November 2014

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November, 2014

An independent chronicle of 11th Congressional District Republican Party news and events
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      'The Elephant In The Room' is a newsletter reporting items of interest to active Republicans in the 11th District - primarily present and future Precinct Delegates, but also other interested Republican party participants. Occasional bulletins may also be sent if an important item comes up that can't be delayed. If you know others who would have in interest in reading this, but do not currently receive it, they can be added to our mailing list. Just send an e-mail from the address at which they wish to receive the newsletter to EITR@Juno.com, with the word 'Subscribe' in the header. If you do not want to receive any further issues, simply reply to this address with the word 'Cancel'.

     Previous issues can be found here: (Link)

Wayne County Republican Committee
       The September 22 meeting of the Wayne County Republican Committee (WCRC) included a report from State Committee members who had attended the recent State meeting. The foremost concern was that volunteer numbers were way down this year compared to previous elections. Republican party organizers could not get people to man phone banks, do door to door activity, etc. When State Chairman Bobby Schostak arrived at one sub-committee meeting, he was asked to add the names of Bill Schuette and Ruth Johnson to the phone banking script, because too few volunteers were willing to read the Snyder-based one. (Mr. Schostak didn't know that those names were not included in the text.)

      WCRC is not a major fund raiser for candidates, but they did have some money to donate to candidate campaigns. During discussion of awarding a small amount to State Rep. Pat Somerville, it turned out that his father was present at the meeting. He spoke up to ask that the committee not award the contribution to his son, saying "He doesn't need your money, he has $60,000 in the bank. What he doesn't have is campaign workers".

11th Congressional District Republican Committee (CDRC)
      At the September 23 meeting of the 11th Congressional District Republican Committee(CDRC), it was money day. This was the time when the committee hands out the campaign cash they've raised over the last two years to candidates who show up asking for it. (The treasurer announced that $2500 had been spent earlier on the August 23 entertainment event across the street from the state convention.)

      State Representative Hugh Crawford and his wife Cathy were sitting up front hoping for a profitable visit. Mr. Crawford is about to be term limited, so he is bequeathing the family seat to his wife. (He is now running for a county position.)

      Toward the middle of the meeting, chairman Mike Mitchell was discussing a State Committee resolution regarding a state Obamacare exchange. He turned to Mr. Crawford to ask a question on the law. A brief answer was given, and then Mr. Crawford went on to volunteer at some length that he was in favor of having a state exchange, and had voted for it when it was previously proposed. This was all announced while he simultaneously said "But I'm opposed to Obamacare".

      The reaction from the committee was .... nothing. Not a single person spoke up to point out the double-talk, ask for an explanation, discuss it, or object. Total silence. Later in the meeting, they voted to award a campaign contribution to the Crawford family enterprise, and endorsed them both.

      No 11th CDRC meeting will be held in November. The committee members will all be up for re-election at the district caucus on the weekend of February 5, 2015.

State Convention
      At the August 23 state convention, The Michigan Republican party establishment and their millionaire donors were quite successful in spending several million dollars to defeat their own base. (The total amount spent may never be known, because Michigan campaign finance law does not require spending that affects P.D. elections to be reported.) The convention vote results:

The Road To Damascus
      Not long ago, Tom Stroup (the previous chairman of the 11th CDRC) posted the following statement in a Facebook comment:

      Dillon Breen and others in the 11th district Republican hierarchy also agreed with him. Perhaps Mr. Stroup's leadership on this issue can be taken to heart by anyone who also believes that one's conscience should guide their votes. His statement makes it clear that he believes that blindly voting for a party label without thought is poor reasoning, just reflex action by the uninformed. Hopefully Mr. Stroup's example may guide more people, who believe the Republican party platform should have some real-world meaning, to refuse to vote for millionaire election buyers like Rick Snyder and Dave Trott, who have been so successful in using government to boost the profits of their business cronies at the expense of average taxpayers. If the leadership of the Republican party thinks it is perfectly logical to leave areas of the ballot blank, who would argue the point?

A Little Slice of History...
by Denis Curran


      The year was 1996. Among a few dedicated Michigan residents that believed constitutions should mean something, an effort had begun that decade to try and do something about the state's restrictive gun laws, and in particular get shall-issue Concealed Pistol License (CPL) legislation passed. Today, most gun owners, particularly younger ones, don't know and cannot comprehend how bad it was for gun owners. Michigan had a pistol law in place since the 1925 Ossian Sweet riot that left it entirely in government official's hands to decide who was (quote) "a suitable person" to be allowed a concealed pistol permit. By the 1970s, that had evolved to preclude white people as well as black ones, with only a few exceptions. In the cities, if you were politically connected, or wealthy enough to influence politics, the old-boy system would get you an "unrestricted" concealed weapons permit, as they were called at the time. In more rural counties, if you made a sufficiently large contribution to the sheriff's election campaign, that was the way to go. Ordinary people without political pull, who could show receipts proving that they dealt in cash amounts higher than $500 per week, could get a "Bank-Home-Business" permit. This allowed carrying while transporting money to be deposited, but once the money was in the bank, you were supposed to unload and case your pistol. Buying and maintaining vending machines as a second income was one of the few ways people could get that permit.

