Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Some of you may remember a while back I wrote a bit on Paul Gourley, the newly elected president of the College National Republican Committee. He was involved in a fundraising scandal. For those who don’t know, Gourley singed off on letters basically bilking elderly contributors. From this, he apparently earned the presidency of the CRNC.

This week’s New Republic has an article (registration required) on their convention from a few months back. The scandal involving Gourley goes a bit deeper than what I had earlier described. Apparently, a direct mail firm has some sort of exclusive contract with the CRNC and gets huge kickbacks.

RDI, or Response Dynamics Inc., is the biggest scandal in the history of the College Republicans. More precisely, it is a direct-mail firm that brought the College Republicans approximately $9 million last year. Most of that money went straight back to RDI, which claimed $8.2 million to cover expenses and their fees, according to the Los Angeles Times.

…College Republicans had understood this game for years. They had heard many such stories from the children of elderly men and women who receive boxes full of these letters. And many chairmen of the organization sought to break the relationship with RDI. “Everyone called it heroin,” says [Jennifer] Holder. The CRs sincerely tried to kick their addiction, but they simply couldn’t.

So, it seems that the CRNC is merely a money laundering operation for this firm, RDI. But that’s not all. Apparently, the CRNC’s relationship with RDI is important enough that members of the Republican establishment, including congressmen, involve themselves in elections so as to make sure that the arrangement continues. Candidates that were on the wrong side of an election, according to the article, can find themselves on the outs in the Republican party for years afterward.

This all can lead to really intense elections. If you wonder where people like Karl Rove and Jack Abramoff cut their teeth, it was in the rough and tumble of CRNC politics. This election was rife with allegations of homosexuality, smear blogs (CR Veterans for Truth, not making that up), false populism, parliamentary tricks and vote rigging.

Okay, YDA can get pretty down and dirty. At my first convention, a group of folks tried to claim that they were the Young Democrats of American Samoa. Our credentialing rules were so loose at the time, that I think they may have gotten away with it. But, for the most part, things have been relatively clean. Yes, it’s hardball, but still clean.

Part of this may be because many people in the DNC wanted to steer clear of the YDA. The organization was in a shambles (and sometimes a joke) for years and only recently has gotten back on its legs. The problems stemed from a meeting in Phoenix in 1987. Trouble in the YDA usually starts with Arizona.

There is a YDA “establishment” too, and as long as I’ve been around, they can pretty much elect who they need to elect. And yes, the losers are largely excluded from YDA. However, they can still advance in the party. In fact, it seems sometimes they get further when they don’t have to play games in the YDA.

On that note, State Representative Erik Fleming is running for Senator Trent Lott’s seat in Mississippi. Fleming was defeated for YDA president in 1995, but threw himself into state politics, elected only a few years after losing. Erik is a fine individual, and I was happy to support him way back when, and he’ll make a fine United States Senator.

NB - My bro complained that I had too many pictures of Republicans. I hope the picture of Erik Fleming makes up for it a bit.

By the way, some Republican posted an anonymous comment on here. I think he was trying to imply that I was some sort of smokehead. He made the comment anonymously though, so unless he’s got the cojones to give his name, he really doesn’t deserve a response.