Guest Editorial: James Camp on Nominating Conventions

In my opinion, the purpose of political parties is to amass groups of voters who have a common vision for our country. Individuals in that party who demonstrate leadership and a fundamental knowledge of our Republican Democracy are encouraged and their campaigns are funded by the group (party) to seek public office with the intent of continuing our basic principles of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The candidate represents the people of the party as a Republican or Democrat.

I use these two parties because they make up the majority of the people who are active in politics. Once elected, the elected individuals are obligated to vote and express the positions and beliefs of the group of people that they represent and worked to get their candidate elected. This is not the case today.

People who have never attended a Republican meeting, convention or worked in the party show up and pay their qualifying fees and sign a statement that they are a Republican. The people of the Republican Party for the City, County, District or State have never seen this person before. But they have money or backing from some PAC that will supply the money to get them elected. So the Republican hierarchy falls all over themselves to welcome these individuals with open arms just to be able to say that they have another Republican elected to office.

But what about the people down here at the grass roots who attend the meetings and put out signs and go door to door with the belief that they are doing something worthwhile for their country. It doesn’t take long for the grass roots people to realize that they have been betrayed.

Over the last ten years I have attended 90% of my County’s Republican Party meetings. I have seen thousands of people come to the forums on Saturday morning and never come back. Why, I asked them.

Because all anyone wanted to do was talk about the problems. No one wanted to do anything about what the elected officials were doing in spite of the demands from us, the taxpayers. We write letters, send emails and make phone calls to these elected officials and get nothing but excuses.

The average attendee at our forums express concerns that our country is being taken over by the Koreans, Chinese and the other people who keep loaning us money to keep funding these entitlement programs just to buy votes. We will eventually be owned and employed by foreign countries who will be extracting our natural resources to strengthen their own countries and America will no longer be the strongest and wealthiest country in the world.

The Nominating Convention requires the candidates to earn the nomination by convincing the members of Party, not the uninformed “what’s in it for me” general population.

Most informed voters can’t be bought. They know the issues and the consequences.

Primaries also allow people who are not of the party to vote for a looser candidate for the Republican Party nomination, thus assuring the loss in the General Election.

The voter turnout at the voting locations for primaries speak for themselves. The turnout continues to decline. Each vote costs an unbelievable amount of money to earn.

The current Primary Election system creates a situation where money, and who has the most to spend, earns one a place in the General Election.

Something is wrong with this picture when a candidate spends seven figures to get elected to a job that pays substantially less than that over two years.

Somebody had to get compensated for supplying the money to this candidate and it was not the voters.

Johnny Isakson in his talk on Tuesday spoke about what a wonderful group of Grass Roots Republicans who were there.

Huh? I knew most of the people there. Most were either, elected officials, someone running for office or someone who had something to gain personally by being there.

The only grass I saw was in the pasture and didn’t see any roots.

When Johnny Isakson finished his remarks, some stood and some clapped but about half of the people I saw in the room did neither. Even these die hard Republicans have almost given up.

Grassroots are those people who are Precinct Chairs, who gather people from their community and work to get them to the polls to vote for the Republican Candidate. They go door to door and ask people to vote and can they give them a ride to the polls or bring them an absentee ballot. They call people to come to the meetings to ask the candidate questions and look them in the eye and challenge the elected person’s decisions. They write and present Resolutions and work to make changes to the Rules of the County, District and State Party. They go to the Capitol and stand to make a statement on our children’s education, our Bill of Rights and Taxes.

They are the true believers in our country.

The Nominating Convention is about the survival of our Republican Party.

The Convention gives our party a purpose to exist. The Republican Party Nominating Convention chooses the candidate to represent the Republican Party.

The Republican Party supplies the funding to get the Republican Candidate elected in the General Election.

People who are not chosen by the Party can still qualify and run as Independents if they choose in the General Election.

A person does not need to go begging to PACs for money. That is the job of the Republican Party.

Candidates can focus on the issues that are concerning the people.

Because once elected, the elected person better remember how they got elected. Not by John Boehner or Harry Reid but by the people of their District or the people of Georgia.

