The guy asked to run in my precinct is my home teaching (ministering) companion.
I found it funny. I sent him some texts saying I didn’t know he was interested in getting involved and I wanted to talk with him. And I’ve invited him to the monthly meetings. He hasn’t responded, but that’s characteristic of him normally. I assume he was asked by a boss or something like that. And he was probably just asked to run and had no idea it was against me. The filing for all these PCOs by Gem State Conservatives / Mickelson were filled on the last day, which means they did the work of even filing for the people – same with paying for signs etc.. (I’m sure you have seen Tom Luna’s letter trying to raise 2 million dollars to flip the party. And the major expenditures with the SOS to “educate”. I know there are smaller doners as well. But I feel the major push is by big business.) I figure my challenger won’t do anything and he probably just wants it to go away and he has plenty of other things going on. And I feel like he probably agrees with me anyway (depending on what information he is presented with).
I guarantee, the main goal here is to get many people who do not have a conviction to be involved. I believe this is motivated by big businesses who prefer to have PCOs who don’t do anything because it’s easier to keep people in a passive and uninformed state. On the opposite side (real grass-roots), they demand PCOs attend meeting and are involved. In the past, the Gem State types are just fine ignoring monthly meetings and doing nothing. They give the call for any votes they need and will provide a list of people to vote for. But they rely strongly on Personal connections instead of policy (that’s why the flyers are always about saying people are endorsed by … instead of policies) — Out of the 3 P’s of politics (personality, party, policy), I’ve found Personality is the most powerful for getting votes.
I know they don’t like the idea of holding legislature members accountable to the party, instead Big Businesses like to be the ones they have to respond to. Life is a question of priorities and the choices humans make tells you more about what a person feels is most important to them. Big businesses want to be the ones with the listening ear, and Republican values (like free-markets) conflict at certain points.
I could give some more insight on the whole legislative districts and the application of Article XX rule since I was deeply involved. I honestly felt there was a bit of theater where some wanted to de-legitimize the party and it’s authority and it had little to do with in-ability to talk with others — (They are perfectly willing to talk at other forms to the same people). No politician likes a group holding them accountable to anything and it’s plainly uncomfortable if they have different allegiances. We could talk about the whole process and how nice or mean it was and the real effectiveness. I can save that discussion for another day, but I wanted to tie the idea of big business with allegiance of priorities.
If it’s not about big business, then it’s about autonomy of legislature members vs legislature members being responsive to the party. But no mater what, it’s a question of power and who has influence — if the party has no influence besides running under the party name, then it is someone else who has the influence. (ex: Party/Big Business/Executive Branch Lobbyist, etc…) Again, we can talk about effectiveness as a separate issue.
Anyway, I’m rambling now. Hopefully, I got my high-level points across.
Hi Neil and Julie,
The guy asked to run in my precinct is my home teaching (ministering) companion.
I found it funny. I sent him some texts saying I didn’t know he was interested in getting involved and I wanted to talk with him. And I’ve invited him to the monthly meetings. He hasn’t responded, but that’s characteristic of him normally. I assume he was asked by a boss or something like that. And he was probably just asked to run and had no idea it was against me. The filing for all these PCOs by Gem State Conservatives / Mickelson were filled on the last day, which means they did the work of even filing for the people – same with paying for signs etc.. (I’m sure you have seen Tom Luna’s letter trying to raise 2 million dollars to flip the party. And the major expenditures with the SOS to “educate”. I know there are smaller doners as well. But I feel the major push is by big business.) I figure my challenger won’t do anything and he probably just wants it to go away and he has plenty of other things going on. And I feel like he probably agrees with me anyway (depending on what information he is presented with).
I guarantee, the main goal here is to get many people who do not have a conviction to be involved. I believe this is motivated by big businesses who prefer to have PCOs who don’t do anything because it’s easier to keep people in a passive and uninformed state. On the opposite side (real grass-roots), they demand PCOs attend meeting and are involved. In the past, the Gem State types are just fine ignoring monthly meetings and doing nothing. They give the call for any votes they need and will provide a list of people to vote for. But they rely strongly on Personal connections instead of policy (that’s why the flyers are always about saying people are endorsed by … instead of policies) — Out of the 3 P’s of politics (personality, party, policy), I’ve found Personality is the most powerful for getting votes.
I know they don’t like the idea of holding legislature members accountable to the party, instead Big Businesses like to be the ones they have to respond to. Life is a question of priorities and the choices humans make tells you more about what a person feels is most important to them. Big businesses want to be the ones with the listening ear, and Republican values (like free-markets) conflict at certain points.
I could give some more insight on the whole legislative districts and the application of Article XX rule since I was deeply involved. I honestly felt there was a bit of theater where some wanted to de-legitimize the party and it’s authority and it had little to do with in-ability to talk with others — (They are perfectly willing to talk at other forms to the same people). No politician likes a group holding them accountable to anything and it’s plainly uncomfortable if they have different allegiances. We could talk about the whole process and how nice or mean it was and the real effectiveness. I can save that discussion for another day, but I wanted to tie the idea of big business with allegiance of priorities.
If it’s not about big business, then it’s about autonomy of legislature members vs legislature members being responsive to the party. But no mater what, it’s a question of power and who has influence — if the party has no influence besides running under the party name, then it is someone else who has the influence. (ex: Party/Big Business/Executive Branch Lobbyist, etc…) Again, we can talk about effectiveness as a separate issue.
Anyway, I’m rambling now. Hopefully, I got my high-level points across.
Ben