Questions have arisen about whether some party delegates were paid to attend the convention at which Millette won election. Charges were leveled that Millette, who has admitted he never talked to Murkowski as chairman-elect, was somehow involved in the raucous scene that led to both Murkowski and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., being booed when they appeared at the convention.
Millette denied it.
But he admitted, in response to questioning from executive committee member and Republican National Committeeman Ralph Seekins from Fairbanks, that his earlier claims about how the party wouldn't give him access to headquarters and accounts was pretty much bunk. Seekins asked Millette flat out if he'd ever been denied access to any party records.
"No," Millette answered.
That Millette hadn't done much, if anything, to help the party as chairman-elect was one among a bevy of charges against Millette that basically accused him of being unfit for office. The one that stuck was the claim he'd failed to do anything to raise funds for the party as state finance chair since his election in April.
Millette conceded he hadn't done that job, came up with a bunch of excuses that largely blamed Ruedrich for not being helpful enough in setting up meetings with potential donors, and argued that the finance job was an appointed position, not an elected one.
"Even if I failed to do the job of the state finance chair," he argued, "the removal procedure in the ARP (Alaska Republican Party) cannot be used to remove me from the chair position because I am not yet in that position."
The executive committee saw it differently.
After deliberating on Millette's fate, they emerged from behind close doors to announce that the job of the chairman-elect was to raise money as the finance chair, and noted that Millette flunked what could be considered an internship on the way to the chairman's post.
And just like that, the old guard of the Alaskan GOP took back their ball and told the new upstart to get the hell off of their playground.
Now this is a pretty big damn deal. For a number of reasons.
First off taking over the Alaska Republican party was four years in the making, and the plan to do so was first imagined by then Governor Sarah Palin. The only reason it did not happen back then is because Palin knew she was about to be tapped as John McCain's VP choice.
So four years later, Palin flunky Joe Miller implemented that plan. Whether or not Palin is still pulling Miller's strings, is a little murky right now, but the fact that this put Miller in the perfect position to launch his campaign to challenge Begich for his Senate seat is not.
You know I actually don't believe for an instant that the GOP bitch slapped Millette because he had failed to raise any campaign funds. I think that was just the excuse they used to kick his ass to the curb.
This is all about making sure that the REAL Republicans hold onto power in the state, and to send a message to Joe Miller that his hopes for a political career in Alaska just went up in smoke.
Joe Miller has been working for years to pull this off, but he just wasn't slick enough, and is now learning what a bug feels like when it gets ground under a boot heel. Squished.
Personally I don't believe that this move means in any way that the Alaska GOP is any less of a criminal enterprise, but I still have to say I really enjoy watching the vaguely bearded one get his ass handed to him!
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