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GOP Establishment AWOL On Doug Hoffman

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  November 3rd, 2009 at 09:15 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The attached picture was taken at 8:30 pm last night in the main call center room at the RNC where the volunteers sit for phone banking. There were about 10 people there from 5:30-8. After that? Well . . . you get the point.

Oh, and let’s not forget Harmer, Christie, and McDonnell.

callcenter.jpg

I’m told, by the way, that there are some private rooms with just phones. Certainly, there could have been people in those rooms, but this is where the volunteers were told to go last night. Not a great effort.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister
  • udtiger

    …petulant.

    And NightTwister is correct, they will trumpt “their” success in breing about any positive result.

  • mikedaire

    calls me asking for a donation I intend to say “I’m giving you what you gave to Hoffman,” and then hang up.

  • louisiana

    to stick it in their ears. They’re pissed that us peons have dared to challenge their “wisdom”.

  • http://www.buzzbrockway.com Buzz Brockway

    and rely on themselves for their GOTV. It’s also time for conservatives to ignore the party and volunteer directly for conservative candidates.

  • Scope

    to Hoffman was sincere, did you. They couldn’t possibly go against their ACORN benefactors. Tell me that that doesn’t speak to “if you can’t beat them, join them” just like reaching across the aisle? They are going to cause the rise of a third party, as much as I hate to see that, but, that is what is happening. Especially if Hoffman wins today. Actually that is probably what they are now realizing, because they just can’t get rid of those horrible Conservatives.

  • shadowtax

    First off, I’m confused by this post. What am I looking at? Is this a call center in DC? NY-23?

    It is my understanding that the RNC pulled out of NY-23 and moved its resources to help Christie in NJ. Your post here indicates that they have abandoned Christie.

    Is it fair for you to slam the establishment for lack of volunteers? You and other conservative activist leaders have pounded the party establishment for weeks now. This is an off year election and I would expect less excitement than in a standard election. And your own efforts have the effect to drive those volunteers most likely to work in an off-year election far away from the GOP establishment and into the ranks of other conservative grass roots organizations.

    This must be the set up to blame the RNC for any GOP losses while denying them credit for any GOP victories.

  • brooklynlou

    As someone that has actually worked the phones on a local campaign, after 8:00 pm, making calls becomes a bit dicey and you wind up annoying more people than you reach. Last campaign I worked on had a hard stop on all calls after 8:00. I wouldn’t be surprised if the RNC is doing the same thing.

  • Jack_Savage

    The call center at the RNC should be jammed with volunteers working the phones for any and all Republican candidates, and I think the point is that it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

    It is difficult to follow people who either don’t get it, or get it and don’t care.

  • ktsub

    I would not call people after 8pm, people are already on-edge getting political phone calls, much less when the kids are supposed to be going to bed.

  • KeepOhioRed

    … I tore that thing off of my lawn before daybreak after election day. :-)

  • Scope

    but there hasn’t been anything but odd about the support of the most left R in history. This race has gotten much much national attention. Don’t you think that the powers that be would be doing everything in their power to get a candidate elected that will caucus with the Republicans, rather than abandon him because he didn’t fit into their plans?

    You give the GOP way to much credit, and, that is if you are not just trolling to incite an even further split within the Republican party. The GOP establishment is on the way out, and, the sane Conservative people have taken the reigns. They see their power eroding, and are now just acting like the man-child president.

  • Scope

    cut off time to stop making phone calls of any sort.

  • writeblock

    There has to be some indication the establishment in Washington
    “gets it.” The town halls and the tea parties weren’t enough to impress them apparently. Neither will NY23 be. Steele in particular is someone who gives no sign he understands what’s going on politically all across America. He continues to miscalculate.

    Rasmussen revealed that 73% of the GOP rank and file believe the party is out of touch with its constituents. Steele is clear proof of this. If the leadership wishes to regain credibility, it needs to give a convincing sign of this by a significant change at the top. Apologies are not enough. Resignations are overdue.

  • Streiff

    then so what?

    1. If conservatives are the foot soldiers of the GOPs GOTV effort then doesn’t that imply that the GOP should refrain from interfering in primaries?

    2. Why aren’t there cadres of “moderate” volunteers?

    3. The GOP found $900K to sink into the campaign of the dKos-ACORN candidate in NY-23, including on the ground volunteers when conservatives were already flocking to Hoffman. Why aren’t the same resources available to him?

    4. The victories will have been achieved despite the RNC’s efforts, why should it get credit?

  • shadowtax

    The RNC is open for business. The resources are there. The volunteers went elsewhere.

    More specifically, the attacks against the RNC for their support of Dede Scozzafava have been effective. As a consequence the RNC phone banks sit idle and those resources are not put to use to help Christie, Harmer, and McDonnell.

    Conservatives have given the RNC a bloody nose, I just don’t think it’s fair to hit them again because some of their RNC blood dripped on the carpet.

  • Achance

    Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin have chased all the moderates over to the Democrat Party. Only in the insane Democrat world can out and out leftists be considered moderate, but come to think of it, when the leadership cohort are out and out communists, mere leftists ARE moderates.

  • Achance

    You can count on that; the Ds wouldn’t miss the opportunity and it’s a fork: we either endure the racism charges or stick ourselves with an ineffective chair to avoid them.

  • shadowtax

    but it is the volunteers are the ones that did not show up. That is not a fair criticism.

    It looks to me that conservatives have abandoned the RNC than the RNC has abandoned the other GOP candidates.

    Look there are plenty of reasonable grounds to criticize GOP behavior. This however is not one of them.

