I'm on the Minnesota GOP mailing list, in a know-your-enemy sense. This just landed in my mailbox - the resignation letter of Secretary-Treasurer David Sturrock. Here's a little taste...
A final thought: Never forget you are leaders in the Republican Party. Among other things, leadership means respect, courtesy, and self-restraint. Before you fire off a barbed e-mail or Facebook post, send a snarky tweet, leak a wild, unconfirmed rumor to the press, or phone in your fury to a late-night radio show, ask yourself: “Will this help build my party? Will it advance the conservative agenda?” If the answers are no, stop there. If it feels good, don’t do it.
Here is the full text of the email...
Dear Activists:
Today I accepted the resignation of our Secretary-Treasurer David Sturrock. We thank David for his committment to our party and work over the past several years. Below is his resignation letter.
Thank you,
Kelly Fenton
Acting Chair
December 30, 2011
Dear Republican Friend:
I am writing to inform you I will be resigning as Secretary-Treasurer of the Republican Party of Minnesota, effective upon the selection of my successor or January 19th, whichever occurs first.
The first and biggest job facing our new Chairman and Deputy Chair is to regain the confidence of activists, donors and voters in our ability to manage party finances. To that end I can offer continuity, experience and institutional memory, but our constituencies will be more interested in clear signs of rebuilding and renewal. A new Secretary-Treasurer will send a powerful message that such change is underway.
Given the work we face the party would do well to have a Secretary-Treasurer who can be present at key meetings, especially those called on short notice. This is a tall order when one lives 160 miles from RPM headquarters. Also, we would benefit from having someone with significant financial management experience. My departure will create the opportunity for such new leaders to emerge.
If future Secretary-Treasurers are to be meaningful assets to the Republican Party they will need to be informed more fully, and consulted more frequently, than has the been case over the past few administrations. In particular, they need to know when the party is entering into major financial commitments. For example, I was neither consulted nor informed about the attorney’s regarding 2010 recount costs. Also, the unreported obligations indentified by the current financial review were not known to me. If this resignation ensures that future Secretary-Treasurers receive the access and authority their position merits, then my departure will be a sacrifice happily borne.
A final thought: Never forget you are leaders in the Republican Party. Among other things, leadership means respect, courtesy, and self-restraint. Before you fire off a barbed e-mail or Facebook post, send a snarky tweet, leak a wild, unconfirmed rumor to the press, or phone in your fury to a late-night radio show, ask yourself: “Will this help build my party? Will it advance the conservative agenda?” If the answers are no, stop there. If it feels good, don’t do it.
Thank you for the honor of serving as your Secretary-Treasurer. I am grateful for the chance to be part of our many recent accomplishments. Rest assured I will always be ready to answer the bell and help elect Republicans who will bring strong, principled conservative leadership to a state and country which deeply need them.
Sincerely,
David E. Sturrock
But of course, he's a REPUBLICAN, so it doesn't take a lot of effort to dig up the scapegoating and semi-lying. The thing he doesn't mention is that the Republican Party of Minnesota is now $2M in the hole. "To put it in perspective, the party's total debt is roughly a third of what it spent on state and federal races in 2010." A good third of that debt is costs associated with the futile 2010 recount for the Dayton/Emmer governor's race. Now, the Franken/Coleman recount was a good investment - it was close enough that they might legally have pulled it off. But there's a tremendous difference between a few hundred votes in a presidential year, and 10,000 votes in an off year. They never stood a chance, and wasted tremendous resources on hysterics.
On the other hand, former Secretary-Treasurer Sturrock's scapegoating has some weight. He wasn't in the loop when the GOP party bosses were spending money like drunken sailors.
Now he knows how the voters feel.