First-of-its-kind RNC meeting to be held in Washington
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/12/29/art.duncan29.gi.jpg caption="RNC chair Mike Duncan faces a tough race to keep the top spot."](CNN) - Members of the Republican National Committee are planning to hold a Washington forum for candidates to lead the party – the first time they have held an official meeting not arranged by the national party.
The meeting, first reported by The Hill, was the brainchild of North Dakota Republican Party chairman Gary Emineth and nearly two dozen RNC members from 18 states, according to the RNC counsel’s office.
Most of those are supporters of one of the challengers to current RNC chair Mike Duncan. The newly-scheduled forum – which was not arranged by national leadership, headed by Duncan - may give a boost to these candidates, who will get an opportunity to make their pitch to the members of the national committee.
Under RNC rules, a minimum of 16 members from 16 different states is required to hold an official meeting – but CNN has not been able to find any prior instance when this rule has been invoked.
The meeting comes in a week of faceoffs and public grillings for RNC chair hopefuls - some open to the public, others private events for conservatives and party members.
@ jim in Birlington – once again, I see those that can't spell calling others "idiots". I just don't understand that one.
These sleaze bags are delusional if they think they can put the Jeanie back in the bottle. They treated Ron Paul like a drug addict and look who was right about everything he talked about, only Dr. Paul. They are stuck in ways that will only hurt and divide the nation, and you watch, their biggest contributors will be the Military Industrial Complex. They will not allow this country not to be at war....The years of Reagan have long vanished, the GOP was taken over by the real fringe radicals.
reading through all the posts here.. Wow and they are calling the Repubs evil mongers and Racists. Look in the mirror people.
@ Mark, Atlanta – I am not defending this parody (that most have not even heard) but I will defend Paul Shanklin's (not Chip Saltsman) right to record and sell it. It's up to you NOT to buy it if it offends you. You have no right to NOT be offended (one of many brilliant ideas of our "Founding Fathers"). You do have the right however, not to buy the product. I will also defend your right to tell others not to buy it.
I will NOT, however, sit by while you lump me (or anyone else) into a single group mentality that only exists in the minds of the intolerent.
So are they going to discuss way to better disguise their bigotry and intolerance? Will they be wearing their white sheets?
Let's pray that they forget what an utter DISASTER Sarah Palin was.
Chris from NC
This should be fun to watch.
I have to admit I very confused and disoriented.
As Will Rogers famously said, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
As a staunch, long-time Democrat, I'm used to seeing MY party as the one that cannot organize a one-car parade - but which has little trouble forming a circular firing squad.
Now that it's the national Republican Party that can't get out of its own way, I'm not sure how to react.
But if it keeps giving us election results like this year and 2006, I'll take it!
Why are they meeting? To come up with lyrics to a new song about negroes?
Jon @ 2:46
"Neanderthal man may be extinct. However, unfortunately, the RNC is not. Every few years the desire of "conservatives" to lead America back to the Stone Age re-emerges, and it will, no doubt, re-emerge again. Attention deficit disorder and historical illiteracy are endemic in America; Sarah Palin is proof of that."
I could not have said it better myself. If you look back, whenever we've had a "fiscal conservative" in office there has been an increase in the national debt – the opposite shows when a "spend happy" democrat has been in office. Exactly like neanderthal genetics, the inferior traits that led to their species being absorbed into the cro-magnon (read: us) genome cannot ever be completely washed away and will spontaneous show up as a dominant trait amongst random mutations if given enough time. What we are seeing in this country at this time is exactly the same thing, only in a political sense; the backwards inferior political views, be they from dems, repubs or indies, are being absorbed into the more suitable view for this time.
And the RNC/GOP invades the White House and US foreign policy with it's "holier than thou" attitude. Hey guys – when a murderer commits a horrendous crime and defends it with "it's not what I did that was wrong, it was the world's view of what I did" – we usually label that guy as insane, if not egotistical in the worst way. See some parallels?
tl;dr – Political evolution is taking place, and while it remains to be seen if the Democrat view is the winning view, it's pretty clear that the RNC/GOP are in the losing group.
let Palin be the party leader so that we can be guaranteed another win in 2012.....
