Dear Chairman Priebus, don’t freak out. We are working to save you from yourself.
I am a wife and mother of three, a business owner, and a grassroots volunteer. I have been Vice Chairman of my county Republican Party and of my local Republican Women’s Club, and I am a first-time delegate to the Republican National Convention.
In the 2012 primary, like so many other Republicans, I was determined to help our Party nominate a candidate who could take the fight to Barack Obama, and articulate the cherished principles of our Party that have made America exceptional. Our liberty — born in the heart of God – is the animating principle of our Republic, and the engine of our prosperity. Nothing this side of heaven is perfect. And I agreed with Sen. Phil Gramm when he used to say liberty is no exception. “Trouble is,” he would say, “it’s better than anything anybody’s ever figured out.” Indeed, all of human history is witness that free markets, smaller government, and individual liberty have done more good for more people than anything ever.
As many like-minded members of our Party, I believed that Newt Gingrich, not Mitt Romney, was the best standard-bearer of this message in the general election. So I did what many grassroots volunteers in our Party do in presidential primaries. I packed up the kids and my Mom, and went first to Iowa, and then to South Carolina to help run phone banks for a campaign that had little organization or money, and looking back, probably began as a promotional effort to sell books and speaking fees. I don’t think Newt ever dreamed he would have to run a real campaign with real staff. But alas, he found himself surging in the polls just ahead of Iowa.
When we arrived a few days after Thanksgiving 2011, the paid staff had just unlocked the door of the Des Moines headquarters. The primary in Iowa was going to be held January 3rd. Not a lot of time to organize. We were literally the only volunteers there except for a lady named Judy from Indiana who had arrived as a volunteer like us, and had been tapped to answer the phone and run the office. We went home for a few days at Christmas, and returned just a couple of days after to help work the final push.
As other volunteers started to pour in, we did the best we could, working 12 hours a day. I helped train new callers, create scripts, and compile “best hits” talking points based on the state of the race that day and what seemed to be resonating with voters. We signed people up to speak for Newt at their caucus meeting on yellow sticky notes. I spoke at a caucus meeting.
After Iowa, I was asked by our grassroots Newt team to run a phone bank in South Carolina. I packed up the kids, asked my Mom in Kentucky to meet us, and drove 22 hours to Greenville to work the two weeks prior to the South Carolina primary. Newt ended up winning it (thanks to a stellar performance at the presidential debate there where he took on the media for how it covers Republicans. It was a winning narrative.).
I went home to Lubbock and continued to work full-time as Newt’s National Volunteer Coordinator, an entirely volunteer position for our grassroots team in which I contacted and coordinated volunteers to travel to the primary contests leading up to and including Super Tuesday. I was a stranger calling to ask them to go and stay entirely at their own expense with nothing to offer them but the glamorous work of phone banking and block walking to convince people to vote for Newt in those battleground contests.
When Newt lost the primary, I mourned.
And then, with the general election in the balance, I led a group of Republican Women from Lubbock to Cleveland, Ohio. We spent a week knocking on doors in rain gear for the Romney/Ryan ticket, as hurricane Sandy was blowing in on the east coast.
My point in all this is that anybody who wants to accuse me of being motivated by sour grapes can stuff it.
Mitt Romney was not my choice. But he is a talented businessman whose respect for others is evident. He believes in the power of free markets to “lift all boats.” He is a decent and honorable man – one my children can look up to.
This election, and this “presumptive nominee” are different. The question in this election is not if Republicans can get over the fact that their first choice didn’t win the primary. The question is if there are any boundaries to our Party at all. Does the Republican Party stand for anything? Or are we bound to allow 12 million people who aren’t even Republicans dictate what the Party now stands for and who its standard-bearer has to be? And are we also now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trump Inc.?
That the majority of Republicans don’t want Donald Trump is a fact of the primary election, and also of recent polling. The vast majority of my constituents as a Republican National Delegate from Texas’ 19th Congressional District who have contacted me say they long for someone else to vote for.
Fortunately, the founders of our Party knew that we needed an escape hatch. That’s why we have delegates, not just a popular vote. An examination of the history of our Party and of legal precedent shows that the delegates to the Republican National Convention may cast a vote for a different candidate than the one dictated by their state’s Presidential Preference Primary or Caucus, when conscience, the good of the Party and our nation dictates they must. This is such a time.
My message to you Chairman Priebus is this: I understand the position you hold, and your belief that you are duty-bound to (nearly daily) embarrass yourself by attempting to embrace Donald Trump as the likely nominee of our Party.
But those of us who are delegates have a different role. Our Party rules say the delegates are the “highest authority” of the Convention. It is the delegates who choose our nominee. So along with other delegates, I am working to save you from yourself.
We are educating the delegates of the historical and legal precedents to vote their conscience, to give them a green light to do so. Our goal is to put forth as the Republican Nominee for President of the United States, someone who is an honorable and vigorous advocate of the blessings of individual liberty, smaller government and free markets – someone who understands that it is only these principles that actually can make America great again. You can thank us later.
Yours Truly,
Sondra Ziegler, Lubbock, Texas
National Delegate – Place 1, Texas Congressional District 19
#freethedelegates
Dear Sondra,
We got this. Please stay home and understand that the guy you campaigned for last time created Donald Trump. The big ole establishment feeling you are having about Trump is why he was elected. Newt would tell you as much too. I am sure as Newt is being vetted to be VP he would offer you this advice. Please stay home and stomp your feet there.
