This election season, and from now on, I’m donating my money to particular individuals I believe best represent my views. The formal republican party fund raising people might as well take me out of their databases. As far as I’m concerned, donating to them is a waste of money, that will simply help get more obnoxious RINOs elected, so they can undermine my positions by associating their “liberal-lite” idiocy with actual conservatism.

I hope all the rest of you with similar political views join me, so people like Walsh are stripped of power and forced to go get a REAL job.

Why do you guys feel the need to attack a guy who works day and night to help elect more Republicans?

I worked at NRSC for while and these people work hard for the better of party

…until Walsh is able to post his response, and engage this group in meaningful and thoughtful dialogue, something he has expressed a desire to do.

Will he do so, or will he do another drive-by posting?

There are 3 things a national committee can do

1. Undercut
2. Nothing
3. Help

Walsh did 1.

We’re just asking that at the least to just do 2.

The DeVore campaign is asking for the same level of 3 that they are giving Fiorina.

Greetings –

I see Leon has been hard at work attacking me again. Fortunately we live in a great country where everyone has the right to free speech. However, as the old saying goes, while everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they’re not entitled to their own facts.

A few quick points before I delve into things though. First of all, I’d like to thank Erick for agreeing to post my response yesterday — http://www.redstate.com/brian_walsh/2009/12/17/setting-the-record-straight/. I realize there have been a few points where we’ve disagreed over the last year but I do appreciate his commitment to an open dialogue and giving me an opportunity to respond.

I will say though that I regret the delay in replying to the comments, as well as to this post above, but I was having trouble posting a comment within the 24 hour window. It’s also been incredibly busy here with the health care debate going on as we work to hold the Democrats accountable. If some of you haven’t seen this story yet it appears the NRSC got under Senator Landrieu’s skin in particular this week – http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30783.html

I have to say though I found it interesting that soon after my item posted, Leon Wolf tweeted that I had gone “to war” with him. I thought that was a remarkable, and disappointing, bit of hyperbole.

I would make two points to that – first, any fair-minded person reading my post would note that my tone was civil, I did not engage in any personal attacks as some have chosen to do, and I simply laid out the facts. I realize facts can be difficult things for some but they are what they are. Second, I’ve often seen comments posted on RedState citing frustration from folks that they don’t believe party committees or officials in Washington ever listen to them or engage. So I found it ironic that when I did engage and laid out a series of facts, including statements from Mr. DeVore himself, Leon accuses me of going to war with him and I find myself the subject of yet another personal attack post that, like the first post, appears to have been ghost-written by DeVore spokesman Josh Trevino. Leon, are you so threatened by the facts and the temerity I apparently displayed in your view by responding to your post that you seek to kill the messenger instead of the message? Why is it so offensive to have a fair, open, and I would hope civil, dialogue without accusing someone of going “to war” with you?

Leon aside, I appreciate JoeG’s comment to my post yesterday and what you said is definitely noted. While I can’t promise we’ll engage in every misleading attack or criticism, I’ll certainly give you my word to strengthening communication on our end between the readers here and the NRSC – and not just engaging in “drive-by” postings as it sounds from other comments often happens. Again, I don’t expect everyone here to agree with a particular decision made by the NRSC but I have to say, I’ve been struck by the degree of misinformation that too often gets posted. And that’s why I thought it was important to respond to Leon’s post.

Now to the issue at hand….Let me first say that we’re not going to continue engaging every day in a back and forth with Mr. DeVore’s campaign. I honestly do not pretend to understand Josh Trevino’s strategy of posting a constant stream of twitter attacks against the NRSC and making an effort to spread misinformation. However, if that’s how he wants to spend his time — instead of going after Barbara Boxer — that is certainly his prerogative.

I will point out a few things though to once again set the record straight because in his comments yesterday Josh attempts to make the distinction that when Mr. DeVore made his comment to CNN about having no desire to meet with the NRSC, he was only talking about the NRSC’s staff, and not Senator Cornyn.

I find his effort to make that distinction interesting to say the least. Now setting aside the oddity of distinguishing that meeting with Sen. Cornyn, who is the Chairman of the NRSC, is somehow different than meeting with “NRSC officials,” let me point something out that I did not cite it in my original post, but I’m happy to cite here.

