The one that caught my eye was Tom Morrissey's introduction speech, where he again mentioned that he wanted "the blogs" to stop being so mean. That section starts at around the 2:50 mark:
[Morrissey] The challenge here is that we talk to one another and we talk to one another at our meetings and we can talk on the phone, but we're talking to one another- we don't need to be blasting out this negativity on the blogs.
And those of us in this room have to ask ourselves a question- is it more important that we take down a fellow Republican, or is it more important that we take down Barack Obama?
(I thought you would feel that way)
[Audience] Tell McCain that.
[Morrissey] (Nervous laughter) I'm the Chairman of [unintelligible] the party young man... I think he's heard that.
[Audience] Apparently not.
It's hard to know where to start with this, but here goes.
1) This is a stupid request. Liberals like to shut up the opposition- that's not usually a "conservative" position. We're supposed to be for an open and honest exchange of ideas. Part of that is criticism, and the best way to apply pressure is publicly. You may have heard the saying "Sunshine is the best disinfectant" - it's true. Tom Morrissey should be encouraging more discussion, not less.
2) I reject the premise of Tom's question [is it more important that we take down a fellow Republican...]. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I believe that the best way to beat Barack Obama is to have a functional, competent Republican Party that has leaders that represent the values the Party stands for. The Republican Party I belong to isn't represented by a guy with 5 wives, an unrepentant sex criminal, or whatever the hell Brett Mecum is. It's also not functional or competent, by any definition of those terms.
So in my view, "taking down" the corrupt/incompetent Morrissey regime is a critical step to victory in 2012. Every day that we allow the circus to continue at AZGOP HQ is a day wasted toward victory.
3) You're not serious, so why should we take you seriously?
Tom, if you were serious about what you were saying, you would have addressed the heckler in the crowd instead of nervously laughing. When the moron shouted "Tell McCain that", a real leader would have said something like:
"You know- that's exactly what I'm talking about. We're not going to win any elections if half of the party continues to live in the past. The 2010 elections are over. John McCain is an elected Republican Senator from Arizona, and he deserves our support and respect. You don't have to agree with Senator McCain on everything, but this obsession with McCain is not a path to victory."
4) Tom Morrissey is a hypocrite. Let me remind you all, once again, that when Tom Morrissey was running for Chairman of District 20, his team (including Pantsless Mark Spinks) used blogs, anonymous emails and other smear tactics to try to win the election. They lost, and when they lost the kept up those tactics until the sitting Chairman ultimately resigned.
So for Tom, mere weeks later, to suddenly decide that "negativity on blogs" is now a problem is disingenuous, to say the least.
5) Does it count as "negativity" if it's true?
I challenge anyone to find one untrue thing that's been posted here. These are facts:
- Tom Morrissey has been married 5 times.
- At least one of his ex-wives has made some very serious allegations about how Tom treated her.
- Mark Spinks has a criminal record for indecent exposure.
- Mark Spinks is paid by the Arizona Republican Party.
- Brett Mecum has had several run-ins with the law, and now there are allegations that he was in the business of selling endorsements.
- Brett Mecum is paid by the Arizona Republican Party.
6) ROB HANEY. As long as Rob Haney is still the County Chairman, Tom's words are meaningless. The bulk of the communication that comes out of Haney's group is negative. Hell, the guy even runs his own blog that focuses entirely on hating on "RINOs", and then links to that blog in official county communications.
If Tom was serious about stopping the "negativity" he'd mention Haney by name. But he won't. Because he's not a leader. And when he talks about "negativity" he's not talking about McCain bashing or throwing around terms like RINO or Turncoat. In his mind, that's OK. What he's talking about is criticism of himself and his corrupt cronies. That's what he wants to stop.
I know I can speak for all of us here at PM when I say that we will NEVER stop fighting the corruption within the Arizona Republican Party. Corruption is corruption, and if we want to clean up this country we need to start in our own backyard.
I repeat my call for Tom Morrissey to resign as AZGOP Chairman. If he's serious about bringing the factions of the party together and winning in 2012, it's the only real move he has. But he's not serious about anything except building his own power.
Prove me wrong Tom. I dare you.
1 comment:
Great post! Thanks for keeping the pressure on. There are a ton of people out here that want Morrissey to resign immediately. And if he doesn't I've heard the word recall mentioned in more places than just your blog.
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