L’affaire Berg

berg_400pxI am not immediately familiar with all the ins-and-outs of this instance — let’s begin there.  Outsider looking in.

Here’s what we know:

  • A write-in campaign on behalf of Delegate Berg was exercised by two Tea Party organizations, independent of Berg.
  • Delegate Berg lost his primary contest.
  • Delegate Berg had a duty according to the RPV Party Plan not to oppose the nominee.
  • Activists from the Republican campaign asked for the 10th District committee to take action
  • Multiple activists attempted to get Berg to disavow the effort, including Bearing Drift’s Brian Schoeneman.
  • Berg maintained strict silence.
  • 10th District Chairman Jo Thoburn specifically asked Berg; Berg maintained his silence.
  • 10th District asked RPV Chairman John Whitbeck to get involved.
  • Chairman Whitbeck repeatedly attempted to contact Berg; Berg maintained his silence.

The Party Plan on this is clear:

(a) makes a reportable contribution to and/or
(b) allows his name to be publicly used by and/or
(c) makes a written or 
other public statement in support of a candidate in opposition to a Republican nominee in a Virginia General or Special Election.

The question is whether or not Art. VII, Sec C sub (b) is violated.  General Counsel — perhaps speciously — determined that because his campaign account was not closed, Berg was indeed a “candidate” for public office.  One could easily dispute this, as campaign accounts cannot be terminated until the following year.  Of course, it is laudable that the “high bar” for active support is candidacy — at least by the first definition.

This gets to the second condition, and perhaps what troubles me the most:

A write-in campaign, which included signs and letters to the editor, using the member’s name certainly constituted public use of his name. The question is whether he allowed it. An essential element of the question is whether the member was aware of the effort. In this case, the effort was quite public, but the Chairman took the additional step of providing notice to the member and giving him an opportunity to act on that notice. As the member was aware, the question then becomes what constitutes allowing.  The plain meaning of allow includes “to let something happen,” or “to permit.” “Acquiesce” is acommon synonym. Antonyms are most instructive and include “disavow,” “repudiate,”“reject,” and “dispute.”  In the absence of any effort to publicly oppose the write-in effort,the member clearly allowed the public use of his name in support of a candidate in opposition to a Republican nominee.

That does not wash.

Qui tacet consentire.  Silence grants consent.  In the argument proffered by RPV General Counsel, one is almost immediately reminded of the closing scene in A Man For All Seasons where Cromwell charges that St. Thomas More’s silence betokens opposition:

CROMWELL: Let us consider now the circumstances of the prisoner’s silence. The oath was put to loyal subjects all over the country who all declared His Grace’s title to be just and good! But when it came to the prisoner, he refused! He calls this “silence.” Yet, is there a man in this court…. Is there a man in *this country* who does not know Sir Thomas More’s opinion of this title? Yet, how can this be? Because this silence betokened… nay, this silence was not silence at all, but most eloquent denial!

In short, Berg has the better argument.

This unfortunately puts RPV Chairman John Whitbeck in a rather unfair spot.  Whitbeck explained in response to an inaccurate and incorrect Bull Elephant article that the Party Plan does not offer any form of due process, the termination from party offices being automatic upon a violation of Art. VII, Sec C.

Therein lies the crux of the entire argument.

It would be one matter if a handful of activists, or the 10th District, or RPV hounded and harassed an individual to the point of demanding their silence be converted to something more positive.  Yet the mechanism in the Party Plan — and one has to be very patient to tease this out — is not a party driven process, but rather a resignation process initiated by the individual actor himself.

Whitbeck explains this perspective rather clearly:

After several weeks of this, Chairwoman Jo Thoburn called Del. Berg and spent a long time trying to convince Del. Berg to disavow the write-in campaign and/or tell the individuals behind the campaign he did not authorize the use of his name. Del. Berg refused to do so. A prominent conservative leader then called Del. Berg to try to get him to disavow the write-in campaign. Del. Berg refused. Del. Berg could have been deemed resigned from Official Committees after these telephone calls, but we did not take any action at all in this regard at the time.

Instead, Chairwoman Thoburn contacted our General Counsel and requested legal advice on what her obligations were in the face of a groundswell of activists, elected officials and Party leaders demanding action against Del. Berg for the write-in campaign. Both the Chairwoman and I took this matter to be one of grave concern and we wanted to make sure everything possible was done before any resignation became public. RPV Counsel advised that Del. Berg was deemed to have resigned from all Official Committees.

However, even though Del. Berg was considered resigned from Official Committees at that time, I still felt it was imperative that we give him another opportunity to correct the situation. Thus, we did the following…

So the question remains: did Berg violate Art. VII, Sec. B, sub (c)?

This is unfortunately a failure of the process.  Whitbeck is completely correct: there is no due process stipulated by the Party Plan.  The entire affair was — predictably and tragically — left on Whitbeck’s doorstep.  Same with Chairman Thoburn and the 10th District Committee.  A handful of activists kicked down the door and demanded satisfaction.  In good conscience, one cannot blame either set for executing their presumptive duties in this matter…

…but it does go back to a certain immaturity among ourselves as Republicans.

Berg’s silence can be construed according to one’s wits, and though I find myself twisting between lauding the “high bar” of candidacy as defined opposition in contrast to the “low bar” of silence-as-malice, one gets the sense that this is a question that ought never to have been raised at all.

Pop Quiz: Who is the real opposition here?

hillary poster

Pop Quiz x2: If the election were held today, take your favorite Republican candidate or stitch all their best qualities into one person.  Who wins in Virginia?

Hillary does.

…and you’re lying to yourself if you think otherwise.

Pop Quiz x3:  Is this really worth it, kids?

I’m not convinced that every public figure should be chasing their tail about who or what they are or are not supporting at any given time.  The Catholic Church supports all sorts of things that are perceived on the political left (i.e. preferential option for the poor) that could be construed under a more specious translation of the Party Plan that would exclude a good number of Catholic Republicans — Whitbeck, Cuccinelli, McDonnell, myself, etc.

Not only is this a dark road to travel down, it’s a stupid road.

This was not a disagreement worth having, folks.  Berg’s silence is on Berg’s conscience.  Kicking down Whitbeck or Thoburn’s door and demanding action is shortsighted in the extreme.  Raising every disagreement to RPV Appeals Committee is wasting our time, and the default position of Appeals Committee from this point forth ought to be to uphold the unit or district committee decision by default.

President Hillary Clinton, folks.  Happening, unless we pull our s**t together, and we’re fighting over write-in campaigns?? 

If that persists, we deserve to lose.

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