Oh yes the people like The Georgia House Speaker will be against it because they live and control by intimidation. It is their game. They can funnel the money to those who drink the Kool Aid and bow at his feet. Do as you are told and you will keep getting reelected. Oppose the establishment and you will be crushed.

The opposition to the Nominating Convention will give the pitiful excuse that only through a Primary Election can the little people have a voice.

If the little people want to have a voice, let them join the party and get involved. Then we can have meaningful government. As it is today, belonging to the Republican Party means very little.

At a recent meeting, where one of our current Congressman and candidates for Senate was speaking, I asked him how much help being a member of the Republican Party had benefited him in funding his Congressional campaigns and getting elected.

His response surprised be when he replied “The Republican Party has never helped me get one vote.”

In fact when I was first running in the Primary, both the Governor and Lt. Governor were calling my neighbors and friends asking them to vote for my opposition.

State Officials should stay out of local or district politics.

With a good County and District Chairmen, meddling by state leaders in local and district elections could be prevented giving the candidates autonomy from powerful Speakers of the House and the Executive Branch.

No wonder our Congressmen and Senators act like they do not know each other. Vote against each other and nullify Georgia in the House and Senate. It is every man for their selves.

Under the right leadership, Georgia could be a powerful caucus in Washington voting together. The Georgia Republican Delegation should meet quarterly with the Georgia Republican Party Executive Committee and determine what is best for the Party and the people of Georgia.

People should be given a chance to speak to the group about their concerns and lobby the caucus to support the people’s positions on pending legislation. Never will this happen under the Primary System.

We the People must stand for something that gives us back our government.

Properly constructed the Nominating Convention will do just that.

People will not need a lot of money to get nominated and those who are elected will be obligated back to the people and not the money brokers.

Every election cycle, incumbents and challengers must come back to the grass roots to get renominated. They must stand before their counties, districts and state party members and defend their actions. Voting delegates are elected by the people they represent at the prescient, county and district level. No matter if one represents a House District, Senate District, School Board District, Sheriff or County Commission District, the elected group of people who make up the Nominating Convention will decide the one candidate who is worthy to represent the Republican Party in the General Election.

It is often said that some things never change. In politics it is two words. One is power and the other is money wealth. Power uses wealth to create more power. And wealth uses power to create more wealth. This is the cancer that will destroy us.

People like yourself have an obligation to use your talents to help us conserve our way of life given to us by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The opposition to freedom and liberty is always working to destroy our country. We must always be diligent of their new tactics and adjust our defenses. We do not need the Tea Party or the Fair Tax Movement. They only exist because our current system doesn’t work anymore. The “Ron Paul People” have been criticized by the Republican establishment as trouble makers. There is a little bit of Ron Paul in all of us. We all must use common sense sometimes.

The Georgia Constitution only recognizes one election and that is the General Election. Yet the taxpayers of Georgia spend millions and millions on early voting, absentee ballots, early voting for runoffs and moving voting machines back and forth to polling places. The Georgia Republican Party can modify the Rules to allow Nominating Conventions by adding just a few words to the State Party Rules.

I see the Republican Party dying around me.

During Primaries there is all the negative campaigning and demonizing the other candidate. This should not be necessary to win the vote of the people.

Campaigns should be about today and tomorrow. We learn from our mistakes. That is how one acquires wisdom. Intelligence, honesty and integrity are the two most important characteristics of a candidate.

It should not be about how much money they can raise or personally invest in getting elected.

After the events at the State Convention where the Resolutions and Rules changes proposals were not even read or voted on, many of the attendees were very mad and disheartened. They had worked all the way from the County Conventions to the District Conventions to get these items considered only to be shut down.

The State Convention was so mismanaged by the party that it will take a long time to get these people convinced to spend money to attend the State Convention again. Please help our cause to enlighten the people that the Nominating Convention will help bring our government back to the people and help those of us who care to preserve the GOP.

Thanks for your valuable time.

Cordially, James Camp
Finance Chairman, Coweta County Republican Party
Member of the Georgia Republican Party State Committee