Can the Republicans just go away? Greedy old pricks.
Just be wary of the racist. divisive GOP'ers trying to change their party affilliation people. They think a new party affilliation gives them a new identity. If it looks like poop and smells like poop, it probably is POOP! Don't be fooled by the GOP!
I hear the first thing on the agenda will be to change the Republican Party's logo from an elephant to a wooly mammoth . . .
. . . an animal which has long been extinct to symbolize a party which is headed for the same fate.
So will they be sending formal invitations in the mail to the RNC leadership or will they just draw a pentagram on the floor and summon them? This is clearly not the party of Lincoln, TR or Ike!
Old vs New
Goldwater vs...who??
Ann Coulter?
Rush Limbaugh?
Palin?
Get the message?
RNC sold it's soul!!
The RNC needs to look at their party like any of your average small companies' or corporations' HR departments. Every position I've worked in gave a review of how important it is to invoke diversity in the workplace. For those companies that chose not to embrace diversity, they would lose their competitive edge and sooner or later fall. Once the RNC realizes that they need to be more diverse, they can adequately compete with the Democratic party. Do trust, the democrats have their own strategies that they invoke and that's why they are staying ahead of the game. BTW, I am a conservative independent....
If they stop demonizing Obama and everybody else, then they might win people hearts, other than that, democrats can keep ruling....
And the fools attending will STILL swear that the have their hand on the pulse of America.
Sarah Palin says she's available for a table dance or two.
Maybe they'll write their 2012 conncession speeches while they're at it.
OOOOGGGGAAH!!! OOOOOGAAAHHH!! Our party is a disgrace to our country, we have ruined the economy and the lives of millions of Americans. those same people we screwed are about to take us out in the street and beat us. We need to have a metting where to hide all the money. Lets put it on a plane to Hong Kong. God I hope the people of America have not sent Batman to get us., b/c if they did we are done.
God I wish that was the scenario. Maybe if Americans get lucky it will be one of those Cyanide Kool-aid parties and we can get rid of all these scum-bags in swoop.
The Republican focus on Special Interests and benefit for a select few, all disguised as being consistent with 'conservative ideology', has to be abandoned before they can once again be considered viable for the American people. The last eight years of their strong, belligerent and irresponsible support for the sociopathic (dishonest without any conscience) performance of the Bush-Cheney administration literally drove people out of the party and away from all of them. They need to come up with moderately oriented leadership and positions that while leaning towards conservative are still focused on real benefit for the majority, and not just more arrogance and subterfuge designed to manipulate while being concentrated on their self-interests. The Democrats have proven in the past that they are just as apt to become corrupted but now are really the only hope for real change. It would be nice if they all could ever honestly focus on the people instead of their self-interests.
I am from Tennessee and really ashamed to say so. Just want to let you know that all people in Tennessee are not like this. We dread the Republican lead state legislature. This is a fine example of what we are going to get. We just keep saying that they will do themselves in just like the national party did. Pray for us in TN!! They are crazy!!
the Legion of Doom is meeting
It will be very difficult to find republicans to run for office, the democrats and ACORN have already put them all in to office. Perhaps the unions can help find some slugs they can run.
Based on some of the HATRED coming from the Southern GOP .... maybe it should be held in Jackson Ms., or Nashville, TN., or Birmingham, Ala.. or Anchorage, Alaska anywhere that the GOP has a HUGE base. That should get them a headstart on Divisiveness.
Go Palin
To those who say both parties are the same: There is lowest ground of acceptable stances. One time slavery was debated, or the woman's right to vote. Too many republicans still speak like it is 1950 still, or 1960 at best. Some see it has hate, because hate was in back then. The Democrats are a bunch of politicians who like power, money and sex as well as the rest. But they live in 2008 and view those old stances that most people don't hold any longer as outdated and don't come close to echoing them. They are the part of the present not because they are better at anything, but because they are rooted in present.