[Harrison Bergeron]

P.S. This appointment is specifically a slap in the face of all conservatives who complained directly to the RNC about their abandonment of Bret Schundler. To hire into the national party one of the NJ players who helped sabotage Schundler's election DOES NOT bode well for the election of any conservative republicans for the forseeable future.

[Jesse]

P.S. This appointment is specifically a slap in the face of all conservatives who complained directly to the RNC about their abandonment of Bret Schundler.

Bush has been b*tch-slapping conservatives ever since he got elected. More proof that the old GOP is dead, long live the
NEW! Deal Tax and Spend GOP.

[Askel5]

Republicans need to realize he meant it when -- on Radio FreeRepublic -- David Keene of ACU said he'd rather be a part of the "Stupid" party.

Pity the kicker remains that it's the Stupid Party -- at present, invincible in its ignorance -- that perpetrates the Real and Present Evil.

For example: I, for one, find the far more egregious act is outfitting the likes of Clinton with a federal police force and then stepping up -- on Nov. 8, 2000, under cover of "election crisis" -- to then excuse his actions at Waco as "by the book".

[sphinx]

To hire into the national party

As far as I'm aware, Finance Chairman has never been a paid position. The top staff position is Finance Director. At the RNC currently, that person is Bev (Beverly) Shea, who has been there awhile. You will note that the story says nothing about her, which is appropriate because staff is supposed to be invisible.

The Finance Chairman, on the other hand, is not staff. He is an independent person usually chosen because (1) he is wealthy enough to deal with (often very) rich potential donors on a peer-to-peer basis and (2) he is willing to spend endless hours on the phone and flying around the country to events begging for money. It is kinda hard to find very wealthy people, usually highly successful businessmen, who are willing to do this. You need to make some allowance for this.

To the extent a Finance Chairman's views on abortion enter into it at all, it is a matter of balancing the RNC in the eyes of potential donors. We have a pro-life President (not that he's doing anything about it, but that's another story). I don't know where Racicot is on the issue, but every other RNC Chairman since Rich Bond has been at least nominally pro-life. (The committee had a knock-down, drag-out fight over this four years ago, when pro-life Jim Nicholson was elected as the acceptable compromise candidate on the sixth ballot.) Part of the Finance Chairman's job in recent years, therefore, has been to play peacemaker with wealthy, socially liberal contributors who are upset by the pro-life balance of power within the Party and at the RNC.

Please understand that I don't have a dog in this fight. I am pro-life. I don't work for the RNC. I do have enough contact with it, and know enough staff people, to have some sense of the lay of the land. I don't know Eisenberg, and I don't have another candidate to suggest. I'm just trying to balance the picture here with a few observations about organizational realities.