The featured speakers at this month’s CLR meeting were two of the candidates that are running to replace the current chair, Ed Hubbard and Paul Simpson. A third candidate, Don Large, attended the meeting but was not allowed to speak except to introduce himself in the same fashion as all of the other candidates in the building. Mr. Large is a new entrant and the leadership of the club was not aware of his candidacy prior to the meeting and chose not to change the format on such short notice. They did announce that they would hold a candidate forum in January featuring all four (or more) candidates.
The meeting opened as all of these types do, with a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and the Pledge to the Texas flag. After that, the regular club business was discussed – approval of minutes, updates on activities, etc. One of the things that perked my ears was a comment by the president of the club, Richard Risinger, on membership. From their website and application form, it appears that all are welcome but Mr. Risinger stated that all applications were subject to an approval process. Interesting.
After the regular club business, the guests were invited to speak. Apparently the topic of their speeches had changed on short notice, with each referring to changing their notes. The topic, as described by Mr. Risinger, was “what effect will the outcome of the November 2009 elections have on the 2010 elections”. Each speaker was given 15 minutes and then took questions from the audience.
Mr. Hubbard was the first to speak and discussed the importance of the Virginia governors race, going into the history of Virginia and why this was important nationally. He also discussed the New Jersey governors race, the race in NY-23 in which Democrats won for the first time since the Republican Party was founded and the Houston mayoral race. He noted that NY-23 showed us that it was critical to pick the right candidate from the beginning and then to unite behind that candidate.
On the Houston mayor’s race, Mr. Hubbard noted that Roy Morales did remarkably well in the face of much adversity. Mr. Hubbard correctly explains that the reason Morales was able to far exceed expectations was because of the hard work of unpaid volunteers. Rather than call him a “gutless conservative” as one local talk show host did, Mr. Hubbard said that Morales should have received a medal for courage.
{mp3}hubbard_clar_morales{/mp3}
Mr. Simpson then gave his remarks. He generally hit upon the same topics as Mr. Hubbard, Virginia, New Jersey, NY-23, etc., adding some statistical analysis. I was surprised that he was able to accurately give statistical analysis given the short notice on the topic change. He also focused on grassroots volunteers but his was specific to the recent phenomenon of Tea Parties. That seems natural because of his early work with the Houston Tea Party Society and being involved in the early development of the Houston movement. He is very passionate about the protests and hopes to direct them to Republican candidates. Here is a brief clip where he discusses that.
{mp3}simpson_clar_tea_parties{/mp3}
After the speeches, there were some questions. One interesting one was a woman who stood up and basically chided the club, Ed and Paul, for daring to get Tea Party people to vote for Republicans. It was rather odd that she would do that given that the meeting was for and about Republicans. I guess her point was that she was going to vote for conservatives, no matter the party. Two things: one, that’s all well and good but why in this meeting? Second, good luck finding a conservative Democrat, I’ve been searching for a while now.
And lest you think that all Republicans embrace those that attend Tea Parties, and their ideas, take a listen to past CLR club president Wade Webster. Mr. Webster says that these people need to be educated because in one area, they are “stupid”. They are “stupid” because if they vote out all incumbents, they will be voting out Republicans. Listen for yourself:
{mp3}tea_party_clar{/mp3}
I’m thinking he is about as clueless towards the Tea Party movement as the woman who thought it was crazy that they were wanting her to vote for Republicans is about Republican clubs.
Just a typical Republican club meeting. You should join one (if they approve you?) and get into the mix.