Last night the New York Times reported that Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel will resign after the South Carolina primary. Anyone paying attention knows that in a competent party, McDaniel would have resigned in 2022 after her party failed miserably in the mid-terms despite the ongoing train wreck of the Biden administration. If McDaniel herself had any integrity, pride, sense of accountability and decency, she would have resigned after that debacle on her own initiative, if not committed ritual seppuku and eviscerated herself on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
For some reason, electing incompetent heads of the Republican National Committee is a tradition in this perpetually addled party. Remember Michael Steele? The guy who said his favorite book was “War and Peace” and then purported to quote Tolstoy by reciting reverently, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”?
What finally did Ronna in was Red State’s Jennifer Van Laar’s investigative reporting on McDaniel’s ineptitude and warped priorities based on the evidence of official Federal Election Commission figures. (Ah, if only we had some mainstream, trustworthy, independent, professional institution that did things like that!) Here’s a sample, but the first part alone would warrant firing the individual responsible in a serious and competent organization. The period covered is October 20, 2022 through November 30, 2023:
Floral Arrangements: RNC – $70,328.00; DNC – $795
Consultants: RNC – $1,078,279.47; DNC – $114,000
Office Supplies: RNC – $297,717.64; DNC – $45,005
Limousines: RNC – $263,127.25; DNC – $7,000
Voter File Maintenance: RNC – $39,233.50; DNC – $235,865.88
GOTV Texts: RNC – $86,019; DNC -$1,676,923.29
State Outlays: RNC – $13,800,200; DNC – $23,835,437
Why would anyone continue to give money to the Republicans when it’s being used like that? There was evidently no oversight of the RNC’s incompetent management, or if there was, it was by individuals just as incompetent as Ronna is, or by cronies more devoted to her welfare than they are to the GOP’s mission.
Ethics Alarms 
“In response to RedState’s first request for comment, RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn provided a statement. While we disagree with its assessment, we’re publishing it in its entirety.
“This story took several days of research, albeit sloppy research, to come to fruition yet the RNC was only given 60 minutes to respond. While that’s an improvement from the last time this dishonest and biased reporter wrote a hit piece on the RNC, where she didn’t give us an opportunity to comment until after publication, the disregard for the truth and transparency still oozes through. For example, our team just took less than 5 minutes to poke through the DNC’s expenses, and found $3 million in ‘consulting’ and over $25,000 in beauty expenses. Yet, in RedState’s initial email to us they claimed the DNC spent $0 on beauty expenses and only $100k on consultants. Do better.”“
I am happy that McDaniel is stepping down but if the above statement is factual then the journalist is unethical in misrepresenting the facts. What I am left with is not knowing if I can trust RedState or this journalist in the future.
The journalist describes herself as a conservative former court reporter turned journalist with a BA in International Studies. I know many conservatives like myself, wanted a shakeup in the RNC as it has failed to deliver tangible results for small donors. I stopped giving when McCain gave us the middle finger when he voted to allow Obamacare to become law.
Truth is the unwanted stepchild of the agenda driven. I trust science but not scientists. I believe in justice but not a requirement that I believe in some injustice. This is not a new phenomenon; it simply means the agenda driven are close to perfecting the craft.
I have come to believe their is only one party at work the Pecuniary party. Each member works to advance his or her own financial interests or those who help him or her retain power/
The reporter and Red State said the memo was “defamatory.” The cherry-picking memo didn’t try to debunk the floral arrangement comparison. That alone is enough for me. Per se profligacy and incompetence and signature significance for an irresponsible boob.
Jack
I am not justifying any of the BS expenditures I just want see straight reporting.
There is the Republican Party (the people) and there is the Republican Establishment. The RNC is the Republican Establishment. The RNC gets to speak for Republicans, but it doesn’t necessarily represent Republicans. The RNC would rather have Napoleon Dynamite win as senator of Texas than Ted Cruz. They would rather have Joe Biden win than Donald Trump, It is like the NRA and gun owners. Many gun owners belong to the NRA. The NRA speaks for those gun owners, but the NRA doesn’t represent those gun owners. In fact, almost all NRA members despise the NRA. Gun owners belong to the NRA because gun ranges need insurance, the NRA is the only insurer of gun ranges, and the NRA requires that all members of an NRA insured gun range be members of the NRA. I somehow became a member of the RNC. Do I get to vote on the leadership, the platform, or what the priorities of the RNC are? No. RNC memebers have no input at all into the RNC, it appears. The RNC seems to be a self-perpetuating group of insider Republicans. It is like civil rights groups that get to speak for ‘the African American community’ or ‘the Latinx community’, but they don’t represent those communities and those communities actually have no input in what they do.
That said, I would really be shocked if the expenditures of the DNC are that clean. My suspicion is that the DNC doesn’t put the dirty laundry on the list. It is probably like the Clinton Foundation. Their finances looked clean until you scratched the surface. Then, they had to amend their previous tax returns several times as each ‘forgotten’ donation from a foreign government and each improper expenditure was revealed (we just forgot about the $3 million spent on Chelsea’s wedding).
That is certainly a plausible scenario.
Michael;
Spot on about the Republican Party / RNC dichotomy. and the NRA / NRA membership analogy.
I stopped giving to the RNC twenty years ago. I support my county Republican Party and donate to individual Republican candidates (and sometimes work in their campaigns), but that’s all. The RNC’s seemingly endless mail appeals for me to rejoin the ranks have killed hundreds of trees and keep me busy blocking their phone pleas.
I became an NRA Life Member when I was 18; they got their last dollar from me (aside from a few merchandise purchases) over 50 years ago. As you stated, members of gun clubs have to be NRA members for insurance purposes, and my local club is no exception. It is nice to be able to just write in my life membership number on my gun club membership renewal form each year rather than paying the NRA again. The NRA quit being an effective watchdog of our Second Amendment rights a long time ago. I spend my Second Amendment preservation dollars elsewhere.
Jim,
Just FYI, my club gets their insurance through a regular commercial insurance broker. Several major carriers offer gun club coverage. You may want to confirm that the gun club employees are not commissioned arrangers for the NRA.
this kind of spending likely explains the reason I’ve been REPEATEDLY unsubscribing from RNC fundraising messages in my email for over two years.
Now if only we could get the government to stop paying call centers in India to repeatedly call me for supplemental Medicare insurance, pain braces, obamaphones, and diabetic monitoring devices I might have some time to myself.
In other news, WordPress has decited to impose their infamous block formatting structure in comments now… At least to me, right now… Who knows what tomorrow Will bring?