UPDATED: And It Begins – Hedlund Announces Direct Challenge to Whitbeck

It didn’t take long.  As I noted a few months ago before the 7th District convention, RPV Chairman John Whitbeck actively opposed the election of Ron Hedlund to a State Central Committee slot.  I said this was probably a bad idea, not only given the optics of having the sitting Chairman advocating against what is essentially the Board of Directors of the party, but also because John’s track record when he gets involved in intra-party races is abysmal.

If you’ll recall, I said this:

“That Whitbeck would seek to influence the make-up of the governing body he is accountable to is just inappropriate.  It’s also bad politics. If Hedlund wins, Whitbeck just stuck a thumb in the eye of somebody who will have no reason to work with him and plenty of reasons to sabotage his priorities.”

So, of course, Ron won. And today, Hedlund announced that he is doing exactly what I said he would do, and making things difficult for Whitbeck.  In an email to the entire roster of new State Central members, Hedlund said:

From: Ron Benghazi Hedlund <Ron’s email>
Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Subject: Re: State Central Committee
To: SCC Members

I want to say congratulations to all the new SCC members, and to those returning for another term.

Some of you I know from years gone by and many I have yet to meet in person. I am looking forward to making your aquaintance working alongside you as we seek to strengthen our party.

I ran for SCC in the 7th District with Susan Lascolette and Dewey McDonnell. We were blessed to receive between 63% and 69% of the vote between the three of us.

If you have not already been made aware, Chairman John Whitbeck personally opposed my candidacy and took it upon himself to publicly try to defeat me.

I have attached my speech to the delegates of the 7th District convention,  May 21, 2016. In it, I detail some facts that I have yet to hear disputed by Chairman Whitbeck.

https://youtu.be/f0SOn2RyFzw

Regardless of what groups or factions you align yourself with, if any, it is of concern to many to realize what lengths Chairman Whitbeck and Executive Director, John Findlay went to in order to prevent me from serving on SCC.

Even my opponent, Alec Thomas, agrees with me that it is inappropriate for the leadership of the RPV to engage in such campaign activity for an intraparty seat.

Alec and I are collaborating on measures we might take, in the future, to prevent a repeat of this activity by the leadership.

I respectfully request that you review the content of my speech and consider how you would have responded had the Chairman opposed your race for SCC. In fact, it has come to my attention that Chairman Whitbeck did indeed, oppose some other candidates for SCC.

Thank you for your service to the RPV, and I look forward to seeing you June 25 in Charlottesville.

Mutually pledged,

Ron Hedlund

If you haven’t watched the video, you should probably watch it.  As I’ve said before, I love Ron because he’s nuts, and this video demonstrates exactly what I’m talking about.  He spends two minutes of a three minute speech outlining all the bad things John Whitbeck has done to him, and then ends the speech saying he will work to grow our party “together and not divide it from within” … which was exactly what he was doing for the previous two minutes.

You can’t argue that you’re trying to grow the party and not divide it from within when the first thing that many of your SCC colleagues will read from you is an email complaining about the Chairman’s role in your race.  That’s not growing the party, and that looks like you’re already lining up opposition internally, which is unnecessary.

For the life of me, I have never seen so many candidates who win their races and then proceed to act like the very worst example of behavior in office after they win – refusing to bury the hatchet, nursing old grudges, and going out of their way to pick fights with those who opposed them.  I can understand why Ron would be angry – I was angry when Whitbeck interfered in my race.  But I got over it.  I would have gotten over it even quicker if I’d won, because that’s what you do when you win – you forgive the folks who opposed you and you find a way to work with them so they don’t oppose you in the future.  It’s the most basic rule in politics.  When you win a race, you don’t make the folks who opposed you kiss your feet, you get on your knees and wash theirs.  That’s what heals these wounds.

Instead, Ron has done exactly what those of us who were skeptical of his campaign expected him to do – he won, and now he’s going to make everybody else pay for it.  This is unnecessary, especially in an election year like this one.  And Ron, just for the record – nobody cares what lengths John Whitbeck and John Findlay went to in order to keep you off State Central.  Only you do.  The rest of us care more about what brand of toilet paper we use than what Whitbeck did in your race.

There used to be a day when politicians worked to get those who opposed them on their side, instead of nursing these grudges.  We’re beyond that now, and it’s clear Ron isn’t in a forgiving mood. That’s unfortunate, because that is only going to make this whole mess even more unpleasant than it needs to be.

And, what’s also unfortunate, is that our presumptive nominee isn’t any better than Ron when it comes to forgiving past foes and working to get them on your side, so I can understand why Ron is going this route. It’s not like he has any good role models.  Dave Brat certainly didn’t do any of that after he won, and neither has Donald Trump.  And the result has been that the party is more divided now than it needed to be.  Not everybody can let these kinds of slights go, and those folks who can’t don’t really belong in politics.

This is the difference between good politics and ham-fisted amateur behavior.  If this is what we have to expect for the next four years, God help us.

UPDATE – 7:25 pm on the Glorious First of June

Bearing Drift has received a statement from Alec Thomas regarding Ron Hedlund’s email. Here’s the text:

Ron Hedlund contacted me last week to ask me about the Party Plan Amendment I had proposed during my campaign for SCC. This proposed amendment would bar all elected Party Officers from endorsing in legislative nomination contests – as I firmly believe the party shouldn’t be placing its thumb on the scale in either direction and shouldn’t be picking nominees. This proposed amendment didn’t apply to party officer elections as those endorsements are about building a winning team to carry the Party forward. It is the reason both sides in the 7th District race ran as tickets.

I wholeheartedly support the passage of any such Party Plan Amendment and will happily work with any SCC Member seeking to accomplish this goal. However, I do not agree with the stated purpose of Mr. Hedlund’s email in which he listed me as working with him against Chairman Whitbeck. I very publically supported John Whitbeck during his recent election and continue to do so. It is time for all sides to lay down the arms and do what we elected them to do – make sure the Party wins in November.

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