      By the 1980s, the gun ban movement had picked up steam and was becoming widespread. Cities like Ann Arbor had their own "assault weapon bans". If a metro Detroit gun owner drove out on I-94 to get out in the country to go hunting or shooting, and had a semi-automatic rifle in their trunk, they were breaking the law when they passed through the Ann Arbor city limits. Gun owners gradually began to react to this, and coalesce and demand some reform from their representatives. By 1990, legislation passed the state legislature that put in place state pre-emption - local gun bans could no longer be enforced. Nevertheless, national politics were sweeping more bad things in, like the 1994 U.S. "Assault Weapons Ban". State level efforts were underway to try and pass laws requiring all guns to be kept locked up unless they were in use at a range or hunting. In this atmosphere, the attempt by a few idealistic activists to get a Michigan shall-issue law passed was a long shot. The Democrats were uniformly opposed to anything of the sort, and the Republicans made sympathetic noises, but did nothing. A Detroit News poll showed public opposition to a shall-issue law was in the 60% range. With a very few exceptions like Dave Jay and Alan Cropsey in Lansing, Republicans wouldn't come near us. They had the majority in the state House at the time, and weren't about to risk doing anything that might be unpopular, just to respond to conservatives that had no one else to turn to anyway.

      Since Michigan gun owners had no one representing us, we decided that if we had no allies, we had no friends, and it was about time to recognize that and act on it. About a dozen of us had gotten together in the metro-Detroit area, to start a group with the pretentious name of "Michigan Gun Owners". It soon got popular support, and after some monthly public meetings, grew to about 150+ dues paying members. We set out to make an example of our most prominent local Republican sellout. Jim Ryan was a first term state House rep from the Redford/Dearborn Heights area (back then, it was still possible for a Republican to get elected there). He had campaigned as a CPL law supporter, but once in office, had refused to do anything more. We met with him a number of times, and his blank faced response to Art.1 Section 6 was always "I don't believe the state constitution really means that". In combination with another regional group named "Brass Roots" we did everything we could to get the word out that pro-gun voters should help defeat Mr. Ryan. Over the months of 1995 and 1996, we gathered donations, held fund-raisers, and spent our Saturdays sending out crews of members to pass out flyers. By October of 1996, we had been to almost every house in the district. About $3000 had been saved up by then, and was spent primarily on local cable TV ads some of our members filmed themselves. We knew it was an uphill fight: the political establishments of both parties almost uniformly repudiated our goals, and as now, the press was invariably negative. By the time election day ended, I went to bed thinking we didn't have had much of a chance, but of course principle demanded that we had to make the effort.

      The day after the election I got a call at work. An excited co-conspirator said "Hey, I think we might have actually beaten Ryan!". I made some calls to the city clerk, and what do you know. The vote totals showed that Jim Ryan had lost the election by less than one-half percent of the vote, and his Democrat opponent would be the new state representative. That was an eye-opener. When an election runs that close, you know that your people's efforts had to have made a difference.

     The election result, combined with a similar effort by another pro-gun group in the north of the state that defeated another incumbent Republican, resulted in control of the state house switching to the Democrats. As you might expect, the Republican party was not happy. They were furious. One thing had changed, though: they couldn't ignore us any more. There was a period of angry charges and counter-charges, but ultimately, the Republicans realized that they couldn't blow us off any longer. They didn't like us, but they had to start negotiating with us. It took another four years of threats, action, promised deals that fell through, etc., but eventually a CPL law was passed in 2000. By that time the center of pro-gun political activity had primarily moved on to a new Lansing-area group, but it took defeating sellout Republicans to give them a negotiating position and a voice that was listened to. Politicians have no reason to pay anything but lip service until you prove you can hurt them.

      A couple of lessons became clear:

      1. Even a small local group of dedicated activists can have an amazing effect on state and local politics. Not always, but entirely possible, even when it doesn't seem like it.      

