Cumberland County Politics
The Sentinel has run a couple of articles the last two days about the re-election campaigns for some of the County elected positions - the Commissioners and the DA primarily. They’ve gotten two straight days of coverage in fact. I’m kind of surprised at the Sentinel for that much coverage. Usually political stories get one day unless some new development happens. The other reason I’m surprised is because of everyone else talking about Rendellcare right now - the Sentinel used AP stories on Rendellcare.
The amusing part about all of this is one paragraph:
There were rumblings of a primary challenge on the Republican side, but county GOP Chairman Victor Stabile says he hasn’t heard from anything concrete. The Republican committee meets Feb. 17 to endorse its slate of candidates.
I’ve heard similar “rumblings.” From what I can tell, someone is interested in running, mainly against Commissioner Eichelberger - although I don’t know who. I suspect the reason why Stabile hasn’t heard anything concrete is that this mystery candidate is probably thinking of running without talking with the Party - doing a real primary.
I can understand this reasoning having been a part of the Cumberland Republican Committee. The Committee is not open to hearing from anyone who may challenge an incumbent. The Committee would continue to endorse a dead man if he were the incumbent. I honestly can’t think of a single reason why the current committee would vote for an open primary - they are very closed minded when it comes to primaries - which is the main reason I quit the committee. I believe in the conservative principle that competition is healthy and brings out the best.
If anyone were to ask me about running in Cumberland County as a Republican and taking on an incumbent I’d tell them to not waste time talking with the Republican Committee. Any candidate that did would only get grief and complaints. That’s all before the anointment meeting, I mean endorsement meeting. Then during the endorsement questioning, the candidate would be made to feel like it was the Inquisition and that the candidate had some kind of mental problem for even considering taking on an incumbent.
January 21st, 2007 at 2:30 am
That’s a valid point about the iron gates of the committee - its almost impossible to be different and get in. From my experience, this is how most county committees (and other level commitees) work however. And from the other angle, if I were an incumbent or even a Republican candidate for that matter, I would feel a great comfort in knowing that, at the very least, my county committee would be behind me to circle the wagons in times of need. It would be unsettling to say the least to know that every 18 months, I would have to undergo microscopic scrutiny by not only the electorate, but also by a select group of peers who are supposed to generally feel the same as me.
So, I guess my point is that, while I agree that it would be frustrating as a same-party challenger, I could also defend the strength of the party mentality. After all, don’t you think incumbents need that strong vein of support during tough elections?
January 21st, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I can certainly understand what you are saying. It is my belief that they take that loyalty to an extreme. I’ve believed for a long time that the county committees should not be endorsing candidates in primaries - they should stay out of primaries - the voters are smart enough to decide who why want to represent them in the fall.
Their circle the wagon approach also becomes a weakness because they should be scrutinizing the candidates so as not to be embarrassed when a non-endorsed candidate wins - instead of what happens now, where it’s a given that the incumbent will automatically get the endorsement.
I’ve seen too many incumbents get the endorsement even though they were poor candidates. But because people were afraid to upset the applecart, they didn’t speak up or challenge the endorsement. The herd mentality prevails and people are silenced even though they know they should have done something.