GOP near-unity on Sotomayor sends message
Published: July 29, 2009 at 7:46 AM
WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) — U.S. Republicans have sent a message to President Barack Obama that even moderate Supreme Court candidates he nominates will be opposed, analysts say.
Only one Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Tuesday voted to confirm the nomination of the nation’s first Hispanic high court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, despite her mainstream legal credentials in a show of party solidarity, the Los Angeles Times reported.
[etc.]
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/29/GOP-near-unity-on-Sotomayor-sends-message/UPI-47691248867978/
***
As An American Citizen -
I didn’t vote for none of yah – I didn’t get to do that, due to events in my own life, but I guarantee you that I couldn’t have begun to have done as crappy a job as y’all have with it.
And, I know better than what you are doing right now with the opportunities you have in Washington – because I know this –
As American Citizens, we didn’t hire you to read off the damn opinion of some backroom Republican crony who told you what you are to think about something – whether its the Sotomayor nomination or health care or climate change legislation or anything else.
We did not cast a vote that ever elected some Republican or conservative crony in a backroom somewhere to think for you. Most people in America don’t even know who they are and certainly weren’t given the chance to vote for them to think everything through that would be in front of you. They are not the ones sitting in those seats to legislate and make decisions.
We elected you to represent our interests as Americans. Even though I didn’t get to vote for you or against you, I know beyond a shadow of doubt that you are given that seat to represent my interests as an American citizen. Every dime of my money and everybody else’s money is at your hand, every intelligent resource is available to you and paid for by us and every last opportunity available to the United States is sitting right there at your side within your hand’s reach. Do not tell me that you are there to represent the Republican Party instead of me and my fellow citizens.
We sent you to Washington to think through whatever was in front of you and represent our interests in the matter. If you can’t do that and think through some of this stuff for yourself with the staff you have and resources available to you, then you don’t need to bed warming that chair up in Washington. And, you sure don’t need to be using it to provide a “united front” for the conservative caucus, the Republican Party, the US Chamber of Commerce which is being run by bankers, nor for the other cronies backing your breakfast. They didn’t elect you and believe it or not – you don’t represent them unless you work in their corporation. That is not your job as an elected official and decision-maker in the United States government.
You are there in Washington to represent me and the people of the United States – the interests of the citizens and the interests of our nation, along with our futures. Without that, there is no reason for you to be there. Using that seat to get in the way of anything constructive being accomplished, is a waste of everyone’s time, effort, money, goodwill and trust. You sure don’t need to warm a seat where decisions must be made for the good of us all and the good of our country, if stalemating, blockading, undermining, and bastardizing are the only things you are there to do.
Not one of us put you up there in Washington to have the Republican Party, conservative caucus, bankers, oil companies, big businesses, Wall Street junkies nor anybody else think for you. We didn’t elect you to do that, not this time and in fact, not ever. We didn’t hire you to be a good little soldier for the Republicans and tote the party line – this isn’t Stalin’s USSR where you’re sitting.
This is the United States of America and in case you haven’t noticed, your perverse follies, previous decisions and Republican policies have left us in an economic war zone where America used to be and we are all losing. You’ve taken America from the first class world leader status that we had enjoyed right up until the reign of the Republican conservative takeover, and torn it to shreds. You’ve left the United States in a position that resembles third world underdeveloped or undeveloped economic conditions, and where crime, violence and oppressive state and local government corruption is rampant and common.
If the Republican Party and business leaders haven’t noticed, where the America we have before us is now because of their “leadership” -
there is pervasive poverty, homelessness, decimated communities, foreclosures, unemployment, destitution, families in crisis, pervasively common domestic violence and death without ever leaving home, massive sickness and death from food poisoning because of FDA and Dept. of Agriculture failure to regulate, staggering numbers of bankruptcies, staggering numbers of commercial bankruptcies, inflation in the basic commodities for everyday life, empty community halls and gymnasiums, crumbling infrastructures in every town and county in America, failing schools and children who cannot read despite our “no child left behind” programs, staggering numbers of commercial and industrial “accidents”, cities and suburbs filled with violent crimes, massive ponzi schemes that defrauded huge numbers of citizens and generally very expensive, massively incompetent government systems doing none of the things they were designed or intended to do.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
You’ve done a real bang ‘em up job up there in Washington for the past thirty years of letting somebody else do your thinking for you and even I couldn’t have mucked it up worse than you’ve managed to do. How dare you waste our time now with stalemating tactics and a bunch of strategic Republican Party nonsense. Who the hell do you think you are and who do you think you are going to have to deal with when they’re done with you? We put you into office, we pay your salaries, we pay for your taxi rides, limousines and plane trips, we are paying for you to live in nice houses and sit your shitty asses in $6,000 chairs. We are paying for your staff members and the research you have done to make decisions where you sit. What the hell do you think is going to happen to the United States if you keep on doing it the way you’ve been doing it?