Signed,
All anti-establishment Republicans in America
Dear Sondra, its persons like you and others that rig the campaign with misery spoken words after all the Primary is finish and done with and the majority of the Republican persons whether they switch and dich the other Party or whether 1st time voters you need to learn one thing “respect the will of the majority of the voters”. All those Representatives on our side, and on the other side wants illegal immigration to continue as it is operating because it benefits them, it benefits business, and it makes each other rich while using the underprivileged human beings to do the hard work at $8.75 to $14 an hour. Also the guys enjoy the human trafficking coming across to sin with. So please don’t tell me how you earned your strips, just realize that it took Republicans too who voted Obama in also just like they do in Houston….they vote Democrats in when its convenient.
Stay home and ponder your duties and stop being the Christ Judging us…as a Christian you are to be inclusive and believing in a person when they say they have been save in the Blood, they are a person of God. Stop your thoughts now…and get out there and help Donald Trump win. Many on both sides want him to loose and remember this is coming from a Latin from Central America…I support his cause because I’ve seen what it does to families on the other side of the boarders and I have witness what we do to them when they arrive here and continue to staying illegals. I want them to become legal and I want Trump to fix it once and for all. We have had several Presidents from Texas and Senators…has it gotten done….nope…take a check and see who is working their farms. Bye… VOTE TRUMP and if Hillary wins then Republicans put her in office and I don’t want to hear their mourning..
Dear Sondra: You express yourself as an anti-establishment republican by your support of Newt Gingrich for president over Romney, so I do not understand your decision to thrown in with the destructive misguided republican establishment trying to prevent Trump from being the Republican Party nominee. The previous commentator’s have it right. Do you not recognize the corruption of the phony capitalism and deliberate inaction against the democrats of the current party leadership, both elected and donor. I know you don’t plan to stay home so go to the convention and do what your fellow Texans want, vote to nominate Donald Trump. He is the only possible candidate that can save the nation from Hillary and the democrats.
A fellow republican dating all the way back to the election of Senator John Tower.
Sondra Ziegler – have you no respect for the vote of the people? Trump won the vote of the people, against more than a dozen candidates! Good Grief Woman? how can you call yourself a Republican and be willing to give the election to Hillary Clinton, because if you and others like you are successful, that’s exactly what will happen. BAAAHHH ! You are so narrow minded! And I might add, you will be sabotaging all the good Republicans on the down ballot! Unity, Unity! We must stand together or our local and state elections will suffer greatly!
” are we bound to allow 12 million people who aren’t even Republicans dictate what the Party now stands for and who its standard-bearer has to be ”
Yes because Texas state law allocates the ballot position the nominee who is selected by “the rules of the party”. And if you renege on those rules, and nominate Mickey Mouse, Texas is not obligated to put that name on it’s ballot.
Delegates are already free to vote their conscience. What you are arguing for, in such ever so sweet words, is the repeal of Rule 16 a(2) :
If any delegate bound by these rules, …or state law to vote for a presidential candidate … demonstrates support… for any person other than the candidate to whom he or she is bound, such support shall not be recognized.
You argue for a coup to overthrow the election. Should you succeed, the GOP will survive but you can expect that it will be without your ilk, win or lose in Nov.
You make assumptions that are false! Most of the 12 million were Republicans! and I’m sure some independents and maybe some Democrats crossed over to vote for Trump as well.. The Coup is what she advocates! You are one confused individual. The people rule. The people have spoken, so you don’t like it, well that’s just tough! Be honest, you want Hillary to win if you cant have it your way. SICK!
I am confused by this post. A review of RPT convention results and confirmed on RPT website, as place 1 delegate for CD 19 Sondra is pledged to support Ted Cruz on the first ballot, not Donald Trump. If Sen. Cruz releases his delegates Sondra will be free to vote for anyone she wants. Otherwise, she will be counted as a vote for Sen. Cruz. Regardless of how she votes, Donald Trump will still be the nominee. Based on existing rules, she is not pledged to vote for Trump so why the letter and the posturing?
May I suggest that you find a couple of things you like about Trump and focus on them…maybe his blunt stance on jihadi migrant crisis? or pounding the media….the resurrection of middle English word “Bigly”?
I knew that if it came down to having to vote for Cruz after I began to witness his behavior as the campaign progressed ( that repulsed me) I would do it. I focused on Cruz’s support for a bill designating the MB as a terror group, I also knew I could trust him on social conservative issues. Better than letting Hillary the criminal syndicate win and cast us into another decade of darkness
Respect the majority of the voters, since when has that been practiced.
She is a good Republican for following her commitment to principles in seeking to stop the lunatic that is now the head of the Republican Party.
As to those who seem to keep saying the wish of the people, I guess you mean only Republicans are people because it hard to find nice words about the person that the will of the people chose as president, not once but twice.
Look forward to HRC as president and the Senate in control of the Democrats. Hope all you people that practice hate based on Party have a great next four commencing on 2017.
I will come back and gloat then.
The question was answered decisively tonight in the Rules Committee when the push to get a minority report to the floor failed. The never Trump camp is a very vocal, but extremely small fragment of the party. The choice is no longer one of the ability to stop Trump. The only remaining option is to muster a majority to not accept the rules which will have the practical effect of imploding the convention. The choice is do you want to do damage to the party at the convention or do you want to be a part of the healing process that needs to occur. What the never Trump crowd forgets is that the party will fracture if he isn’t nominated. Do you think the tea-party/establishment split gets wide? It’s nothing compared to what a messy divide will follow in the wake of an intentional imploding of the convention. Trump pulls from all parts of the party as well as bringing in new voters. You say you are working to save the party. If you are, graciously accept defeat and be a part of the unification.