Republican Chairman’s Race Update: Healy Reconsiders Bid for Third Term.
Republican State Chairman Chris Healy has been making calls to members of the Republican State Central Committee since returning from a national party conclave in Texas. Thursday’s cheerful determination has melted into resignation overnight.
Reached Friday afternoon, Healy sounded like compiling a hard vote count since he started seeking commitments had been hard going. Losing Republican candidates, and there are a lot of those in Connecticut, have formed a critical mass and targeted Healy in the race for party chairman. He prefers to avoid the ugly monthlong fight that could bring a narrow loss or a damaging tight win.
Former Congressman Rob Simmons has been mewling for nearly a year about Healy’s role in his decisive defeat by Linda McMahon in their race for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate. Simmons has continued his bitter chorus to anyone who does or does not want to hear it. Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley, tormented by his wafer-thin loss to Democrat Dannel Malloy, has turned his considerable capacity for wrath on Healy.
Former shoreline legislator William Aniskovich has been working Republican leaders as he emerges from a long political winter. His relationship with Captain Queeg Simmons is said to be cordial. A recent lunch may have included much talk of strawberries.
Aniskovich, who has been on an extended apology and making amends tour, may soon not enjoy Foley’s support, as his horse, campaign manager Justin Clark, looks unlikely to make the race.
Connecticut Republicans are providing a reminder that party organization fights can become more fierce when a party has been relegated to the sidelines in the larger arena of state politics.
9 comments
The Republican Party in Connecticut has very few conservative leaders. Most of the party are antiquated zombies. The fact that they air all their soiled laundry in public is another part of the problem.
Seldom do you hear trash about the Democrats. The media protects the rabid wolves, but exposes the meek and mediocre!
McMahon’s millions did nothing more than create a feeding frenzy at the political trough. She would have done much better spending half what she did, even better if she spent a quarter!
The money quest even further eroded support for the GOP in Connecticut. Perhaps the Constitution Party might attract the principled and highly wary conservative activists in future election cycles. Take a look if you’re disgusted with the status Quo of Connecticut politics!
The discussion of the election of a GOP State Chairman should highlight, if not mention, the fact of just how extremely closed and cloistered the process is.
A review of the GOP State Party Rules states that only the 72 voting members of the State Central Committee are allowed to select the next Chairman.
The voting members of the State Central Committee are comprised of two representatives from each of the 36 State Senate districts who are picked in a convention by delegates selected by local members of the Town Committees whose membership is dictated in practice by a few local insiders in each town.
As you can see, what starts as a closed process resistant to change at the Town Committee level feeds the selection of delegates likely possessing the same aversion to change who then select the members of State Central, which then vote to elect the Party Chair.
The sad reality of the current process is that a candidate who is a well connected insider (i.e. part of the problem) has a huge advantage over a candidate with new ideas and better solutions to the obvious problems we face.
Unfortunately, what the successful candidate for State Chair says to the media and the state’s Republicans in public is not nearly as important to what he/she says in person to at least 37 ultimate insiders on the State Central Committee who are, as the process stands, hardly truly representative of the state’s millions of Republican voters.
Yet another example of why we keep losing.
Why is Rob Simmons still involved? He is a loser who backs losers. He is a pure politician; he has no coherent world view other than that he wants to get elected to some office. The state of this state puts us long since past where the opposition party can be in the thrall of such people. Malloy’s declaration the other day that the state employee unions are “partners” in the state gov’t and his vilification of the governors and legislatures around the country who are facing the unions down show once and for all that Malloy is not going to do anything to solve the state”s problems. How can the elected state gov’t be partners with the unelected people it is supposed to supervise? The notion is absurd, but I guess I should be glad Malloy sees himself as being at least equal to the union bosses. It is critical that a credible political force articulately, credibly and unambiguously state an alternative to the Malloy program. The Republican party ought to be the vehicle for the alternative, but if it continues to be dominated by the country club boys like Malloy and Simmons, it will and should dissolve into total irrelevancy. My experience in local GOP politics confirms what Patrick Jefferson says about the internal control of the CTGOP. I frankly will not put up a sign for or donate a nickel to a republican in Ct until the party rules are changed to make the party open to people who see the seriousness of the situation and are willing to take on the Dems and the union leaders who pull their strings.
Even a casual observer can easily see the Republican base is dissatisfied, disgruntled, dismayed, and disgusted.
