Word has it Colonel Joe Repya is going to run for State GOP Chair.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Joe Repya is announcing a run for the state Republic Party Chairman. Repya tells KNSI news the reason why he’s running is the state needs leadership and the downward trend of losing Republican seats needs to stop. Repya will make the announcement at the capital April 11th at 10 in the morning. No word if the current chair, Ron Carey will run for reelection.
It’s going to be an interesting month to be a Republican.
I personally have no dog in the race for state GOP chair. I worked for one of Ron Eibensteiner’s companies when this blog started (not, I should note, a successful company, although its certainly wasn’t Eibensteiner’s fault), and always admired him. I thought he deserved better than the party gave him after the ’04 election. Current chair Ron Carey excites strong emotions in some, but also has eloquent defenders.
I think fate dealt Carey lemons, to an extent – it was a lousy cycle even for great Republicans with long track records (see Phil Krinkie); the 2006 cycle was a “test of leadership” in the same way that the sinking of the Titanic was a “test of seamanship”; it was hard to make much of a positive showing. That being said, Minnesota Republicans needn’t have suffered that bad a debacle, either.
And of course I admire Colonel Repya.
I haven’t made up my mind yet.
I suspect this’ll be a big topic on NARN Volume III (“The Final Word“) this Saturday.
I had breakfast with Ron Carey on Tuesday. We had a long talk. I told him that he was handed a grenade with a pulled pin in 2006 as regards the ’06 Election. I put much of the MN State GOP disaster on Pawlenty starting with the 2004 election cycle (He kept repeating “the do nothing legislature” when the Repubs had a 13 seat majority in the House but it was only the House that was up for election(not the “do nothing” DFL controlled Senate that was the legislative drag. Tim should have said “do nothing DFL Senate”…but didn’t). Couple that with Tim’s “expansion of gambling” comments before the election and you have a flood of Indian gaming money coming into the DFL coffers. And the perfect ensuing storm of money and an electorate that agree with Tim that’s it’s time we flush out that “Do nothing legislature”. The result was the evaporation of the huge GOP House majority and the political reality that we didn;t have overwhelming control of the House and therefore also loss the force we had to even cower the DFL Senate from time-to-time. Good job Governor! And after the ’04 disaster, Pawlenty argues “fees” are not taxes and that it’s OK to take away my widowed mother’s vote and force her to be taxed to make the Pohlads even richer with a new Twins stadium. Nah, Tim Pawlenty had much more to do with the ’04 and ’06 disaster that Ron Carey. And the MN Repubs got painted with the same brush that was used nationally. Go to the Basswood Research report commissioned by the Club for Growth to see why Repubs lost nationwide ( http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWE4OGYxNWI3NGRiYTYwYjliYTNmNTZlNTdmOWU0ODA= and http://www2.nationalreview.com/article/06-11-09nationalsurvey.doc ).
I also know Joe Repya. I applaud his service and admire his passion. He is outspoken and direct. He is a warrior. And I most certainly and agreeably understand his frustration. That being said, I don’t know that this is the fight he should pick. I see his passion and energy could easily and should be better used someplace else in the MNGOP than in a fight for the Chair position.