The meeting started as most of these do with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to both the National and State flags. After that formality, it was pretty much all candidates. First up, each candidate was given two minutes to make an opening statement.
Ed Hubbard Opening Statement
{youtube}RB0m6P1LlNU{/youtube}
Paul Simpson Opening Statement
{youtube}TnA48nMcP-g{/youtube}
Jared Woodfill Opening Statement
{youtube}9x84N7LNkaU{/youtube}
After the opening statements, it was time for the candidates to answer questions. The questions came from the audience but were, as President Kosmoski stated, vetted to be certain they were proper because it was far too early in the day for vulgarities. Hey, I thought it was funny and so did most of the crowd. As most anyone knows that reads my writing, I”m not a fan of audience based questioning. It sounds great but in the end, most of these questions are too broad, cover too much territory and lack followups. Followups are crucial to understanding a candidate’s position and would have been extremely helpful today.
In total, there were 12 questions asked from the audience to the candidates. Here is a list of all questions asked:
- What is your view of traditional Republican Values? View question and answers.
- What will you do to make the HCRP more inclusive and inclusive and less exclusive. Specifically, what is your plan for people who maybe don’t look like you and encourage them to be part of the party? View question and answers.
- How many elected offices are there in Harris County, how many Republicans occupy them and tell us about your strategy for increasing the share of those offices, specifically for taking back the judge positions. View question and answers.
- Do you support local Republican clubs providing forums for Democratic candidates in non-partisan local races? View question and answers.
- How do you see the HCRP working to support other Republican clubs and groups across the country? View question and answers.
- Many Republicans across Harris County have felt a disconnect with the current party leadership in some part due to the intolerance of the Vacancy Committee. How would you change this situation and in a related question, what do you think of the term RINO? View question and answers.
- What is your view of the Tea Party movement? View question and answers.
- Do you think that the HCRP should be taking positions on local issues such as school bond elections? View question and answers.
- How much have each of you contributed to the party and in what way have you been involved in the party? View question and answers.
- What does the term ‘conservative’ mean to you? View question and answers.
- Should Republicans run in every race and if no, then in what races should the Democrats get a pass on?
- Since voters respond to specific messages, what do you believe is the winning message for the Republican Party today? View question and answers.
All in all, not bad questions but I do think that targeted questions would have been a bit more revealing of each of the candidate’s positions. Overall, there were not a lot of differences between the candidates on those questions. Probably the most interesting difference was on the question of getting involved in local issues such as school bonds. Both Simpson and Woodfill were for it. Mr. Hubbard has a different idea, stating that the party should be working to help elect candidates and then supporting them in their efforts. In other words, try and fill all of the school boards with Republicans and then you should be able to support their requests for funds because you have already vetted them and know their positions.
Now that might seem strange to some conservatives but if you think about it , it really does make sense, unless you make a mistake in the vetting process. For instance, Sen. Dan Patrick supported increasing funding for Cy-Fair and he’s also supported various bond issues through the years. Most people would say that Sen. Patrick is a conservative despite his support of increased spending. Another example would be the Spring Branch board, with Republicans, seeking additional funding to overcome the Robin-hood effect. No is not always the best answer when it comes to funding government services.
I’ll put video up so that you can decide for yourself on each question.
One member of the audience did have a “Joe Wilson” moment. Recall that during the President’s address to Congress last week, Congressman Joe Wilson of California yelled out “You Lie” at one point. Basically, the same thing happened to Chairman Woodfill today. Just as he started to answer question six above, a man disagreed with him. Mr. Woodfill stated that he “couldn’t think of even one time that they had turned down any Republican that was willing to work with us”. The man stated loudly that “you have turned me down” and “the party has turned me down, they’ve kicked me out”. At that point, he got up and left.
I later found out that his name is Dr. Ed Chen, former Vice-Chair of the HCRP under Betsy Lake. When I asked Mr. Woodfill about this, he sent the following response:
From day one (2002), Ed has taken the position we are not including folks who are not pro-life. He had similar issues with Gary Polland. On numerous occasions we have asked him to work with us. He has not taken us up on the offer.
