DCRP election

Kathleen Starnes is the new Davidson County Republican Party Chairman. Her  opponent, Matt Collins, lost by a solid 30 vote margin. We certainly didn't need a squeaker and it was interesting that after a tie the last go 'round the margin was so large. Collins did get the consolation prize of 1st Vice Chairman by a narrow margin in a contest with the former 2nd Vice Chair Jimmy Earle.  It was obviously a disappointment to many that Collins didn't win. He won't be alone on the executive committee though, as Daniel Day Davis, who nominated Collins for Chairman, won the 2nd Vice Chairman seat. 

I suggest everyone get a nap and commit to working together respectfully and graciously. The local Democrats would love for us to spend our time wrestling with each other instead of focusing on getting them out of power.

Matt Collins Part II

DCRP chairman candidate Mike Collins responded to my open letter of three days ago. You can read his full comments here. My response follows.

Mr. Collins,

Let’s go over the ethical issue of appropriating the DCRP website for your own convenience first. I find your explanation to not make sense based on my own 10 years of experience running several websites. And the issue, while seemingly small, does reflect on your character.

You begin your explanation by writing:

"Regarding the WTN files hosted on the DCRP site, I am surprised anyone found those. I had not linked to those from anywhere on the website, and someone would have to really go searching hard to find them. It's quite interesting because I did my best to make them as obscure as possible; in other words it's highly doubtful that anyone from the general public would "stumble" across them; they would have to know where to look."

That whole trying to hide the files things is just not right. Regardless these files are not hard to find once you begin a Google search on your name. You've posted them in several places and made no attempt to hide their URL so the 'nashvillegop.org/misc' was in plain sight. In fact they weren't even hyperlinked which may make them stand out even more to anyone reading your posts which included mention of the files. If you did your best to make them as obscure as possible perhaps we should also be looking for a new webmaster.

You wrote: "...I had needed a quick, easy, and convenient place online to store a few interviews I wanted to keep; this seemed like the logical choice especially since they were not intended to be seen by anyone coming onto the DCRP website."

In my own on-line life I don't find it inconvenient to update my websites from anywhere I can get an Internet connection—the public library, Panera, and Starbucks all immediately come to mind. Lacking access you could have left the files on your laptop, burned a CD, used a flash drive--I don't see the urgent need to utilize someone else's resources for your personal files.
I can only assume, since you didn’t rebut with something like "[Name] specifically gave me permission to park those files", that this was something you did without permission or knowledge of the DCRP. In fact you intended to keep DCRP visitors from finding them. They were not merely parked they were advertised and presumably accessed. That was money out of pocket for the DCRP. While some might equate this with taking home a box of paper clips from the office the fact remains…they weren’t your “paper clips”. Donors must have full confidence that their money will not be misused. I would suggest you reimburse the DCRP for the server space and bandwidth you used for these personal files.

Regarding your own website it seems odd that the DCRP "Chief Informational Officer" would fail to turn his own unused website into a campaign tool. The placeholder web page doesn’t even contain basic contact info. It’s just a line saying “Site coming again soon.” So the delegates you sent your postcard to are stuck with minimalist details such as you were and Eagle Scout, have volunteered regularly since the age of 15 at an unnamed homeless shelter and 'understands the Internet and new technologies' (this last one I know could be done better.) Enough about websites.

Let's move on to your failure to assure me that under your leadership the DCRP would be a team player and endorse and work for the election of the Republican Party candidate for governor. You completely ignored that question. If that's by design, it's very troubling that you cannot state clearly "Yes, of course, the DCRP will work for the election of the Republican Candidate for governor".

You also ignored several other important issues I listed. So I'm left to conclude that if you can 'build the party' by bringing in the 'disenfranchised' we still don't know what specifics they'll work on once they're members since your statements of 'grow, support, increase, work, move and reach' are exceptionally vague.

You wrote: “I am NOT a political expert, and yes this is my first time involved in Party politics. But that is a clear advantage to the Party. I don't have any personal vendettas, back stories, or other personality differences that appears to have divided the DCRP for so long; this is obviously a good thing.”

A clean slate would be a good thing if that just meant no negative baggage but a clean slate is also inexperienced and lacks institutional knowledge and partnerships that are essential in strategizing and winning. If you believe that you don’t have any personality differences with current party members you haven’t been paying attention.

