MUTH’S TRUTHS

While George Bush sat in the White House, George Bush controlled the Republican National Committee (RNC) and pretty much decided who the national chairman was. It’s good ta be da king.

Now that a Republican will no longer be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the 168 members of the Republican National Committee are in the midst of a wide-open, knock-’em-down-drag-’em-out fight for the right to, they hope, lead the GOP back to governing power - first in Congress in 2010, then the White House in 2012. As such, the campaign is both heating up and getting down-and-dirty.

As our good friend John Fund noted above, all of the candidates are espousing various degrees of conservatism. And conservatives of varying stripes are attempting to pull together and back their favorite conservative candidate. But one such group, called the “Conservative Steering Committee,” is raising both eyebrows and questions.

Organized and chaired by lawyer and RNC member James Bopp Jr. of Indiana, the committee claims to have 74 RNC members as members of the steering committee - including at least three of the announced chairman candidates. The group is scheduled to have a conference call tomorrow (Friday) from 2:00 to 4:00 pm (EST) to discuss, among other things, “the qualities desired in RNC Chairman.”

Sounds innocuous enough, right?

But also on the agenda will be a discussion “of which RNC Chairman candidates to invite to January 5th meeting.” In addition, “The purpose of the meeting is to interview candidates for RNC Chairman and to conduct a straw poll to determine acceptable conservative candidates.” Which raises at least two questions:

1.) If all of the announced candidates are running as conservatives and this group is billing itself as a “conservative” steering committee, why wouldn’t they invite EVERY candidate to their cattle-call audition?

2.) Since Americans for Tax Reform, a truly independent and well-established organization, scheduled its nationally-televised chairman’s debate for January 5th over two weeks ago, why would this ad hoc rump group schedule a competing RNC chair event for the same day?

Hmm. I smell a rat.

Or a set-up.

Adding more intrigue to the fire, note that despite the fact that current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan lives and works in Washington, DC, he has yet to confirm his participation in the ATR debate in Washington and is rumored to have had advance notice of the Dallas meeting that even the RNC candidates on the steering committee didn’t know about.

Oh, and about that meeting.

Bopp has reportedly declared that he can’t possibly move his January 5th meeting despite the conflict with the already-scheduled ATR debate on the same day. This regardless of the fact that the notice of tomorrow’s conference call specifically states that the meeting will be held at an as-yet undetermined Dallas hotel and the informal welcoming dinner will be held at an as-yet undetermined restaurant near the as-yet undetermined hotel.

Yeah, sounds like plans are really locked in stone and can’t be changed, huh?

But as they say on late-night TV, that’s not all.

Well-known and highly-respected social conservative Phyllis Schlafly, National Chairman of the Republican National Coalition for Life, sent out the following email to RNC members recently…

“It is our opinion that the so-called Conservative Steering Committee, organized and chaired by Jim Bopp, is an attempt by the Republican Party establishment - the same people who have been controlling the Republican National Committee for years - to retain control of the Committee and prevent the emergence of fresh, new leadership that is truly committed to the conservative and pro-life principles and values expressed in the Republican National Platform.

“…Furthermore, due to the fact that the RNC is a current client of attorney Bopp, we question whether the role he has assumed in assembling a ‘steering committee’ could be construed as a conflict of interest. We doubt that RNC members, especially the newly elected members, want to be ‘steered’ by the same old establishment. We note that some of the very best conservative pro-life RNC members are NOT on the Bopp list.”

WTF?

An elected member of the Republican National Committee is a paid legal consultant to the Republican National Committee and is chairing a “steering committee” to elect the next chairman of the Republican National Committee and the only candidate who apparently knew anything about the locked-in-jello candidates’ meeting in Dallas on the same day that the other major candidates are already scheduled to debate in Washington is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee which is paying the chairman of the “steering committee” for services rendered and who hasn’t yet committed to participating in the nationally-televised debate? And this isn’t a HUGE conflict of interest?

This also raises the question of how many other members of the RNC are currently being paid by the RNC and, therefore, have an obvious conflict of interest in the upcoming chairman’s race?

Oh, and how can *I* get on this gravy train?

Posted on December 11th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: National