Open letter to Chairman Luke Esser, Washington State GOP
Dear Chairman Esser,
I am the GOP PCO for SEA 34-1247 precinct, and delegate for Dr. Ron Paul.
I write to strenuously object to your intentionally deceptive and biased press release titled, "Sen. McCain Wins Republican Precinct Caucuses in Washington State" of February 9, 2008.
With 87.2% of the precincts reporting and 13.8% "uncommitted" or "other" (meaning we do not know their preference, or did not support Mr. McCain) and 16.5% supporting a candidate who has suspended his campaign (Romney), it is outrageous that you pre-emptively declare a winner of the Washington caucuses, when the statistics and circumstances cannot support such a claim. You cannot know how those groups of delegates will allocate their vote to the 3 remaining candidates (McCain,Huckabee and Paul).
As a supposedly experienced, past elected representative I cannot believe you are so ignorant to not understand what these numbers mean, or don't mean. If you are that ignorant I hope you are never elected as a representative to anything requiring economic comprehension. Perhaps you learned your mathematical understanding and "voter intent" from the King County Elections Department?
I can only conclude that you are intentionally using deception to bias the outcome. This is an insult to the voters who were invited to participate in the Republican caucuses. You must imagine most of those people are mentally dim enough to buy into your deceit - this is a level of contempt that is unworthy of any Party Chairman.
How you can expect us PCO's work to build a "big tent" Party, when you make ridiculous claims about a "winner" from a plurality outcome among delegates who may redistribute their votes, is beyond my comprehension. You undo everything I work toward to convince voters the Republican Party is honest and trustworthy.
I formally request that you withdraw your statement of a Washington State "winner" of the GOP caucuses, and simply report the honest numbers of the results. Let the voters draw their own conclusions.
If you do not withdraw your twisted statement, I no longer consider you an honorable leader worthy of the Chairmanship of the State Party.
You were not elected to make unfounded, authoritarian statements that intentionally distort a conclusion.
I will urge my fellow PCO's demand you withdraw your statement.
Sincerely,
Cary Thomas, GOP PCO, SEA 34-1247
West Seattle
(published at various internet venues; news media; select PCO's; washington4ron.blogspot.com)
I realize that party officials are under pressure to coronate St. John "Agents of Intolerance" McCain. But the voters should have their say. The party poo-bahs don't get to pick for the rest of us. If you guys want to act like a bunch of liberal fascists and steal an election, even if it's "just" a primary, then I'll be sure I stay home in Nov, and I'll try to convince every Conservative I know to do the same.
Posted by: Reaganology on February 10, 2008 08:33 PMThen you aren't thinking very critically: you are, probably, intentionally using deception to bias your own conclusion.
I have no horse in this race -- I stated my preference for Fred Thompson at the caucus -- and it seems to me the most obvious conclusion is that Esser simply wanted to make news, and didn't want to wait until the next day to do it, and McCain was leading.
He shouldn't have declared a winner ... other than the 17 percent left to count, far more important is that we can't actually know who wins the caucus delegates until May 29-31 at the state convention, for many reasons I detailed on my front-page post. But to assert ulterior motives seems silly to me.
Posted by: pudge on February 10, 2008 11:25 PM