermine anyone, but I think some uniform direction from SDGOP would be nice. Perhaps we can share ideas about what works in our areas and go from there. I can bring my own lunch.
The SD GOP is under attack with H.
Wiik response is to do nothing.
Amber, I can report anything I would care to. Such as how only 3 Republican County Organizations in all of South Dakota – Custer, Meade & Clay – have paid their county quota. Maybe you can answer how much Hand County has sent in to support the Party being able to operate?
So, when you’re demanding the GOP spend money they don’t have for a meeting that could be handled in an e-mail, and wanting to know what they’re doing for “any necessary county-by-county assistance in the upcoming general election,” I think you can answer your own question without a meeting. They are doing what the counties have helped them to do.
All of the things done in years’ past, such as slate mailings that go to high likelihood Republican voters all cost money. 1 statewide mailing is going to be in the neighborhood of $30,000 – $50,000, with 85-90% of that being postage (addressing, printing, etc. are in addition to that). How much has Hand county helped to raise for a project like that?
That might answer a lot of questions that may be out there.
You need to understand that 90% of GOP voters see the group you are a part of a crazy and are destroying the Republican Party. I live in one of the most conservative counties in SD, our county is one on the letter above, and outside of our county committee, republicans here are sick and tired of the continuous nonsense coming from out county committee. Please, please stop.
The party is run by those who show up. There were about 190 delegates at the June Convention on Thursday and Friday. The rules, platform and resolutions reflect the thoughts and opinions of these 190 delegates. There were over 400 delegates voting on Saturday for our Electors, National Committee Man/Woman and PUC candidate. We need all the delegates to show up on Thursday and Friday if you want the state party to represent the mainstream views of rank and file Republicans on the platform and resolutions.
Unfortunately, I have to give a bit of credit to the extremists here. They have led a grass roots movement to take over the GOP by firstly infiltrating and taking over the County GOPs. This has been quite successful and sadly predictable. This is the outcome of apathy. Apathy by good men and women who didn’t want to continue fighting the fight, or allowed themselves to be bullied by these lunatics, and eventually gave up.
The party is fractured and is becoming ineffective and disillusioning its members and voters. This group revels in the chaos created by their righteous indignation and see themselves as revolutionaries (i’ve actually heard members of one of the County GOPs on this list call for open and armed revolution.) They are tearing down our institutions for their own vision of political utopia without any understanding of the consequences. Without strong and firm leadership from the top to quell this revolt, it will continue until there is nothing left of reason, intelligent debate or thoughtful discourse.
The direction the party is headed is dark to say the least. County GOPs have created their own agenda, often in direct conflict with the State platform. They refused to host townhalls or candidate forums, so that they could get their like-minded zealots elected. They have spent money inappropriately and blatantly lied about it (see a previous dakota war college post regarding Butte County GOP spending money to promote an event to get petition signatures for the referral of SB201). They want to have a meeting to discuss these things now, because previously they’ve been too busy slyly promoting (succesfully in many cases) the least intelligent, untested, beligerant, unqualifed legislative minds that were ever printed on a ballot. Again, here I would point to Butte County. County Party Chair running for commission, vice-chair’s husband running for representative and not one party sponsored event in the county for question and discussion for the candidates. Then they aligned themselves with the other extremists in the district and ran in lock-step with the Freedom Caucas talking points. Shameful to say the least, but that is what we are faced with.
You described my former party unit perfectly and who has taken over. It’s like a dumbing down contest. Very similar to K. Hoffman and Dylan Jordan talking about how unconstitutional airport screening is for passengers and that passengers should be able to carry whatever guns they choose on the plane. Also the right to privacy another violation. Seatbelt laws should be revisited. What next? Stop signs? Speed limits? Traffic laws? They covered all kinds of subject with plans during the 2025 session. Living in a society? What is that? Greater good? Concepts not known.
This group will do for the Democrats what they could not do for themselves–make them viable again>
When they realize the party needs to come together to fight ballot measures,( instead of fighting internally), I might attend. As part of the central committee, it has been known we don’t have meetings during this time in an election year. I will NOT be attending any meetings that have not been slated by the chairman of this party. That is all!
Holy crap, this reads like a person with schizophrenia wrote it. You ok? Because you seem not ok.
The Crying Coalition is throwing another fit. Whaaa, we want to be in charge, whaaaaa whaaaa. Someone needs to tell these crybabies to grow up and help elect Republicans or switch parties.
So thinking about this, I suspect the hysterical opponents of SB 201 want to fight it with SDGOP money. Not their own. They want to use Other People’s Money
They know the remaining sane central committee members are so sick of them, they won’t show up, so the ones who do show up will have the votes they need to clean out the bank account.