GOP Sandbox
The kids playing in the Cumberland County Republican Committee sandbox are whining because they aren’t getting their way. That’s what all the fuss that Chairman Stabile is raising reminds me of. My 4 and 2 year olds have better manners.
The Sentinel did an article on the changes that Commissioners Barclay and Eichelberger, along with the Keep the Team Committee, are going to be pushing. Here’s the thing, when you win an election, or as John Hilton of the Sentinel so eloquently put it, “trounce” your opposition, it means you have a mandate from the people. That mandate means the Republican voters are sick of the way the Committee leadership is doing it’s job and they want a change.
This is no different than what the voters told the legislature following the pay raise fiasco. The legislature still doesn’t get it and they will continue to pay the price until significant changes are made. The committee will pay the price in this case, by being rendered completely irrelevent to the election process - or worse, start losing big races.
Here’s the other thing I take away from the article - Stabile’s words:
“It’s not the first time we’ve had to deal with opposition or with people who disagree with us,” says Stabile, chairman since 2000.
That should be a good sign that there are big problems with the leadership of the committee. In 2001, Denny Lebo beat the endorsed candidate for County Cleark of Courts. In 2002, Stabile was called on to resign by State Rep. Will Gabig during a congressional primary race. That’s only two years after Stabile took over. That disagreement subsided. Then the committee showed how weak and worthless it was in 2005 in the Carlisle DJ race, losing to a Democrat by 2 votes. Of course one could argue that the county committee doesn’t get involved in local races, but still, if they did a little work, they could have won - the Democrat committee got involved, worked hard and it paid off. Now the 2007 primary trouncing in the commissioners’ race.
Just to be fair, I should let everyone one that I was involved in the last three of these races mentioned above, so yes, I’ve been a thorn in the side of the committee leadership for several years now. Or as I like to point out, I’ve been talking about the problems with the Committee leadership for several years now. I’m thrilled that others are starting to see the problems.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 am
The only caveat that seems appropriate here is how much of a margin exemplifies a “mandate”? Did Arlen Specter have a mandate when he beat Pat Toomey 51-49? How about Will Gabig when he beat Frank Rankin 55-45? Or George Bush, when he won by the largest number of votes ever in history, only to sink to a 35 percent approval rating?
Mandates are only as good as the fallout and while everyone is excited about the possibility of a new face for the county committee, progress needs to be made. No one is thrilled about making hasty decisions, but the longer things go, the less interest people have.
June 7th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
[…] In a recent comment section on my blog, Publius commented on my post about the GOP Sandbox - in particular the whole idea of what a mandate means. Here’s what Publius wrote: The only caveat that seems appropriate here is how much of a margin exemplifies a “mandate”? Did Arlen Specter have a mandate when he beat Pat Toomey 51-49? How about Will Gabig when he beat Frank Rankin 55-45? Or George Bush, when he won by the largest number of votes ever in history, only to sink to a 35 percent approval rating? […]