How Conservatives Can Defeat The Chambercrats’ $100 Million

A recent Breitbart.com article chronicled the plan by the “Chambercrats” at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to spend $100 million to defeat “Tea Party” conservatives in the upcoming Republican primary elections. This “top down,” “let’s throw money at the problem” approach can be defeated, easily, by conservatives if they expend two resources they all possess: a little bit of time and a little bit of sweat equity.

Here’s a concrete example. Remember the censure of Republican Sen. John McCain by some of the Arizona Republican Party legislative district committees, county committees, and, even, the state committee in the fall of 2013 and in January of 2014?

That led to an effort by a pro-Sen. McCain PAC to mount an effort to oust the author of the censure resolution, Timothy Schwartz, from his chairmanship of the Legislative District 30 Republican committee, which has 147 precinct committeeman slots. In Arizona, precinct committeemen are elected in the even-year primary election and serve a two year term. Going into the 2014 primary, LD 30 only had about 30 precinct committeemen. The McCain supporters succeeded in recruiting about 15 new pro-McCain Republicans through the write-in process, and when the election of officers for the new committee was held in November, a majority of the 48 precinct committee voted Mr. Schwartz out of office. Majority rules.

So Mr. Schwartz and others set about seeking out conservatives in each precinct in LD 30 and recruited them to become appointed to vacant precinct committeeman slots. They succeeded in filling all but one of the slots (one recruit turned out to be a registered independent and thus was ineligible by statute). And, after some wrangling about whether the appointments were valid (they were), eventually, under the Maricopa County Republican Committee Bylaws, a new majority of the precinct committeemen (“PCs”) of LD 30, 82 of the remaining 140 (six had dropped off the rolls), petitioned the Maricopa County Republican Committee Chairman to call a special meeting of the LD 30 PCs to remove the current chairman so they could elect a new chairman of their choosing.  Majority rules.

John McCain’s preferred LD 30 Chairman decided to resign rather than face the PCs at the removal meeting that had been set for September 28, 2015. Now a new election will be held, and a majority of the new 140 PCs of the committee will have the opportunity to elect a new chairman. Majority rules.

In a nut shell, this is how conservatives can defeat the Chambercrats.

By organizing and uniting for real political action locally, as part of local Republican Party committees. The Republican Party apparatus consists of precinct committeemen. What the Republican Party establishment hopes conservatives never figure out is that, on average, in every locale in America, currently half of the precinct committeeman slots of each precinct are vacant. That is a golden opportunity for conservatives to fill these slots and then, joining with the conservatives already “in” the Party apparatus, create a conservative majority within the Party apparatus. Eventually, this would mean that the membership of the Republican National Committee would become filled with conservatives, as PCs elect the electors who elect the RNC members.

Sen. McCain probably now fears conservative majorities on the thirty Arizona Republican legislative district committees, the fifteen county committees, and the state committee will soon be passing resolutions to support “anybody but McCain” in the all-important, traditionally-very-low-turnout primary election in August, 2016 – the first election every incumbent Republican must win. Sen. McCain will probably find it uncomfortable to answer this question: “Senator, although you seem to have a lot of money backing you, and special interests, it seems the grass roots of your own Party, at the precinct level, those who help get out the vote in their voting precincts, really don’t seem to want you to run for reelection – can you explain that?” Answer: “Majority rules.”

Please become part of the new conservative majority within the Party apparatus. It’s not hard to become a PC.

Thank you.

Daniel J. Schultz graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1978 and served as an Army Human Intelligence Officer. He now practices law. He has been a Republican Party precinct committeeman since 2007 and was a co-winner of the Conservative HQ Liberty Prize. State-specific and other information relating to The Neighborhood Precinct Committeeman Strategy can be found at http://precinctproject.us and http://theprecinctproject.wordpress.com. He can be reached at acoldwarrior@gmail.com.