      2. Politicians respond to the pressures of the moment, and they won't respond if nobody provides any pressure. There's nothing inherently saintly about a politician that runs as a Republican; many have to be forced to do the right thing. If the millionaire wing of the Republican party can keep making money and retaining their positions while imposing Obamacare on Michigan, raising taxes, sneaking in Common Core, etc., why would they stop? If this is allowed to be what the Republican party stands for, what is there left to vote for? If you want to have any negotiating position, occasionally you have to be able to say NO to them, and carry through with it (Link). If the Republican Party Platform is to ever have any real meaning, there have to be some consequences. There will never be any reason to stop unless the perpetrators suffer some loss for their actions.      

      If we had not defeated a RINO in 1996 and helped elect a Democrat, Michigan would probably have been years later in getting a shall-issue CPL law passed. This state would likely have had to wait to follow in the footsteps of Ohio's example, instead of the other way round. Political parties are what you make them live up to. Regardless of idealistic wishful thinking, or of what the high priced TV ads tell you, that's how the real world works.

Event calendar:
November 6, 7pm- Farmington Area Republicans meeting (Link)

November 11, 7pm- Troy Area Tea Party meeting (Link)

November 13, 7pm- Wayne 11th meeting (Link)

November 24, 7pm- Wayne County Republican Committee meeting (10 months later, still no website)

County Convention dates are being kept secret for now.

Letters

Dear Republican and Independent Voters of the 11th District: On November 4, we must go to the polls and elect leaders in various areas that will affect our futures. This is neither easy nor trivial. We cannot rely on TV sound bites or radio ads to make our decision for us! These can and usually are misleading and full of negativity or lies. Most of those seeking power will stoop to any means to obtain it. However, every once in a while, we run across a person who cannot be corrupted, tainted, bought off, or dissuaded from his mission to serve the people with every fiber of his being come heaven, hell, or high water! Such a person is Congressman Kerry Bentivolio. Although there was an element of luck in his initial election, his track record over the last two years is stellar. And, when one is "prepared", luck appears to be the root explanation, when, in reality, preparedness was the root cause for his 2012 win. In the election for Congressman of the 11th District on November 4, we must all ask ourselves, are we willing to sell that seat? Indeed, there are people with means to flood the airwaves with unending ads or flood our mailboxes with daily mailings! Is this how we want to elect a Congressman? If your answer is no, you have an option--write in your vote for "Kerry Bentivilio" or simply "Kerry B" below the last name in the US Congress race for District 11 and then fill out the oval beside your write-in. And, by now many of you should have received a single (but excellent ) mailing from Congressman Bentivolio's campaign. Please read it--every page. This is the exact truth about the Congressman, regardless of what you hear or read elsewhere. Many fine citizens wrote articles in his support! No one could possibly make those articles up, as these citizens are well known and respected within the GOP circle and society. If you have not received the mailing, please contact the Congressman's campaign or borrow a copy from a neighbor. We will see if the full 12 page document can be loaded onto his re-election website (not his official DC website.) Each of us must ask ourselves this question: are we so desperate as to sell our seat in the House to the person with the most money, or are we willing to take a stand on November 4th? A stand alongside truth, fairness, integrity, hard work, love of country? Alongside a veteran and now a citizen legislator running for re-election as a write-in incumbent because money and distortions caused him to lose the primary in August? The choice is yours. DC will never miss another newcomer like the Congressman's opponent. However, we will miss Mr. Bentivolio's outstanding services on our behalf. We implore you. Please read the newsletter mailing and then do the correct thing--write in "Kerry B" on your ballot on November 4. And spread the word. If enough people support the Congressman, he will actually win. Let us not let a tested individual slip through our fingers merely because a small plurality were convinced to vote for the opposition in the primary, and who is an unknown to DC. Retain Bentivolio. Retain integrity. Retain responsiveness to every constituent request. Retain a proven citizen legislator willing to fight the DC crowd so we can have a better life. ON ELECTION DAY: Write in "Kerry B" Carlo (Precinct Delegate, Livonia)