It’s time to stop dicking around, get off your dead Republican asses and get with the others we’ve elected up there in Washington to get something done. Get in there, use your brains and fix this mess. Eventually you will have to notice that you aren’t the ones cooking your own dinners, mowing your grass, cleaning your houses, shining your shoes, washing your clothes, fixing your toilets, driving your family where they go, filling the car with gas or in fact, doing any of the number of other things that are required for you to wipe your hairy ass.
Personally, I wouldn’t trust any of you to lead me from one side of the street to the other safely – but since, you have been elected by my fellow citizens to positions of leadership you need to know this -
Whether you know it or not – every one of you up there in Washington is a member of a team and it isn’t the Republican Party, Democratic Party nor conservatives nor big businesses nor liberals. You are either on our team USA to serve the interests of the citizens of the United States and the interests of our national concerns or you are nothing that serves the United States and you don’t belong there wasting time, energy and resources that could be used to the good of us all.
And, right now considering the economic and social crises that we all face, when you use your positions to antagonize, undermine, stalemate, block, and degrade the efforts of others – you are acting as an anathema and an enemy to all that is good and that could be done while you are there.
- cricketdiane, 07-29-09
***
And by the way, whether you know it or not – every one of you up there in Washington is a member of a team and it isn’t the Republican Party, Democratic Party nor conservatives nor big businesses nor liberals. You are either on our team USA to serve the interests of the citizens of the United States and the interests of our national concerns or you are nothing that serves the United States and you don’t belong there wasting time, energy and resources that could be used to the good of us all.
***
Another note -
Whatever marketing genius convinced you as a politician and legislator that you must serve the Republican “brand” – failed to note the unique capacity and position in which you serve and its broader implications.
The actions you take or fail to take, the decisions you make or decide against supporting will last long after the Republican Party ceases to exist and will have lasting effects far beyond the ability of any narrowly focused conservative thinktank, party, or group to perceive.
- cricketdiane
***
“But McConnell said Friday, in an appearance at the National Press Club, that, “The normal constituencies must be widened,” signaling a likely strategy for Republicans in the months ahead.” – from article below (FoxNews – January 2009)
**
Republicans Craft Careful ‘Resistance’ in Congress
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says his party will pose a “principled resistance” when appropriate, but will also try to work with the Obama administration.
FOXNews.com
Friday, January 23, 2009
Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. gestures as he answers questions at the National Press Club in Washington, Friday, Jan. 23, 2008. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Rest assured, Republicans in Congress will put up a “strong, principled resistance” to the Democratic majority when called for, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday.
But with Republicans’ numbers diminished in the Senate and virtually weightless in the House of Representatives, mounting that resistance will be no easy task.
The GOP, wounded badly in the 2006 and 2008 elections, is still trying to rally and redefine itself, not only to make gains in 2010 but to put its stamp on policy.
To do so, McConnell and other Republican leaders plan to strike a fine balance between bipartisan cooperation and thorn-in-the-side politics.
“Stylistically, it is somewhere between cooperation and confrontation,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. “It took them eight years to get in this hole. It’s going to take a while to get out.”
On the other hand, he said, “The nature of the opposition is they’re supposed to oppose.”
Among those leading that opposition in the early stages are Georgia Rep. Tom Price, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is heading up re-election efforts in the Senate.
Cornyn, one of former President Bush’s top defenders, is already biting at the ankles of Democrats at every turn and could play the prickly counterpart to his more bipartisan colleagues.