  • Aaron Gardner

    this would avoid the charges of racism. The best the Dems could do is call Blackwell a Uncle Tom, but that would only open them up to charges of racism.

    Not that any of this will actually happen.

  • Achance

    Anyway, lies are better than the truth if you can get people to believe them and they’ve proven they can get 52% to beleive their lies.

  • Aaron Gardner
  • Jack_Savage

    “More specifically, the attacks against the RNC for their support of Dede Scozzafava have been effective. As a consequence the RNC phone banks sit idle and those resources are not put to use to help Christie, Harmer, and McDonnell.”

    If this is true, then we have bigger problems at the RNC than we can possibly imagine.

  • shadowtax

    1. I think the RNC got into the trouble that it is in precisely because it did not interfere in the primary. This is one of the issues that has bothered me during this NY-23 campaign. Conservatives want the RNC to interfere with the local party when it helps the conservative like Hoffman, but want the RNC and NRSC to stay away when they back Crist over Rubio in a primary.

    2. I do not believe that “moderatism” leads to activists. The activists in the GOP are conservatives.

    3. Well I’m not sure it is even legal for a GOP organization to give cash to a different party, at least before Dede dropped out. The mistake was giving resources to a bad candidate, not giving the resources to the wrong candidate.

    4. I am not saying that the RNC should get credit for anything. My point is that there is nothing the RNC can do at this point that will satisfy many critics. The strongest evidence of this are the vocal calls for leadership changes before the election even takes place.

  • nycenterright

    I’m glad they’re not spending nine hundred thousand dollars to elect someone who would probably serve only one term and would have no real influence on national politics, while there are two governors races (one of which is very close) in large states with redistricting happening simultaneously.

  • shadowtax

    The attacks have been successful. Conservative activists know that the RNC made a big mistake. They are angry. They find other ways to help GOP candidates than visit the RNC phone bank.

    I am not so much bothered or suprised by this. I am bothered that folks are not recognizing this as a consequence of conservative attacks against the RNC because idle phones are undesirable.

  • nycenterright

    that conservatives, the ones who usually man the phonebanks and stuff the envelopes, have responded to the RNC’s decision to support Dede Scozzafava by not volunteering at the RNC headquarters. It is completely fair to whack the RNC for not seeing this coming, but not particularly fair to claim that the organization is not putting in an effort because there are no volunteers.

  • nessa

    And even then its not going to endear you to me in any fashion. Unless they were going to run till 3 am and tell everyone they were calling for Owens…

  • Streiff

    1. bullcrap, beyond the point that the RNC has never entered a primary for any reason than to prop up a liberal, no one in the GOP should want the party involved before the candidate is chosen.

    2. So without conservatives there is no GOP but…

    3. Got a cite for that statement?

    4. Well, yes there is. They could have the phone banks filled and filling busses with volunteers. The fact that there are critical elections in NY, NJ, VA, and an important one in CA and there are tumbleweeds blowing under the McCain posters in the RNC phonebanks tells you all you need to know about that organization.

  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx
  • Jack_Savage

    Valid argument. I thought that the point was that the RNC was *responding* to the attacks by not recruiting volunteers, which I understood to be Erick’s inital argument.

    Back to calling all my friends in VA and NJ.

  • Rod_Patrick

    4. The victories will have been achieved despite the RNC?s efforts, why should it get credit?

    RNC will claim the credit internally (in R/C crowds.) Hmm …. they need to replenish the US$900K, a sunk cost and they’ve learned that extremist conservatives are generous in giving to conservatives llike Doug.

    But that’s internal intelligence.

    They external memo is different. RNC and NRCC welcomes moderates to their party.

    [And why not? They are also moderates. The won't expel themselves from their own party, will they?]

  • Streiff

    that Hoffman won’t be able to win NY 23 next November? Pardon me if I find that opinion to be both exotic and counterhistorical.

  • Rod_Patrick

    Go, Streiff, Go!

  • Rod_Patrick
  • nycenterright
  • Xasteius

    10 people fills up about one side of the room. So let’s say half the room is filled. Now considering there are 3 (4 if you count Harmer) big races going on, shouldn’t the room be filled to capacity?

    I’m not an expert in phone banks, and maybe the individual campaign had more help than they needed, =but it doesn’t make sense to me that the national organization isn’t all in for their own team.

  • Streiff

    predicting something like that, however, is nothing more that bloviating. Even the delegations can’t predict that kind of thing.

  • nycenterright

    But with a close gubernatorial race in New Jersey (13 congressional districts), seems like $900k would be better spent there.

  • shadowtax

    1. OK then the blame for nominating Dede falls with the local GOP that selected her under NY law.

    2. …conservatives sure love to hate the GOP. It’s a complicated relationship.

    3. No cite, just general principle. When someone donates to the RNC there is an understanding that the funds should support the Republican party. It is reasonable that there might be a prohibition either by regulation or party rule against the use of those funds to support a candidate from another party in a race where there is a lawfully selected Republican candidate. Vocal opposition by conservatives to the RNC, NRCC, and NRSC over the past few cycles had not dissuaded remaining donors who continue to trust the party. Now, the trust of even these donors is failing. Exactly what conservatives want to happen.

    4. You contend that the RNC can fill the buses and phone banks. My point is they need conservative volunteers to do that. Unless of course they start handing out street money or form press gangs, the RNC won’t be filling any buses because conservatives do not want to get on them.

  • yabadabadoing

    One wonders who the RNC is supporting with their efforts, or lack there of ?