Republicans in Iowa are in a trifecta of denial.

1. Rather than uniting to elect Republicans at all levels, RPI blames the RNC (read: Victory operations) for lack of guidance, direction, and staff. How can you go into the primary and state convention without a political director and communications director?? Absurd! Waiting for DC to send hired guns means huge missed opportunity. Grow some intiative and act! There are county central committees across the state ready to go to work - they need a plan and someone to be accoutable to.

2. RPI and the Legislative Majority Funds work separately - which is completely idiotic. The RPI power brokers are broken. The LMF leadership is tyrannical. Figure it out - both have to give in order for the greater good to be served.

3. The State Central Committee elected to remain ineffectual by choosing Stew Iverson as Chair. His motives (health insurance, a paycheck, and future campaigns) do not serve the greater good. Is Sporer the cure all? Hardly.

Letting Victory call the shots in 2004 worked - the Bush/Cheney machine was effective! The complete absence of any Victory efforts in Iowa to date signals their incompetence as well as McCain's intent to virtually ignore our state.

The stakes are too high to rely on Victory to carry our party. We can win in CD2 and many Iowa House races but only if we take control of our own destiny and unite the efforts of RPI, LMF, and get State Central Committee members to do the right thing - raise money, recruit and encourage volunteers, and do more than attend meetings at HQ.

1) Sporer and Scheffler were never at odds. That's just you not knowing what you think you know.

2) You don't have to be a member of ICA to agree with their legidlative agenda. That's just you dealing in stereotypes. There are more than just ICA'ers that are tired of the no message agenda we get from the likes of Rants and Iverson.

3) Ted has been trying to change the system and get more accountability to the voter, but until 2006 was the only voice in the wilderness. Now, I read national articles every day. I'm reading about the Illinois GOP with the same demands from their broken State party. It's everywhere now - Jim DeMint's Conservatives fund, for example.

4) Daryl Kearny is the fundraiser at 6 figures. He has an assistant and there is also Stew, the big fat smelly cheese. They are the fundraisers. The county parties are the voter raisers. Give them something to vote about other than - "vote for me because I'm here and you aren't."

You display weakness in yourselves with your post. You are obviously people who know what is going on inside the baseball game and yet you take no responsiblity yourselves for the status quo. You are clearly a former staffer, former lobbyist, or former campaign worker - emphasis on "former".

Who are you, why are you here, what are you trying to accomplish with this anonymous blog other than attack the motives of people whom you know nothing about (item 1 above)?

What have YOU been doing all this time not making a difference.

It's Rants and Iverson (formerly Hoffman) who have no plan other than to wait on Victory.

Bush won because of message. Victory takes way tooooo much credit for Iowa.

1. I think the point is that if you are going to go on the radio and bitch about something, you'd better also be offering solutions.

2. What the hell does "more accountability to the voter" mean? Sounds like more babble without actually saying anything.

3. If you think that Scheffler and Sporer have always been good buds, you must be pretty new to the table. There was open hostility for a long time.

4. The fundraising at RPI is overpaid and pathetic. Anon is right on that.

5. I find it ironic that someone is getting all defensive and not taking the constructive criticism to heart. I think a nerve has been struck.

You name this blog Battleground Iowa. Please explain what your battle is all about and why Iowa is a battleground to you.

Who is your general? Who are your soldiers? What is your battle plan for the battleground? Do you have any ammunitions or just plastic bullets?

What would the very clever by half monikered folks who use literary figures to hide their opinions behind do to fix the party?

Run a blog?

I'm breathless by your courage.

What was the constructive part. I only hear you complain about others. What are you doing? What do you recommend? Please give us a comparision point please.

Why do you think we lose all the time? You seem to feel you know and can judge the merits. Where does your expertise come from?

Say something more intellectual than - Gee, I must have hit a nerve. That sounds like a kindergarten debate tactic - like we used to see over at Krusty - gee, I wonder.

Profile of Nathan Greene: "I’m a middle aged conservative who isn’t afraid to stand up for the values that I believe in. I’ve been involved in a campaign or two over the years and know the movers and shakers of Republican Politics in Iowa."
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Nathan isn't living up to his profile. If you aren't afraid to stand up for the values in which you believe, why do you go by a fake, (arrogant use of btw) name and then don't tell us what your values are?

