RNC, Romney try to bypass legitimate caucus with “shadow state party”
This is essentially an admission that Paul is taking over the party. All the cheating and dirty tricks so far have not prevailed, so they’ll pull the ultimate cheat: create a shadow party and claim victory. But the real delegate count shows they’re nowhere close to victory.
The Las Vegas Sun reports,
Fed up with an inept and self-destructive GOP apparatus in Nevada, the Republican National Committee and the Mitt Romney campaign have decided to erect a “shadow state party” in this critical swing state, sources confirmed today.
“They are still bogged down in the minutiae of whether Romney will be the presumptive nominee,” scoffed a GOP strategist familiar with the details of the restructuring. “We don’t have time for that when the Obama campaign already is in full campaign mode. We have no use for them (the state GOP).”
The lack of faith in the Republican Party here intensified with the botched February caucus, metastasized after the Ron Paul takeover in Sparks and reached its zenith with Tuesday evening’s call for RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to resign by a divided Clark County GOP
Priebus was described to me as “disappointed with the censuring,” which probably means his blood pressure went high enough to give an elephant a stroke. So Priebus, in concert with the Romney folks here, have decided to turn the so-called Team Nevada office on Tropicana into the de facto Republican Party.
“The goal is for us to be running get out the vote, running phone programs, voter ID, voter contact, everything through the Team Nevada headquarters,” the strategist told me. That is, everything the party is supposed to do, except the GOP here can’t raise money and has the inmates running the asylum.
He continued: “The RNC has said it is willing to do everything possible as the state party appears not to be willing to work with us, so we will do it without them.”
The plan would be to transfer money directly to Team Nevada and/or funnel some through the Washoe Republican Party, run by the respected Dave Buell, who is well-liked by the RNC and Romney folks.
To distill, the GOP insider said, “Essentially we’re setting up a shadow state party.”
In an interview, one Ron Paul delegate explains the trick and chicanery he witnessed at the NV convention, and explains the real reason Josh Romney was booed: he clearly broke the rules and the Party had taken the Ron Paul delegates’ mics so they could not voice properly.