Cornyn was the lone senator who prevented Clinton from being confirmed on Inauguration Day by raising concern about donations to her husband’s foundation. (He later dropped his opposition after a talk with Sen. John McCain.)
Plus Cornyn raised critical questions about Eric Holder, Obama’s nominee for attorney general, contributing to a delay in his confirmation vote before the full Senate.
And he warned Democrats not to seat Al Franken as Minnesota’s next senator until his Republican rival, Norm Coleman, exhausted all legal options.
Most recently, on Wednesday, Cornyn’s committee took on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a news release for inviting lobbyists to an inaugural brunch two days earlier. Spokesman Brian Walsh said in the statement that in order for President Obama to change the culture in Washington, he’d first have to change Reid.
“I didn’t come to the Senate to be a wallflower, and the only tools you really have available in the Senate are your voice and your vote,” Cornyn said.
Meanwhile, Price vigorously opposed the release of the second half of the $700 billion financial bailout. And he, along with Cornyn, blasted Obama for ordering the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility Thursday. “It’s unfortunate that national security has taken a back seat to political appeasement,” Price said in a statement.
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh told FOX News’ Sean Hannity that leaning moderate is the wrong way to go for the Republican Party. He said the moderate wing got their candidate in McCain and lost.
[My Note - Rush Limbaugh is the Republican Party in America. To have that thinking to run the United States into the ground, who needs enemies . . . ]
“The blueprint for landslide electoral victory is right there, and the Republican Party and conservative movement has just washed it away,” Limbaugh said. “The people that are running our party now have such a defeatist inferiority complex. … They want to be accepted by people that hate them.”
But McConnell said Friday, in an appearance at the National Press Club, that, “The normal constituencies must be widened,” signaling a likely strategy for Republicans in the months ahead.
John Feehery, a Republican strategist and one-time aide to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, said the GOP only hurts itself by ignoring the center.
To appeal to more Americans, he advised Republicans to target Democrats in Congress instead of Obama, and to use the president’s “change rhetoric” against hyperpartisan members. He said Republicans can regain the moral high ground by exposing hypocrisy and corruption in the rival party.
[etc.]
A string of corruption cases led to huge Republican losses in the 2006 congressional elections, and now the GOP is trying to shine a light on Democrats improprieties.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, for instance, lambasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for keeping Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee despite the fact he’s being investigated for tax problems.
House Republicans are now so outnumbered that they have few options for pushing through their agenda in Congress. They can try to partner on some issues with the conservative Blue Dog Democrats, but they may be more successful just making noise in the media.
In the Senate, however, Democrats still do not have a filibuster-proof majority, so Republican senators are in a position to carry more weight and squeeze concessions out of Democrats.
Moderates in particular have a chance to hold clout. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, for instance, just got a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee, and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe is a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee. Rothenberg said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., are two rising stars to watch. Alexander is Republican Conference chairman and Thune has moved into the ranks of leadership as a lead deputy to Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. Thune has been a quiet voice of compromise on energy issues but a tough fiscal conservative.
[ . . . ]
Conservatives have long criticized the financial bailout package, charging that the distribution of funds was irresponsible. And in the upcoming stimulus package, Republicans are pushing against Democratic spending proposals and pushing for items like tax cuts. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia on Friday presented Obama with proposals that rely exclusively on tax cuts and envision none of the federal spending backed by Democrats and the White House.
Some of the GOP resistance is symbolic, though it provides political cover. For instance, Republicans in the House — along with Democrats — voted on Thursday to withhold the second half of the $700 billion stimulus package, even though a prior Senate vote in favor of releasing the money trumped any action from the House.
But Republicans caused headaches for Democrats earlier in the week when they waved around a report that showed the Democrats’ economic stimulus proposal could take as long as 10 years to work its way into the economy.
[ etc.]
In response to the study, Peter Orszag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, sent a letter to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., late Thursday pledging that at least 75 percent of the stimulus package would be spent in 2009 and 2010.
[ . . . ]
Analysts suggested Republicans should also reach out to friendly think tanks to bolster their agendas.
Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan, who is running for another term, is doing that with his newly created Center for Republican Renewal, a think tank he says will help the GOP “reclaim the mantle as the party of ideas.”
FOXNews.com’s Judson Berger and FOX News’ Trish Turner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/23/republicans-craft-careful-resistance-congress/
***
Blaise Hazelwood, who served as the political director of the Republican National Committee and spearheaded the famed “72 Hour Project,” proved her mettle again last week — shepherding Steele to his unexpected victory in the race for RNC chairman. Hazelwood, who worked with a team of political pros including the Anderson brothers (Wes and Curt), Brad Todd and Jim Dyke on Steele’s behalf, is now in line for a plum position at the RNC if she wants it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/01/AR2009020102112_pf.html
Hazelwood’s whole life has been politics. She is a fifth-generation Arizonan whose grandfather was close to former senator Barry M. Goldwater. She was president of Teen Republicans in Arizona as well as an intern on Capitol Hill and at the White House.[8]
Despite her Arizona lineage, however, she was born in Washington because her father was working at the Interior Department during the Nixon administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Hazelwood
(see wikipedia entry below – )
My Note -
Why is it that everyone in the Republican Party and Conservative Groups that hijacked it over the past thirty years has some relationship to Barry M. Goldwater and Richard M. Nixon? That includes the unbelievable number of people appointed to cabinet positions in the Republican administrations over the last thirty-six years, the agency heads, the decision-makers, the policy makers, and in the thinktanks that have diverted charitable money intended for community supports and programs for the poor into their own coffers.
Why is it that the conservative fundamentalist right-wing political parties and groups are some of the most vice-ridden, vile, vicious, cruel, intolerant, greedy, corrupt, sexually immoral, criminal and malicious groups that have ever walked the earth regardless of where they are operating? What makes it like that? They have perpetrated the most violent anti-social psychotic police and military policies and practices, they’ve tortured with cruelty and disregard – both in the US and around the world, they’ve encouraged their friends, children and authorities in their command to beat the homeless, poor and disadvantaged to death.
They’ve incited intolerance, removed personal rights and freedoms, undermined the Constitution of the United States and lawful Constitutional rights given to citizens around the world, practiced religious, social, economic and cultural / racial intolerance across the United States and generally, instituted a caste system in a country where democracy, freedom and individual rights used to be. Who are these vile slags of humanity and why do they get away with it just because they dress better than I do?
- cricketdiane
***
Blaise Hazelwood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blaise Hazelwood (born 1972), a Republican strategist and consultant in the United States, is the owner of Grassroots Targeting, LLC, a microtargeting company, and iWeb Strategies, LLC, which provides campaigns and other organizations with a comprehensive online program.[1]
Hazelwood first came to prominence as the driver behind the “72-Hour Task Force” in 2001, the party’s last major revision to its tactical campaign playbook which is credited with revolutionizing the Get Out the Vote efforts.[2] Hazelwood has led and managed political operations, high-profile grassroots programs and political campaigns.[3] She received a lot of praise for her work as Political Director at the Republican National Committee in 2002 and 2004, spearheading their successful online Team Leader program and the construction of Voter Vault, the RNC’s voter file database.[4] She went on to serve as the Director of Media and Political operations for the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2006 cycle under Senator Elizabeth Dole.[5]
Beginning in November 2008, Hazelwood managed Michael Steele‘s campaign for Chairman of the Republican National Committee.[6] Steele was elected as the new RNC Chairman on January 30, 2009.[7] Hazelwood followed the new Chairman to the RNC and served as his Chief of Staff through the transition until March 2009. She then returned full-time to her companies in Alexandria, Virginia but continues consulting as a top advisor to Chairman Steele and the RNC.