Me thinks it is YOU whose nerve has been hit. You are part of the problem it appears. You have been an architect of defeat

Fake Profile for Emily: "Emily Geiger: I'm a young and highly attractive conservative who is tired of certain political hacks in this state getting away with character assasination. Iowa needs a more balanced Blogosphere, and I intend to provide it. Just like the original Emily, when men can't step up to the plate and do what needs to be done, I'm not afraid to join in the cause."
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Emily dear. You also are not living up to your fake profile. If you don't feel Sporer is stepping up to the plate - please dear - feel free to show us your stuff. If you are so bold and brave, why do you hide behind a moniker in which you describe yourself as very attractive. How vain and silly. Maybe you should call yourself Scarlett O'Hara instead. Your approach to fixing the problem is embodied in her most famous line - " I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."

oh, by the way, Emily dear - here's a constructive criticism that anyone who feels so highly about themselves should take very quickly - you can't spell worth a damn. Your profile has a big misspelling in it. Your posts are usually replete with grammatical and spelling errors.

Accountability to the voter is called - winning the election so as to govern. I'm not surprised you don't know what that means since you are campaign workers.

Mr. Green says: I’ve been involved in a campaign or two over the years and know the movers and shakers of Republican Politics in Iowa.

Who are those movers and shakers you know well? Do they still move and shake, cuz nothing is happenin.

It ain't easy being green, is it?

Someone seems to be assuming that I am Emily, when I am not.

And, wow, can you say overreaction? I'm still wondering what Ted's plan is. I'm not saying he doesn't have one. I just don't know what it is. At least "More than casual observer" offers some solutions, which is what we actually need to be thinking about, and which is what the point is.

Don't shoot the messenger for reminding us that we need more than just rhetoric. We need a plan of action.

Emily, thank you for the opportunity to discuss a variety of issues.

I have a very broad plan that contains a great number of specific details including appropriate staffing levels, duties and activities. The plan centers on empowering the SCC members so as to best utilize each member’s respective strengths and empowering the county leadership so as to rebuild from the ground up.

Moreover, my ideas not only deal with structure but rebuilding the brand through messaging, including exploitation of new mediums as well as a return to older mediums that have been abandoned. If we stand for nothing, no one will rally to our standard, and I think the sense of ennui that has gripped the IGOP evidences the lack of a unifying message. I favor ideological clash with the Democrats because I think our ideas are better and we are losing in part because we stopped selling those ideas and just assumed the market was ours, notwithstanding the tremendous evidence to the contrary. As a result, our brand is devalued and our market share has collapsed. We can fix this but it takes thick hide and a facile tongue and mind to do so.

A version of this plan passed the SCC 16-0 in January 07 and was promptly disregard. Chuck and I put together another plan, Houser, Hoffmann and probably Kearney and a few others slow walked that one to death. The plan was based on years of study, and hundreds of interviews of past and present leadership, county chairs and grass roots activists. I applied some well established marketing concepts as well. You know, don’t repave the road every time you come to an intersection. The minutes of the SCC meetings would reflect that I spent the last three years discussing, with progressively greater stridency, the need for party reform.

The last time you wrote about me I recall you focused on my “reputation” for “belligerency”. That reputation came from how hard I was fighting for party reform. Needless to say, the proponents of the status quo aren’t too willing to just walk away. Had I been the Chair and Chuck was my ED we would be well down the road. Not near the beginning of the end but maybe the end of the beginning.

Obviously I’m not going into any more detail on a blog, much less on the radio. However, if you are going to be at the convention Friday night I’d be more than happy to discuss it.

With respect to details, if you don’t know the foregoing, feel free to contact people like Bill Anderson, Karl Gilbertson or Lisa Smith (for example) or most other reasonably unbiased people on or close to the SCC for confirmation. You might also read the 05-08 minutes of our meetings as I think they probably memorialize the foregoing narrative. Obviously, if you were close the SCC or have heard me speak in R County meetings, etc…, where is the audience is closed and safe and I can discuss more detail, during the last three years you would also recall some of the foregoing.

Second, what is your test of insincerity? I’ve been talking about this for three years, since well before Hoffmann was elected the first time and back when Iverson was doing that bang up job maintaining Republican control of the Senate. I began actually working on this project for the few days when I was vice Chair. Met with Gross, Rants and Ron Weick. Tried to get a donor list to evaluate fundraising. Tried to get a look at the books. When it looked like I meant what I said about real change, the empire did, indeed strike back-and I recall your rhetoric as part of that strike.

As for Steve Scheffler and I, rest assured you are most mistaken. Steven and I might start in very different places but we reach the same destination. The only conflict ever between us was brief because it was based on one person lying to Steve and me about what the other supposedly said. As soon as we met we discovered the source and have been close ever since. Scheffy is one of the people who agreed with me about the need to rally around a clear, and clearly explained, message.

Well, that’s a lot of self promotion but, you did request it, and yes, I now have blisters on me fingers.