Here is what the Washington Times reported as far back as August 13th – “When asked whether he had any plans to meet with the NRSC while in Washington Mr. DeVore replied, “I don’t see the point when Sen. Cornyn has made it clear what his wishes are.” Here is the link – http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/13/hot-button-40559692/

In other words, just as he did when he spoke with CNN, and just as we all read in The Hill newspaper yesterday — http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/72675-outsider-senate-candidates-decline-partys-offer — the DeVore campaign has had no serious interest in meeting with Senator Cornyn or the NRSC. I would put an emphasis on the word “serious.”

And you know what – that is perfectly fine. If their decision is that they have no interest in working with us and instead want to use the NRSC as a foil to attack us in an effort to boost their anti-establishment credentials, that is entirely their prerogative. Again though, I’m confused as to why Trevino continues to reiterate that they’ve made a serious effort to set up a meeting with the Senator when his own candidate said three months ago that he didn’t see the point in a meeting with him.

But let’s even set that second on the record statement by Mr. DeVore aside. If he wanted a meeting with Senator Cornyn to discuss an endorsement and to discuss his political campaign, why would he send a fax to the Senator’s government office – as Trevino has stated they did — and not the Senator’s office at the NRSC?

Every other candidate – in every race across the country – and Senator Cornyn and his staff have met with literally dozens of candidates and potential candidates this year – picked up the phone, sent an email, or sent a letter to Senator Cornyn’s attention at the NRSC. The vast majority took a few minutes and picked up the telephone. Trevino should know that it’s against the ethics rules of the Senate to set up and hold political/campaign-related meetings in a government office paid for by the taxpayers.

Yet only Mr. DeVore’s campaign would have everyone believe that we were unresponsive to them on purpose? Our staff has met with over 60 candidates and potential candidates this year – a number of whom are sitting officeholders as Mr. DeVore is — and yet Trevino would have us all believe that out of all of them, we ignored Chuck DeVore on purpose? I’m sorry, but that does not even begin the pass the smell test.

The reality was the same then, as it is now – if Mr. DeVore would like to meet with the NRSC to discuss his campaign and ways we can work together to defeat Barbara Boxer next year, we would be happy to do it. That has been the case from day one. Let me give you one example and it’s something Leon cited above – it is true that on November 5th the DeVore campaign emailed the NRSC (note that when they actually want something they do know how to email the NRSC directly, and do not send a fax to the official office which receives hundreds of faxes from Senator Cornyn’s constituents in Texas every day) and asked if we would similarly publicize their fundraising events, as we had been doing for Carly. Now the natural question would be why had we not been doing that earlier. The answer is simple – the DeVore campaign had 1) never asked us to publicize their events before, 2) more importantly, they had never sent us their events before. We’re not able to publicize something if we don’t know about it. However, once they asked us, as the Fiorina campaign had done earlier, we did just that.

Now, all of this aside, what I do not understand though are all of these silly games and distortions that Trevino, Leon and others continue to engage in. Gentlemen, do you understand that right now the Democrats are in complete control of Washington DC? Do you recognize that with 60 Senate seats Harry Reid has a super-majority and has the ability to ram thru any bill that he would like? So if the answers to both those questions are “yes” why then spend all of this time attacking fellow Republicans? It honestly makes no sense to me because it seems utterly self-defeating.

Regardless, so everyone here understands what we’re spending our time doing though – we are focused 100% on winning back Senate seats in 2010. Republicans are currently ahead in the polls in 6 seats currently held by Democrats. I hope one day soon we can add a 7th to that list – California. But we do that by focusing our time and energy on holding Barbara Boxer accountable – not fighting amongst ourselves.

In closing, I fully expect – judging by some comments already posted – that I’ll continue to be criticized and that’s ok. As I said at the beginning, we live in a great country with the right to free speech. I just hope we can all keep it civil and ultimately keep our eye on the goal of winning the Senate race in California next year.

And Josh – as I said to you via Twitter the other day, if you ever want to bury the hatchet, put this wasteful use of time and energy aside, and sit down at the NRSC or even grab a beer next time you’re in DC, I’d be happy to do it.