// <![CDATA[
//
Early Years
Hazelwood's whole life has been politics. She is a fifth-generation Arizonan whose grandfather was close to former senator Barry M. Goldwater. She was president of Teen Republicans in Arizona as well as an intern on Capitol Hill and at the White House.[8]
Despite her Arizona lineage, however, she was born in Washington because her father was working at the Interior Department during the Nixon administration. She was named for St. Blaise. The name was chosen by her mother, who wrote a dissertation on the Roman Catholic saint while studying for a doctorate in early Christian art at Georgetown University. Hazelwood has admitted that being named after a little-known male saint caused confusion when she was younger.[9]
Arizona Campaigning
Hazelwood began door-to-door canvassing as a 10-year-old in Arizona when her father was running for precinct committeeman, and she learned firsthand the value of human contact, meticulous organization and volunteer muscle in political campaigns. Her grandmother was a campaign volunteer in the days before computers, when voter files were kept on index cards. She told the Washington Post in 2003, “I always heard stories about my grandmother. It was all personal contact, and it obviously worked.”[10]
Career
Early career
After graduation from Vassar College, Hazelwood’s first job was staff assistant at the RNC, but shortly after the 1994 GOP landslide, her days appeared numbered. The new political director, Curt Anderson, was planning to clean house, and told Hazelwood and others they should start looking for work somewhere else.[11]
“I didn’t like that answer,” she told the Washington Post. “I decided that I wanted to stay here, that I wasn’t done at the RNC, so I started getting there at like six o’clock in the morning. He was a very early person, too. I would read the papers and brief him as he came in, do whatever I could to get his attention, and so he finally decided to keep me.”[12]
Her career since has been a succession of campaigns and grassroots organizing across the country, often anchored by positions at the Republican National Committee. She worked for Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign and for James S. Gilmore III’s successful 1997 gubernatorial campaign in Virginia.[13]
After those campaigns, she joined Curt Anderson’s political consulting firm. Then, in the summer of 2001, moved back to the RNC to help the Bush team manage its outreach to parts of the conservative coalition.[14]
Republican National Committee
“Blaise Hazelwood is credited with bringing back the culture of grassroots campaigns into the Republican Party.”[15]
Hazelwood worked as Political Director at the RNC in 2002 & 2004. Matthew Dowd, Senior Advisor at the time said, “She’s got good intuition, and she’s exceptionally well organized. She’ll do whatever it takes to get the job finished. She’s not concerned about being the last person to leave the office or getting on an airplane to get the job done.”[16]
72 Hour Program
“When the history of the Republican Party’s midterm election victories of 2002 is written, President Bush will get the headline and much of the credit, but a large footnote will go to a young political operative named Blaise Hazelwood.”[17] -The Washington Post, 2003
Hazelwood, only 31 at the time, was serving as political director of the Republican National Committee (RNC), and it was her responsibility to coordinate the party’s “72-Hour Program,” an 18-month effort designed to put shoe leather back into politics and beat the Democrats in turning out the vote, especially in the final three days, 72 hours, of the campaign. The 72-Hour Project was born of necessity after the 2000 election, when Republicans discovered that Democrats had done a better job of getting their voters to the polls in one of the tightest presidential races in history.[18]
With prodding from White House senior adviser Karl Rove, White House political director Ken Mehlman and RNC Deputy Chairman Jack Oliver, the party undertook a top-to-bottom review of its get-out-the-vote operation, poured more than $1 million into more than 50 experiments to test how best to reach out to voters and then methodically set about implementing their findings in the midterm campaigns.[19]
“I’m confident from the testing and from human life experience that making a volunteer telephone call or knocking on someone’s door makes much more impact than just doing it paid,” Hazelwood said.[20]
Her weekend routine was a mind-numbing series of conference calls consuming as much as 16 hours in which she updated her checklists state by state: how many volunteers signed up; how many people on the streets; how much literature distributed; how many voters identified. The overall goal was to flood precincts in competitive states with GOP volunteers going door to door in the final 72 hours of the campaign. Three weeks before the election all the planning and execution began to converge. She told the Washington Post, “All of a sudden this one weekend, everything started clicking. All of the work that everyone had put into this for the past year and a half started happening.”[21]
Her work paid big dividends on Election Day, when a surge of Republican voters in states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Missouri overwhelmed the Democrats and turned what many had called one of the most competitive midterm campaigns in history into a substantial Republican victory.[22]
Voter Vault
In addition to implementing the 72 hour program, Hazelwood is also credited with creating Voter Vault, the Republican Party’s voter file database which is used by campaigns all over the country.[23]
National Republican Senatorial Committee
In 2005, Hazelwood moved over to become Elizabeth Dole’s right-hand-woman, serving as campaign and media director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) through the 2006 election cycle.[24]