Again, thank you for your time. It's clear that we likely agree on several important issues and it may be that we'll partner on those someday but I'm still unconvinced that your plan is to revitalize instead of remake the Republican Party in Davidson County.

DCRP Convention

Heretofore I haven’t gotten formally involved in the Republican Party but I finally got tired enough of them not getting their act together, ignoring my part of town and completely forgetting that we have got to be champions for the conservative movement that I decided it was time to get involved. So now, I am a delegate to the Davidson County Republican Convention.

I attended both the caucus on February 21 and the convention on March 7. Having never been to a DCRP convention before I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was appalled at what I found. The room was filled with brand spanking new ‘Republicans’ who had some of the same frustration about the party as I did. Obviously, the party hadn’t been doing a good job of recruiting members themselves and the void was happily filled by Ron Paul supporters who saw an opportunity to take over. Yikes.

The first vote between three candidates for chairman whittled the field down to two. So successful was the effort by those new 'Republicans' that the vote for chairman was a tie between the old guard’s Katherine Starnes and the Ron Paul supporters' Matt Collins. The second vote ended in a tie and so the convention was suspended because no one had bothered to consider the hall might be needed for longer than than three hours and we flat didn't have time to finish the business of the convention.

I guess we should lay the blame for the bad planning and confusion on current Chair Tom Lawless who seemed to not have a good handle on how the convention would be run. The whole event was fairly chaotic, time was wasted, rumors included that there were extra ballots and Mr. Lawless had to cancel his tee time because the meeting ran long and the big mistake of not securing the venue for long enough were clear indicators of a need for a better leadership team.

Kathleen Starnes is the current First Vice Chair and if I’m unhappy with the party as it is isn’t she part of that problem? On the other hand I do understand that it's possible her one vote couldn't really change things. Her ‘vote for me’ speech talked about reaching out to Donelson and Goodlettsville and seemed to ignore taking back the urban core. That's fine but it's a mistake when the urban core is gaining political strength every year to ignore it. The man who nominated her stated she has a vision for expanding the grassroots outreach and embracing technology. Well, I can certainly attest to the fact that communication has been darn right awful for a while. My own note to the DCRP via their website has been unanswered for three weeks. Further, other than a focus on the 2010 redistricting and grassroots she failed to provide a vision or mission statement that would convince me that she's the man for taking back Davidson County.

Matt Collins works at WWTN producing for conservatives Phil Valentine and Michael DelGiorno. An association which seemed to be the prime reason he wanted us to vote for him. As if association = competence. Since the convention was suspended I’ve had a chance to do some research on him. Obviously, he’s got the social networking down (something the DCRP could certainly use) and obviously he’s passionate (something else they could use) but I’m not ready to hand over the mantle of what should be the conservative pulpit in this county to a 27 y/o with a Facebook profile that doesn’t seem to understand that folks who are going to be ‘interviewing’ him for this job are looking for some proof of maturity, leadership and vision for the party. A public profile and a photo more akin to his February 21 professional costume would have helped. Between the time this photo was taken and the convention he found a hair stylist and a good suit.

It was pretty creepy to learn that Collins attended the March 11th Nashville Republican Women’s meeting. His appearance was jarring to some of the ladies. Phil Valentine was the scheduled speaker and Collins told folks he was just there to hear what Phil had to say. What? He had made it clear he works with Phil. Phil’s on the air every afternoon. Collins ought to have memorized what Phil has to say about nearly every topic. Collin’s explanation was not believed. What was believed was that he wasn’t going to give Katherine Starnes (an actual Republican woman) the opportunity to campaign for chair. Frustratingly, Collins’ presence also kept the ladies from being able to ask Valentine for an honest assessment of his co-worker.

On Wednesday I got an email from someone, not the party or a leader, giving me a heads up that the meeting was scheduled for two days away on Friday night, downtown at 5:30. Obviously, DCRP communication hasn't improved. Sadly, it seems no one seriously considered the need for folks to have more than a couple of days notice, or the practicals of getting downtown at that time of day and then having women walking back to their cars after dark. Yes, some basics have to change at DCRP and then maybe we can start working on making a difference in Davidson County.