Regards,
Brian

For example, let the Florida grass roots Republicans decide if they want to select conservative Marco Rubio rather than RINO Charlie Crist. Quit making endorsements, as you did for Crist, and then, when called on it, come up with a lame excuse, like Cornyn’s, along the lines of, “Well, golly gee whiz, Crist asked us for the endorsement. What were we supposed to do? We didn’t REALLY mean to meddle.”

Get outside the Beltway once in a while.

Not one red cent for the NRSC until it stops meddling in the primaries.

Thank you.
ColdWarrior

Walsh responded by calling this a mischaracterization and threatening DeVore with a withdrawal of NRSC’s help in the general if the DeVore campaign spread this eminently reasonable interpretation of Fiorina’s remarks.

So far, no one has read it but the gist of it is…if Walsh is on record threatening to withhold NRSC support for the Devore Campaign in a general election against Boxer…his job should be history! This is beyond an outrage and the NRSC and Cornyn need to hear from all of us!

National Republican Senatorial Committee
Ronald Reagan Republican Center
425 2nd Street NE
Washington, DC 20002
Telephone: (202) 675-6000
E-mail: info@nrsc.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Senator John Cornyn
517 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202-224-2934
Fax: 202-228-2856

Here’s my diary from yesterday

Brian Walsh Exposes Conservative’s Neglected Flank In The War For The Direction Of The GOP!

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

Allow me the address one last thing and that is to the question of whether or not I or anyone else at the NRSC “threaten[ed] DeVore with a withdrawal of NRSC’s help in the general if the DeVore campaign spread” — which Leon clearly accuses me of doing in his post above. And I should add that if Leon and Mr. Trevino were not working in concert to spread this absurd accusation, might someone ask Leon from where he obtained all of the information he outlined above in his post?

But to the question — short and clear answer — absolutely not. In fact, since I’m aware that Mr. Trevino has taken the liberty of sharing some of our past email correspondence with select friends on this site, let me share what exact response was to Josh on October 21st when he himself made the bizarre accusationt that I had “threatened” his campaign.

This is my exact response to him on October 21st —

Josh – what’s astonishing, and disappointing, is your decision to repeatedly twist words and distort the truth. I’m equally astonished as to why you’re so overly-antagonistic. There was no threat whatsoever – I simply asked how/why you feel it’s productive and helpful to your candidate to routinely attack and distort the positions of the very party organization whose support you would need if he were to be the nominee. An entirely fair question to raise when you are spending so much time and effort attacking fellow Republicans, and not Barbara Boxer. You declined to address that question and instead accused me of threatening you. It’s not just astonishing – it’s bizarre. Clearly – and unfortunately – you don’t have any desire to have a reasonable, productive and honest exchange so I’ll just end it there. Take care.

In other words, there was no threat whatsoever. What I was doing was raising a legitimate question, and one that frankly, more supporters of Mr. DeVore should be asking themselves. Why as Mr. DeVore’s spokesman is Josh Trevino spending all of this time attacking fellow Republicans, and particularly an organization which would want to help his candidate if he were to be the nominee? It is simply bizarre, and in my view, an unfortunate waste of time and energy. You’ll also note my surprise in this email because I’ve never encountered anyone who would make such a bizarre allegation, and particularly from a fellow Republican.

As I said the other day, if the DeVore campaign ever chooses to stop playing these games, set up a meeting with the NRSC and start working together on holding Barbabra Boxer accountable, we would be happy to do it. However, judging by his response above regarding the olive branch I extended in my earlier comment about sitting down, I unfortunately don’t have a great deal of confidence that Josh is serious about it.

If that ever changes – and I hope it will one day – we would welcome an opportunity to sit down. Until then, as I said from the outset, I’m not going to engage in a daily back and forth with those who unfortunately appear to have no interest in an honest dialogue. I have no doubt Mr. Trevino or one of his surrogates will reply back to this with yet another bizarre and unfounded attack. They are welcome to continue to spend their time and energy doing just that. I have very clearly laid out the facts and our position on this matter.

In the meantime, we’re going back to work holding the Democrats accountable every day – particularly Barbara Boxer. It’s my hope that the DeVore campaign will one day join us in that effort.

Regards,
Brian