Consulting
Grassroots Targeting
Hazelwood founded Grassroots Targeting in 2005, turning her expertise in the practice of microtargeting into a business. In 2004, few top campaign staff knew what to do with raw microtargeting data. The young staffers who had time to play with the data were the ones in the remote field offices. In 2008, they’re now running the show and want to be able to get their hands on the data. Grassroots Targeting is the first firm to create its own software, called GT InAction, so campaigns can do just that. It lets a campaign manager select the voters he’d like to reach, such as married men who are regular churchgoers who make above $100,000. Since the software is web-enabled, direct mail and phone vendors can go in and use the data as well. Hazelwood believes, “if you’re spending this much time and money to put this together, people should actually use the data.” She also adds that she tries “to empower the campaigns as much as possible, because they know their campaigns the best.”[25]
With respect to the 2008 Presidential race, she recently explained,
“With Bush, our targeting efforts focused on turning out the base. Now with McCain, it’s about convincing the swing voters. It’s a different audience we’re going after, and we’re able to find those swing universes much better than we would have in the past. But sometimes microtargeting isn’t user-friendly enough — a lot of campaigns get a book that explains it, and then that book goes on the shelf. I’ve built software that allows campaigns to understand their microtargeting data more easily. They can pull their own email and phone universes. The software will tell you, ‘These are the swing groups, these are the people who are most likely to turn out.’ All the end users have to do is pick what groups they want to target. If you have the budget to mail to only 40,000 people, you can decide which group you want and enter into the calculator exactly what you want your numbers to be.”
Microtargeting for Bobby Jindal
One of Grassroots Targeting’s most notable clients is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal who has been talked about as a future presidential candidate.[26] Most microtargeting models focus on issues and likelihood to vote Democrat or Republican. However, that wasn’t necessarily going to help Bobby Jindal win his 2007 gubernatorial race in Louisiana, where most voters are registered Democrats who typically vote Republican. Strategists realized that to avoid a run-off, Jindal needed 42 percent of culturally conservative Democrats to vote for him on Election Day.[27]
Hazelwood built her model around that core group. She said, “usually when you build models, you are building them on everyone [in a district], but the cultural conservatives were our target universe. We actually did survey work and tracked them all summer long.” Using that research, Jindal talked to voters in each segment of this custom universe. And on Election Day, he hit the magical 42 percent and won the race.[28]
iWeb Strategies
In 2007, Hazelwood cofounding iWeb Strategies with Brian Lyle. Lyle has been working in technology for over a decade and with Hazelwood since 2003. He served as the Deputy Director for the RNC’s Team Leader online program in the 2004 election cycle. In 2006, he worked with Hazelwood at the NRSC as eCampaign Director before joining her to found iWeb. He designed and managed one of the “Top 5 Mold Breaking Websites” of the 2002 election cycle according to Campaigns and Elections magazine.[29]
Steele Campaign
In November 2008, Hazelwood signed on to lead Michael Steele’s campaign to become the next RNC Chairman in the first open race since 1997. The telegenic former Maryland Lieutenant Governor had developed a national following with his Fox News commentary. Also, those who saw Steele behind-the-scenes of his 2006 Senate race knew him as a free spirit whose first instinct is to rethink campaign conventions. An insurgent campaign in a time of internal party unrest fit his personality well.[30]
That Steele won the chairman’s race didn’t surprise many Republican activists across the country; however, Steele’s Jan. 30 win did shock the old bulls of the Republican establishment. The core of Steele’s winning coalition were the RNC’s newer members. In fact, half of Steele’s 21-person “whip team” on the committee rose to their current Party leadership roles after the election of 2006. Steele made sure his campaign screamed “change.” Under Hazelwood’s leadership in what looked like a sleepy Christmas-time race, Republicans responded in ways few inside the Beltway press corps noticed. Though the race is decided by the 168 party insiders, Steele asked Republican activists around the country to sign up to support his bid for chairman. In the two months after Obama’s victory, his website enlisted 42,000 such activists.[31]
Hazelwood put the 42,000 to work with the same innovative thinking that led to the 72 Hour Program. She asked those online supporters to email their national committee members. While urging a vote for Steele, the supporters pledged a specific donation of volunteer hours to their state parties which caught the eye of hungry state chairmen.[32]
With Hazelwood, Steele built a leadership team, and a winning campaign, with tactics, ideas, and coalitions rarely before used in the GOP. Steele promised to shake things up at party headquarters, and to the old guard’s surprise, the new RNC was in a mood to shake.[33]
[edit] RNC Transition Chief of Staff
Following Chairman Steele’s election, Hazelwood went with him to the RNC and served as Chief of Staff through the transition period. During this time, Steele brought in RNC Members from around the country to assist him in assessing each division within the RNC and make recommendations for improvements.