It’s no wonder our base is disengaged.
The state party should answer to, and behave like our Town Committees.
Our Town Committees *work*, they win more often than they lose, in fact we control over half the municipal governments in CT right now. (1st Selectman, Mayor, majority on Town Council, etc.)
Obviously the party by-laws need looking at; the office of Chair simply has too much autonomous authority without seeking so much as an “Okay that sounds good” from the committee itself.
In fact we should insist on some changes regardless of who takes the chair, if my supporters succeed, we’ll move quickly to do so, just in case I drop dead or something.
http://authentic-connecticut-republican.blogspot.com/2011/05/help-us-take-connecticut-republican.html
TOM FOLEY IS SCARY.
Kevin, this quote from your Daily Ructions blog says it all:
“Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley, tormented by his wafer-thin loss to Democrat Dannel Malloy, has turned his considerable capacity for wrath on Healy.”
Do you believe there may be deeply rooted character flaws in Tom Foley? I think it is seriously worrisome. “Capacity for considerable wrath” does not sound like level headed statesmanship or rational minded governance. What would he do if he had the full power of the State to use as a hammer for his wrath on opponents?
Is there a combative viciousness underneath those gray pinstripes with Tom Foley?
Maybe the arrests, the divorce, the layoffs, the corporate raider things are all psychological telltales about Tom Foley.
Please comment, maybe even investigate Tom Foley further.
Doug Hageman – I ask you to consider replacing the words “Town Committees” with “grassroots” in your post. All too often the Town Committee is an exclusive club, the rules for which limit the number of members and control the endorsement process to ensure re-election of the favorite few. When local campaigns are successful they reach around and over the Town Committees to the grassroots, to the people without the titles, to the people who do the work. Sure there are a few TC members who do work, but imagine if we could have an organization like the one we put together for elections organized year round. I urge you to consider calling on the TCs to drop the limit on the number of members, lower their dues, and start building a bigger and broader organization designed to win elections.
Patrick Jefferson said:
“I urge you to consider calling on the TCs to drop the limit on the number of members, lower their dues, and start building a bigger and broader organization designed to win elections.”
I agree completely …..but where have you been?
After visiting and speaking to over 40 Town Committees that’s more often than not part of my presentation.
There’s no such thing as a “too big” Republican Town Committee anymore than there’s such a thing as too much pizza or too much cash.
Newer members should be given some assignment promptly as well, seeing as no one seems to volunteer twice we might as well get them busy before they find out that whatever it is might resemble actual work.
Dues by the way (my own TC has them too and I pay them) can not legally be made mandatory (membership is technically an elected position) and should be considered only a `recommended voluntary donation’.
Some committee members can, and are willing to donate generously; others work extremely hard for the party, occasionally a few do both (God Bless `em).
Those that do neither need to be more enthusiastically motivated and “promoted” to chair some subcommittee or event.
Typically it seems that around 20% of any group, fraternal, civic, religious, or political do the majority of the heavy lifting.
Assuming that the 20 percentage is correct, should a task require 10 volunteers it’s going to get tough if the entire group numbers only 40.
The less formal and friendlier Town Committees seem more cohesive and sometimes almost resemble family reunions.
It’s often self-evident that the members know each other pretty well, and enjoy working together.
I doubt it’s a coincidence that those towns more often than not welcome new members, and have Republican led town governments.
A positive, cheerful and friendly chair is all important at both the Town Committee and state party levels.
“Tom Foley’s considerable capacity for wrath.” That is so weird.
Kevin Rennie might have hit it right on the head. Well, so did Jon Lender, he was the first reporter to call Tom Foley out on his perjurious Federal secret clearance form and his undisclosed arrests. Perjury is a felony when it comes to Federal stuff, right?
“Tom Foley is tormented by his wafer thin loss to Malloy.” You can almost picture him walking the dark halls of his Greenwich mansion late at night, screaming “I almost WON!” in a drunken rage, smashing his booze glass against the wall and looking for a dog to kick.
Marlon Brando’s famous line will be the epitaph on Tom Foley’s fizzled political career: “I coulda been a contender.”
Tom Foley should never be the Republican state chairman, and his lap dog Justin shouldn’t either. Rule of thumb: Don’t back a loser, find a new fighter. Tom Foley is a proven loser.
Leave a Comment