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On Saturday, August 15th, Oklahoma Republicans will finally meet for their Quadrennial convention which was postponed from last spring. Some of the pressing matters were addressed in an online convention session on June 20th, just hours before President Trump arrived in the state for a Tulsa rally. The National Convention delegation was decided, as were our final nominees for presidential elector. But some overdue issues are still pressing. Some of them will fundamentally change the state GOP and remove governing authority from the citizens who are members of the party.
Most troubling is State Party Rule Change #5. The Oklahoma congressional delegation to Washington DC are presumed to be the driving force to take away the grassroots party structure and hand it to whomever gets elected to congress or the state capitol. GOP congressional members will each get to appoint a representative to a newly reformed executive committee. that committee will then hire an executive director who answers to the executive committee. The current presiding body (the 400+ members of the State Committee) will cease to direct the party in most matters. The State Party Chairman will also become a meaningless office, and the professional politicians and their appointees take over the control of the party, messaging, platform content, and spending. |
Ordinary citizens of Oklahoma were sent to Cleveland in 2016, to select the presidential nominee and approve a national platform of Republican principles.
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Two years ago, Democrat Kendra Horn won the 5th Congressional seat by a narrow margin. Rogue Republican legislator, Carol Bush actually violated state party rules by endorsing the Democrat challenger to our Republican incumbent. This charter bylaw change could actually seat Carol Bush on the new executive committee, because she is an elected leader of the House Republican Caucus. Bush should have been voted off of the State Committee 2 years ago, as Harold Wright was(the Speaker Pro temp).
The chances of someone like Jim Bridenstine ever successfully defeating an incumbent like John Sullivan, will likely diminish. The party will focus on the next election more than the next generation.
The party appears to be systemically broken. The current chairman has not presented a Budget Committee Report, as was called for over a year ago. The party was admitted to be deeply in debt a year ago. Now there's a claim that the party is solvent, but no actual budget committee numbers are published to the State Committee.
There appears to be a disconnect between Republicans elected to county, state, & Federal govt; and the party structure which provided that political machine & franchise which they tapped into.
Next weekend the OKGOP State Committee will also select a new State Vice Chairman. Rep. Sean Roberts is one leading candidate. It's hoped that a greated collaborative effort will come, so that our party delegations at the State Capitol & Federal Capitol will play a more collaborative role in framing our party messaging and promotion of core principles. This may also be a good time to reassess whether an exhaustive multi-thousand word document is as effective as would a single page message of core principles about limiting govt. and prudently restoring liberty for all Americans.
The chances of someone like Jim Bridenstine ever successfully defeating an incumbent like John Sullivan, will likely diminish. The party will focus on the next election more than the next generation.
The party appears to be systemically broken. The current chairman has not presented a Budget Committee Report, as was called for over a year ago. The party was admitted to be deeply in debt a year ago. Now there's a claim that the party is solvent, but no actual budget committee numbers are published to the State Committee.
There appears to be a disconnect between Republicans elected to county, state, & Federal govt; and the party structure which provided that political machine & franchise which they tapped into.
Next weekend the OKGOP State Committee will also select a new State Vice Chairman. Rep. Sean Roberts is one leading candidate. It's hoped that a greated collaborative effort will come, so that our party delegations at the State Capitol & Federal Capitol will play a more collaborative role in framing our party messaging and promotion of core principles. This may also be a good time to reassess whether an exhaustive multi-thousand word document is as effective as would a single page message of core principles about limiting govt. and prudently restoring liberty for all Americans.
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The State Convention delegates will have a massive list of proposals to decide upon.
We've posted the PDF files of many of them. |
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