In a press release, the RNC announced that “the transition team will help implement the sweeping changes Steele proposed during his campaign for chairman. Under Chairman Steele’s leadership, the RNC will focus on recruiting a new cadre of top-notch candidates and operatives, build new volunteer networks, and forge new working relationships with state and local parties. The team will also immediately begin preparing for the gubernatorial and local elections later this year in Virginia and New Jersey.” Hazelwood was integral to these transition efforts and also to supporting the Chairman in beginning to fulfill his mission to “bring this Party to every corner of the country and ask people to join us and work with us.” The Chairman added that “by standing on our principles, we can expand and grow. My transition team will take a fresh look at everything with an eye toward preparing to win the campaigns of the future.”[34]
Having overseen the first two months of the Steele administration at the RNC, Hazelwood, in an e-mail to Republicans around Washington on March 12, announced veteran GOP strategist Ken McKay would take over as the RNC’s chief of staff.[35]
Hazelwood is now working full time at Grassroots Targeting and iWeb Strategies based in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia while staying very involved in an advisory role with the RNC and Chairman Steele.
[edit] References
***
Gee, let me think -
*
Who was running the show when the World Trade Towers had two planes run up their asses, bringing the city of NY to a standstill and killing thousands of people? Who was at the helm when umpteen different terrorist acts occurred across the free world and the United States without hindrance despite all the money we’ve been paying for specialists and resources to take care of it?
*
Who was running the states and federal government when thousands of people were sickened and hundreds died from E.Coli in hamburgers they bought at restaurants or ate at school lunches? And, who was running the country when thousands were poisoned and hundreds died from peanut butter sold to nursing homes and schools and meals on wheels programs?
*
Who was running the United States when thousands of American children died at the hands of bad judgments made by social service workers either because they were taken from homes where they shouldn’t have been and put into the homes of foster care and mental health institutions that killed them or were returned to people that were abusing them in the first place?
*
Who was it that had the reins of power when the CEOs, bankers and Wall Streeters were being given hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries, perks and bonuses while running their companies into the ground and laying off hundreds of thousands of workers who actually did do their jobs?
*
And, who was the group in power while this country created the greatest impoverished landscape that has ever existed in this nation since the Great Depression which as a matter of fact, was also created by the hands of greed in the same party who were also running things at that time?
*
Who was it that diverted money from every program intended to help people get on their feet and demanded that faith-based organizations take on that job while stealing those charitable funds to underwrite their own conservative thinktanks, lobbyists and pet projects for the rich?
*
Weren’t the Republicans in power? Weren’t the conservatives getting things done the way they wanted when all this resulted? Wasn’t it the big business interests which were running the show that were served over everyone else’s interests? Wasn’t it the right wing fundamentalists that had their way with all of it? Is it now to be believed that they had nothing to do with it? And, that the way they didn’t do it or did do it resulted in something other than what we see, what the facts indicate and what we have experienced? Are they kidding?
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And, just for note – the prosperity which they created for themselves did not extend to the rest of us and as it turns out, wasn’t real anyway. It was a pretense without foundation which is exactly why our economy is mucked up to the extent it is today without much recourse to stabilize it in any due measure, let alone to rebuild it.
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- cricketdiane, 07 – 09
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(Tell me something, why should anybody want to innovate , invent or create solutions for a bunch of bastards that can’t do anything but put their feet in the ground and make nothing possible.)
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