Meyer Strikes Back – Kirwin is Wrong Once Again
By Bruce Meyer / May 7, 2008
On May 3rd, 2008, Brian Kirwin posted a story about the 2nd District Convention. In his story, there were many errors and it was flush with bias.
First, before I get to my comments and analysis, I want to publicly congratulate Gary Byler on his election to the Chairmanship of the Second District. I urge all Republicans to unite and give Gary our support and let’s not forget our true adversary, the Democrats.
In this Blog there has been talk about not knowing my politics. I am a proud Conservative. I am Pro-life and Anti-Tax. I was Fred Thompson’s Chairman for the 2nd Congressional District. While Fred’s campaign languished nationally, here in the 2nd District it was active and organized. I believe that the Republican Party needs to go back to its Conservative Roots.
Now on to Brian Kirwin. Brian loves to throw stones from his glass house. Brian likes to point out that under my leadership, we lost 4 races. However, according to the Republican Party of Virginia’s Plan of Organization, the primary purpose of the Second District Committee is to elect and re-elect a Republican Congressman. We have done that successfully. In fact we won the Second District for George Allen in 2006. The local Republican City Committee is primarily responsible for the House of Delegates and State Senate Races. In Virginia Beach, Chuck Smith was Chairman at the time of the losses. In fact, Brian was a member of the Virginia Beach Board of Directors and therefore should share in some of the responsibility. And while we are assigning credit, let us look at Senator Mary William’s primary race that Brian managed (at least that is what he told members of the Virginia Beach City Committee last year). His “expertise” led to the defeat of Marty Williams in the primary. After Trisha Stall beat Marty, Brian did not even lift a finger to help. This should be no surprise since in 2005 Brian managed the Republican primary race of tax and spender environmentalist Peter Schmidt against Conservative Delegate Bob Purkey. Of course he lost that race as well and sacrificed what little of his principles that he had left for a dollar.
Now on to the Convention analysis. First of all, Gary won due to three primary reasons:
1. Gary was smart to cut a deal with the Ron Paul Candidates. He put two of their candidates for National Delegate on his slate of five candidates for only three seats. In exchange, the Ron Paul delegation (by most accounts over 50 delegates) would back Gary Byler. At the end of the day, it backfired on the Ron Paul Revolution, since Gary was backing three other people as well for those three seats (it was even on Gary’s mailer). Incidentally, one Ron Paul person did not even make the cut as an alternate and the second person just barely made the third alternate position. Since Gary had a majority in the Convention with the Ron Paul people added to the mix, you would think that the Ron Paul candidates would have easily won.
I had considered creating a slate for the 3 National Delegate seats. I decided early on that I would not since I knew too many of the candidates and it would go against my principles to back more candidates than the positions that were offered.
2. There were unfounded concerns about a large credentials fight. Gary’s people did a great job creating the impression of voter disenfranchisement since the Second District Credentials Committee was only going to seat those delegates who were approved and voted upon by the Virginia Beach Mass Meeting. Gary’s people created the impression that the District Credentials Committee should be seating people who were not approved and not voted upon by the Virginia Beach Mass Meeting. The 2nd District Credentials Committee even had RPV (twice) rule (unanimously) that the only delegate list to be used was the 698 who were elected legally by the Virginia Beach Mass Meeting. Unfortunately, this created an atmosphere of doubt and controversy. This issue was being disputed by Gary and his people up to the last minute. This is a primary reason that a lot of key party people stayed home.
As anybody who is involved in convention planning would tell you, if the 2nd District Convention Credentials Committee wanted to cheat or even bend the rules and eliminate delegates, I would have been easily re-elected as Chairman. The rules must be followed and the integrity of the process must be upheld. I would rather stand by my principles and lose than sacrifice them and win and that is exactly what happened.
3. The average rank and file Republican and Elected Official kept telling me “not
to worry, you have done a great job, you will be fine”. Because of that sentiment, there was no sense of urgency and thus many electeds and others party regulars did not attend.
Finally, Brian Kirwin had mentioned that Kenny Golden (the new Virginia Beach GOP Chairman) was a supporter of Gary Byler. Kenny was officially neutral since he felt the Virginia Beach Chairman should not endorse in an intra-party race and he was friends with both Gary and me.
At the end of the day, Gary did a better job getting out non party members to the Convention. I did receive the majority of the current Republican Party Activists, but between the 50 Ron Paul Delegates and the extra friends and family of Gary, I did not prevail.
I am and will continue to be very active in the Republican Party in other capacities. I love volunteering for the Party and I will continue to do so. For all of you readers who supported me (like Henry Ryto), I thank you very much!