I tracked Mr. Chen down and spoke with him this afternoon. He was apologetic for the disruption but became extremely agitated when I read him Mr. Woodfill’s repsonse, stating that he is pro-life. He was also upset that Theresa Chang had a primary challenger and that the party supported Austin Furse over Joan Huffman because in his view, the party should not get involved in primary battles. Mr. Chen is currently on the board of the United Republicans of Harris County. You can see their interaction in this video.
An interesting twist to this forum was that, after the audience questions, each candidate got to ask a question that the other two candidate had to answer. Here are the questions they asked:
- Paul Simpson: What strategy of the HCRP leadership has led us to have some 50{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} vacancy of precinct chairs while the Democrats have only 28{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} vacancy? View question and answers.
- Jared Woodfill: What can we do to work together over the next seven months , to move the ball forward, because we all share the same goal, to be successful in November?
- Ed Hubbard: He held up a copy of what appeared to be a canceled check, which he said was a contribution to the party in March of 2009 that was not listed on the June report. His question for Mr. Woodfill was, how are you going to fix the reporting process so that all contributions are actually shown on the report when the reports are issued and that we have a proper process in place to accurately report the HCRP finances? View question and answers.
The last one is very interesting. Did Mr. Hubbard make a legitimate contribution to the party that wasn’t reported? He says he did and has a copy of the check to prove it. If that is true, and at this point there is no reason to suspect it isn’t, that is a problem for Mr. Woodfill and the party. A huge problem. I did inquire with both Mr. Woodfill and the current HCRP Treasurer, Josh Flynn this afternoon. Mr. Woodfill was unable to respond but in fairness, he had answered several questions earlier and I assume he simply had other commitments and will respond later. If he does, I will update this. Mr. Flynn responded and said that my inquiry was the first he had heard and would investigate and get back with me. He also asked a rather odd question, was I a precinct chair? Interesting. If he follows up with a response after investigating, I will update this. I do hope that he takes this seriously because as I was asking around, I found other instances of people with the same story. This most definitely needs to be cleaned up.
UPDATE: I recevied the following response from Chairman Woodfill after he returned from the HCRP Health Care Townhall late last night.
I checked on it right after the event. He was wrong. It was correctly and timely reported. He was confused by the FEC online report which doesn’t break down anything under 250. It would be nice if he got his facts right before he made such an allegation.
I will let those two fight over the facts of the allegation. I do agree with Mr. Woodfill about not making such an allegation before inquiring about it with the party. I checked with Mr. Hubbard and confirmed that he did not inquire about his check prior to making the allegation public.
UPDATE 2: Mr. Hubbard has sent in a response to Mr. Woodfill’s response.
“I thank Jared for clarifying how my contribution was disclosed, which also answers questions that I have received from others who said they had written checks of less than $250 to the HCRP, but had not seen their contributions itemized on any of the reports filed with the TEC and FEC. However, the other specific problem with the reports that I gave as an example has not been addressed. There are 15 people and organizations that are listed on the invitation/program for the Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner earlier this year as sponsors in one of four categories (that supposedly started at levels of contribution of $250 and went up), whose names do not appear as contributors on any of the reports filed with the TEC and FEC for the period ending June 30, 2009. I can understand how people and organizations might appear on such a list as an honor for prior service and contribution, but if any of the 15 gave value equal to, or exceeding the level of the category in which they are listed, shouldn’t they, and the amounts they contributed, be disclosed on one of the reports? For example, if one of them paid $1,000 for tickets to the event, shouldn’t that receipt be disclosed on one of the reports? If so, what is the party’s plan to avoid such reporting problems in the future?”
And lastly, the candidates were given two minutes each for a closing statement.
{youtube}_qYa1bV8u4M{/youtube}
I’ve tried to be as impartial and fair as possible, I’ll have a follow up post on the claims of each candidate. I think that all of the candidates did well, each stating their case. The challengers have a steep hill to climb, Mr. Woodfill is well connected with precinct chairs and establishment insiders. And he is correct that in 3 of the 4 elections under his watch, Republicans have won countywide. But the challengers are also correct when they state that the demographics are changing, Republicans lost countywide in the last race, and the future is not bright long term without fundamental change within the HCRP.
A few pictures from the day:
Click here for a slideshow from the event.
I will be updating this with videos from each quesiton and answer period. This is an important race for Harris County Republicans. You decide.