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Dec
9
2011
No one should be surprised that I would like to see the GOP majority in the South Dakota Legislature weakened and ultimately overthrown. I see the tension between the GOP leadership and some John-Birchy conservative activists like Rep. Stace Nelson and Rep. Lora Hubbel as an opportunity for Democrats to make some gains… or at least to find some voting allies in the 2012 Session to win compromise on various bills.
Beyond cheering for a GOP schism, I also cheer challenges to the status quo, especially in Pierre. South Dakota’s single-party system appears to have forged a narrow-minded arrogance among the Republican leadership. When a party has such large margins in both house of the Legislature, it can write off certain members of its party, knowing they aren’t essential to maintaining a governing majority. The leadership can marginalize mavericks like Nelson, Hubbel, and my own Rep. Patricia Stricherz. Those folks may have some real stinker ideas, but if they are marginalized by the party leadership, that means that their occasional good ideas and the constituents who elected them aren’t getting fair representation.
Nonetheless, to fight their marginalization, those GOP black sheep need to play the game right. Journalist Bob Mercer reports their latest cantankerousness, a purported letter demanding information from the Legislative Research Council and Director Jim Fry. The apparently photographically memorizing Mercer saw, in a glance at a letter in someone else’s hands that he didn’t ask for, that the letter alleges LRC staff were instructed ““to disclose confidential conversations and materials regarding legislation research between legislators and the LRC staff, to members of the House of Representatives leadership.” In other words, Reps. Hubbel, Nelson and Betty Olson and Senators Tim Begalka and Ryan Maher, all Republicans, accuse the LRC of spying on certain members for the GOP House leadership.
(Note: Mercer must have a copy of the letter. In his latest post on the topic, he says the sixth signature, originally illegible to him, appears to be that of Rep. Lance Russell.)
Rep. Hubbel says the letter has something to do with anti-trust laws and racketeering. She also seems to think one can simply throw around accusations and let the innocent defend themselves. Um, not helping, Lora, any more than your coming black helicopter driver’s license bill….
Meanwhile, Mercer takes time to take the LRC-spying accusers to the woodshed for not following legislative protocol. Mercer recites the House rules on discipline and explusion of members. Aggrieved members are to file a motion with the Speaker and obtain a majority vote of the House to investigate alleged wrongdoing. Outside of following such a procedure, the complainants’ letter is, says Mercer, a “meaningless… shot across the bow.”
If they follow protocol, the complainants face a hard battle. Their complaint is against the GOP leadership itself. Even if they can round up more than a dozen other Republican legislators to buck the leadership, formation of an investigating committee rests entirely in the hands of Speaker Val Rausch, with whom the complainants have their beef. Wow: maybe Stace and friends have no choice but to seek redress outside the rules on which their leaders have an iron grip.
Stace, Lora, et al., you are taking on an entrenched party leadership and journalists who are ready to assist in your marginalization. I hope you have a game plan.
* * *
By the way, if this keeps up, we’re going to need a name for these Republican contrarians. Calling them the “Real Republicans” versus the leadership Republicans-in-Name-Only will only confuse people. What are we going to call the Stace Nelson caucus? The Birchers? The China Shop Bulls? Occupy Pierre? The Madville Times welcomes your suggestions for pithy labels!
31 Responses to “Nelson, Hubbel Accuse GOP Leadership of Spying; Rules Tilt Game for Rausch”
Bulls in the chambers BITCHERS
I like it, Dithmer, on any number of levels, not the least of which is all the blog bitch-slappin’ been goin’ down lately.
“Stace, Lora, et al., you are taking on an entrenched party leadership and journalists who are ready to assist in your marginalization.”
Cory, add yourself, Fleming and the rest of your far-left New Age Theocrats to that list of authoritative tyrants who marginalize those that stand up for the little guy. It is more than just a little interesting to watch the monopoly governmental far-left activists defending the monopoly capitalist RINOs. Apply some Hegelian dialectic and you have…communitarianism.
Steve, maybe you missed it, but both Cory and Larry have been sticking up for you guys, liberals that they are. You can lump me in with the RINOS if you like though. At least I can understand what the hell they’re talking about most of the time. (Clearly, Sibb’s not yet got it that I am, in fact, a moderate, not a radical.)
Bill, this very post proves Cory marginalizes “John Birchy conservative activists”. So stop being a troll and stick with the truth.
Are you a Bircher, Sibby?
No Bill, are you a Freemason?
I don’t know, Sib. You’ve called me so many different names, I’m trying to decide which ones I like.
You don’t know? Now that is very funny.
Yeah. I went to the Shrine Circus a couple of times. Does that count?
Did you take an oath and went through some kind of ritualistic initiation blindfolded?
No. That was in art school, in color class. I had to learn Goethe and Munsell color theory because I am red/green color blind. Does that count? Are those guys Masons? Or Templars? I forget.
“we’re going to need a name for these Republican contrarians.”
The RINOs are the Republican contrarians Cory.
Yes! Goethe was a Mason. Far out! He’s also the guy who wrote Faust — the prototype story about making deals with the devil. That’s hot licks, Sibby.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust
What do you think I should do Sib? I went ahead and learned Goethe’s color theory and got a B in color class.