Mr. Editor: Why on earth wouldn't a Republican vote for Governor Snyder? The real question here comes down to "what is a Republican?" Is it someone who takes seriously the party platform, and believes in the conservative principles spelled out there, or is it someone who just does what the ads say to do, and votes for anybody who can get nominated as a Republican? Back in the summer of 2009, Rick Snyder spent quite a few million dollars on TV commercials persuading voters that he was the best choice for Governor. He didn't run as a Republican - anyone who remembers those ads will know that the word "Republican" never appeared in any of them. He ran as a nonpartisan "Nerd", and that, combined with multiple actual conservative Republicans splitting the rest of the vote, was enough to get him nominated as the Republican candidate. He wasn't lying, either - he certainly hasn't governed as a Republican. Some people think that Mr. Snyder has done wonders for the Michigan economy. People who don't follow government functions closely often assign responsibility for budgets and economic conditions to the executive branch, either the governor (for a state), or the president (nationally). You often hear the same kind of assumptions at the federal government level, i.e. "the Clinton budget surplus", "the Bush tax cuts", etc.. Actually, executives, including governors, have very little actual power to affect the economy. They can either sign a law, or budget, that the legislature passes, or veto it. The Republican super majority that was elected in 2010 in both the state House and Senate is what produced the budgets and tax policies of recent years. Mr. Snyder's actual part in that was merely not vetoing them (as he has done to other conservative legislation). There is a difference between the motivations of a statesman and a businessman. What Mr. Snyder has most noticeably done is act as a cheerleader for the highest priority legislative agenda item the Democrats had - Obamacare expansion. Stemming from his business background, Mr. Snyder's only priority is the short term outlook for profit and loss. Principles don't matter to him. The eventual results of starting down the road to socialized everything don't concern him. As long as his piece of the pie looks good at the moment, that's as far as Mr. Snyder can see. If somebody else (like Uncle Sam) says they will pay the bills with magical money that comes out of the sky, Mr. Snyder is right on that wagon, no further thought required. HE can claim to show a profit; what comes next is somebody else's problem. (It's not like those Michigan citizens have to pay for any of the national deficit, or anything.) Snyder's track record followed the Democrat's desires in lots of other directions as well. During a year-long push for Right-To-Work laws, his univeral reply was "That's not on my agenda". He made no public statements in support of it, and the legislature had to push it through by themselves. That was a long, messy fight, and when the bill arrived at his desk, Mr. Snyder had to face the prospect of everyone in his own party revolting if he refused to sign it, so he was pushed into doing that at the last minute. In the end he felt compelled to, but it certainly wasn't anything he showed any enthusiasm for. What Mr. Snyder was happy to do is veto other laws the legislature passed, like the voter ID bills requested by Ruth Johnson, and improved concealed weapon laws. He acted exactly the same as a Democrat governor would have. Ask yourself - if a Democrat was governor in the summer of 2013, and called on the Republican majority legislature to do his bidding and pass Obamacare expansion, Common core, etc., would they have felt obligated to follow his lead and pass it? Would Michigan conservative citizens be where we are today? Reports in the news indicate that the Michigan Republican party leaders have raised and spent somewhere around two million dollars in 2014 to attack and defeat their own precinct delegates, their core activists. They made it explicitly clear that they are out to make war on us, as conservatives, platform Republicans, Tea Party people - whatever name you find appropriate. It is past due time we returned the favor. The party bosses can come up with enough money to manipulate the voting at county and state conventions. Now let's see how that choice works out for them in November. A lot of us have had it with Mr. Snyder's sellouts, and are not going to vote for him under any circumstances. Better a Democrat with a D after his name instead of an R; we can't be any worse off, and very likely will see things get a lot better, if the Republican majority legislature starts representing us, instead of the guy who's been giving out the orders to the rest of the state Party structure. M. Ahrens, PD/Waterford

      E.I.T.R. Policies and Principles
      If you have an article, event, or other news that you think the readership should know about, we welcome your contributions. Editorial judgement will be applied to consider what interest readers will have in the submission, so keep articles or letters to a reasonable length. Articles should be factual - you must be able to provide corroboration of your information. Articles can be published under an alias, but you must be prepared to be able to stand up in court, raise your right hand, and testify to what you personally witnessed (because it may come to that). Unsubstantiated allegations just won't fly here, and rumors will be not be treated seriously unless they have some special reason to have plausible and substantive news value. We will be happy to follow up on tips which cannot yet be proven, but we can't publish them as fact without confirmation.

      Letters expressing an opinion are fine, and will be published as such, if they would be of interest to the 11th District readership. Keep it local; there are other venues for national articles and issues. We want to focus this chronicle on items affecting Republican district affairs, including the activities of the office holders elected from this district.

      Notices of events, planning, organization, etc. are welcome. If you want to get word out to like minded people in this district, send in your notice or idea. Keep it succinct, factual, and don't bore the reader - nobody wants to plow through long diatribes. The 11th CDRC party leaders have no control over this publication, and cannot censor any notices or opinions.

      Responses to E.I.T.R. articles will be considered on their merits, and published if they are informative and a reasonable length. Our intention is to send each issue out at or around the beginning of the month, so sending items in at least a week before that is a good idea. That will allow time for two-way communication regarding any questions that may come up.

Denis Curran, Editor - E.I.T.R.