Usually, that’s what inside-the-GOP party mechanics, especially the “State Chairman” race, is like.  The machinations of the GOP State Central Committee are kept pretty much out of the reach of us plebeian activists-on-the-street, or so it sometimes seems.  Both at the Congressional District and State level, it often seems that we foot soldiers have as much say in things as Catholics in the pews do in the selection of the next Pope.  The difference is, most Catholics actually know how the election is carried out.

This year, though, things are a little more interesting – interesting enough that I’m actually going to write about it for the first time in this blog’s history. 

Ron Carey is, of course, running for re-election.  He was dealt a bad hand in the last election; it was a bad cycle to be a Republican.  A lot of my good friends support Ron; I think the party could do worse.

Colonel Joe Repya is also running.  He’s an intrigueing possibility; a natural PR whiz, of course, but most of all a leader in both the military and Reaganesque senses of the term, a guy with a vision and the ability to convey it.  If elected, he just might help counteraction some of the “passion fatigue” that’s been afflicting the hordes of volunteers that the GOP depends on.  This is nothing to sneeze at; while the DFL rents people to do the door to door work (like they rent their bloggers), the GOP uses volunteers – people in it for the love of the cause – for both.  And volunteers stepped up in ’98, ’00, ’02 and ’04 – all of them “Must-Win” elections in which we did, indeed, kick donkey.  But all of that volunteering has a cost – in energy, job time, family quality time, the works.  In ’06, the usual suspects among the volunteers, the people that run things, seemed tired; after the election, they seemed dejected, like they needed the break that this accelerated season can’t give ’em. Repya might be, figuratively, the tonic for the metaphorical troops. 

Now, I don’t ever take sides on things like State Party Chair races.  Besides being of not that much interest to me, the last thing I want is for my blog and the Northern Alliance show to be seen as having a dog in an intra-party fight, when my/our real mission is supporting conservatism as a whole.  That’s job number one.   It makes it difficult, of course, that I know, and have had extensive interactions with, both candidates – which makes staying neutral all the more imperative (not that I think I actually have any influence in the party, don’t get me wrong).

But this is going to be the first interesting State Party race I’ve ever heard about.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 10:14 am and is filed under Minnesota Politics, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.