That was kinda good at the time, because before that, I was getting an F, because I couldn’t see what I was doing.
Later on, using that theory, I became a graphic designer and won a whole bunch of awards for my 4-color work in on the printing press. I feel terrible. Like I should go to confession or something.
I suppose, it’s too late now. I should never have learned that stuff. Isacc Newton’s stuff either.
But wait… was Gutenberg a Mason, Sibby?
That could really throw a monkey wrench in all this… because, you know… without him, nobody (including you) would even know what the bible says.)
Wow.
This conspiricy thingy of yours is big, Sibby.
Big, I tell ya!
OK guys back to the business of naming Stace’s new party. Based on the inspiration that Sibby gives us…you know the knights of templar stuff.
I will suggest the NeoCon Ideologists, or Ni for short. Kind of like the Monty Python piece from the Holy Grail…We are the Knights of Ni.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIV4KLCmJ98
Someone find a shrubbery! Quick!
OK, don’t like that one. How about the Populist Idealogues of South Dakota or PISD…because god knows they are PISD off.
Or they could be the Wagstaffs. Look it up under Groucho Marx and the movie Horsefeathers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMV44yoXZ0
Not clicking enough for a well branded party?
Maybe Bill can help us out on the process of developing a brand…you know the brand personality, brand attributes…that kind of stuff.
Bill, you create brands. Help us out. Should our first step be identifying their brand personality traits?
Jana, okay, good approach.
Yes, the classic method is to make a list of “onlys.” Things that the brand, and ONLY the brand can promise to always be.
List those in the left hand column.
Next, in the right hand column, list the things the “target” audience wants from the brand. The things that would satisfy them emotionally, politically, ideologically, etc.
After brainstorming both lists, try to rank the right hand column in order from “want most” to “want least” keeping in mind what the MAJORITY of the people in the target audience wants.
Finally, start drawing lines from your “onlys” to the things the audience wants the most. When you have matched the things your brand and ONLY your brand offers with the things the audience wants the most, you are ready to start writing poetry — a name and brand promise (positioning line) — that just might actually work.
Or… you can instead do what Sibby and Stace do. Think up whatever you want and try to beat people over the head with it until they agree to go along with them once or twice, just to shut them up.
(We don’t usually have much long range success with clients who act like that.)
I’ll be anxious to see what you come up with, Jana.
Good luck.
Okay, running through the exercise and thinking of the double entendre inherent in the word “club” (a sense of belonging vs being beat over the head in a cave-man style seduction), and abbreviating the word Republican to be at once more informal and user friendly plus being easier for the um…mentally challenged to remember, how about “ClubRepub” or “RepubClub”?
Okay, not very sexy I know, but hey, isn’t that kind of the point? I mean after all Jana, it ain’t you and me who are ever gonna join it, right?
Maybe a logo like this with some elephant silhouettes in the costume’s graphic pattern?
Tagline (as per Sibby): “Don’t even think about it.”
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-hairy-caveman-image16031274
Love the idea and the logo!
Bill!!! Great job on your donation to the 1st CASA program! Always willing to be the brunt of a sparring partner who is willing to cowboy up for such a worthy cause. Call me what you want, just as long as you are helping these kids that need it so bad. ATip of the hat Mr. Fleming, God bless ya.
Atta boy, Stace. You just might get this politics thing down yet, brother.
Bill! Fun logo! Elephants on the tunic would be great!
Jana: “ClubRepub” is far too French. Gotta put the adjective first.
Steve: It’s not my calling them “John Birchy conservatives” that marginalizes them. Lora Hubbel marginalizes herself by being a John Birchy conservative with her paranoid driver’s license bill. Nelson risks marginalization getting praise from Birchers making “Freedom Indices.” I’m simply applying terms that accurately describe who they are.
Saying that someone is marginalized does not mean I want them to be marginalized. As Bill notes, I stick up for Stace and others who challenge the status quo (read my second paragraph again). If the GOP leadership is corrupting the democratic process, they deserve to be punished. I’ll back almost anyone—Democrats, Republican insurgents, Occupiers—who can deliver that punishment.
Hadn’t thought of French (Latin) construction, Cory. In my mind, “ClubRepub” was an imperative with an implied predicate. Perhaps “ClubRepubs” would be more linguistically clear in that regard?
Of course then you start to lose the double entendre.
So yeah, let’s go with “RepubClub.”
How ’bout we name the mascot “Who-rah”?
RepubClub… as opposed to the Country Club? :-) I like the double meaning on “club”, but is “RepubClub” enough to make clear the “onlies”? Seems to me that “club” could as easily refer to the insiders running the show as the outsiders trying to change it.
Easy fix.
We spell it RepubKlub.
That should clear up any possible ambiguities, don’t you think?
Even better if we hand-letter it and draw some of the letterforms backward.
Nicely done!
Heard at breakfast: I of Newt.
Had to change my pants.
Yes I like it.
REPUBKLUB
“Where our only consistency is our inconsistency both in and out of the party”
The tent is getting smaller all the time.
I would not include Republican anything in their name. But I love the use if KKKlub.
Boy, these legislators are going to have a hard time pressing their case, aren’t they?
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