On Monday night Alabama Republican Party Executive Committee members received an email from Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead. In the email, Armistead accused members of the Party Steering Committee of sabotaging the party's election plans in order to satisfy personal agendas.
Here is the email from ALGOP Chairman Bill Armistead:
I regret that I find it necessary to send you this message with only three weeks to go before the November 4th general election. However, there is an important matter that I believe members of the State Executive Committee should be made aware of regarding the implementation of the ALGOP political plan.
Several members of the ALGOP Steering Committee seem determined to sabotage ALGOP’s 2014 political plan to suit their own personal preferences. They want to disregard the work that has been done, and is being done, by our political team who has worked for nearly two years developing our plan based on demographics, voting history, polling data and viability of candidate.
The ALGOP 2014 political plan is based on winning every statewide and congressional race and targeting certain legislative and local races. One of our underlying goals is to strengthen the party at the local level in order to establish the Party as the majority party at every level. Further details of the plan are explained in the attached overview of the plan. What you need to know is there are some on the Steering Committee who have opposed me at every turn, and I have dealt with this continually since I was elected Chairman almost 4 years ago. Now, they have taken their personal opposition to me to a new low, and their attempt to run our political operation threatens to seriously damage the Party’s success on November 4th.
The bottom line is there are certain members of the Steering Committee who want to remove funding from races that were determined as “targeted races” under a plan that our political team has developed under the direction of Chief of Staff Harold Sachs and me. The worst part of what they want to do is spend money on races where our contribution will not affect the outcome whatsoever. These Steering Committee members want to spend the money that we have raised over the last two years but they refuse to raise any money to assist us in winning these races.
Here are some examples of what they are demanding:
· National Committeeman Paul Reynolds has demanded that we take $30,000 from candidates that we have been preparing for the November 4th election to give to his personal friend who is running for the State House from his hometown in Greenville, AL. The Secretary of State’s website shows that this candidate has $103,881.12 cash on hand, and polling shows that the candidate has an 18 point lead in the polls: 51.1% to 33.3%. In addition, Speaker Mike Hubbard has told me that he is providing the support this candidate needs including “fundraising, mail, consulting and on-the-ground field reps”. Speaker Hubbard has made it clear to me that he is handling this race, and there is no reason for ALGOP to get involved. I suggested to Mr. Reynolds that if he wants to help his friend, he should raise money for his campaign rather than take it from one of the candidates that really needs it, but he declined to assist his friend.
· Senior Vice Chairman George Williams and Minority GOP Chairman Phillip Brown have demanded that ALGOP provide funding for some minority candidates who have no campaign plan, no campaign organization, no money raised, and no evidence they are campaigning. Polling for these candidates shows they have no chance of winning on November 4th. The rationale for providing funding for them is “because they are minorities”. They even invited 3 minority candidates to the Steering Committee meeting that we had on October 3rd to put pressure on the committee to provide financial support to them. It certainly is not fair to invite certain candidates to the Steering Committee meeting and not invite others. The decision not to fund some of these minority candidates does not indicate that we are not supportive of minority candidates. In fact, we recruited 13 minority candidates to run on the Republican ballot this year—more than ever before. Additionally, we have an opportunity to elect some minorities in November, and that is why we will spend significant resources on two minority candidates that have a campaign plan, organization, raised funds and are actively campaigning. In order to open the party more to minorities, as you know, I have hired a full time Minority Outreach Director to help with this effort since Phillip Brown has not done this as Chairman of the Minority GOP.
· AFRW Chairman Frances Taylor led the effort to de-fund the Republican Senate candidate that Governor Bentley, Senator Del Marsh and I recruited to run against Senator Roger Bedford. There was no basis for her efforts to remove and/or reduce the funding for our Republican Candidate. When it was explained to Ms. Taylor that we had worked closely with Sen. Marsh to determine where we should place our resources, she responded that she would not be told by Senator Marsh who to support. The proposed support for our candidate is to mail four direct mail pieces in the district just as we are doing for other targeted races.
· Second District Chairman Sue Neuwien insisted on allocating funds to a senate candidate who is in her district, even though Senator Del Marsh has taken this race as one that he and his team will oversee and has stated that doesn’t need ALGOP’s involvement. After Ms. Neuwien insisted that Senator Marsh and his political team were not handling it, I called Senator Marsh during the Steering Committee meeting to get his response. I placed the call on the speakerphone so the entire Steering Committee could hear it. Without prompting Senator Marsh, he confirmed that he was handling this campaign, and as per our agreement, we should be concentrating on the race to defeat Senator Bedford.
· Seventh District Chairman Pierce Boyd demanded that ALGOP not provide poll watchers in the seventh congressional district because he had a bad experience with some poll watchers in 2012. He had no evidence that these poll watchers were part of those ALGOP provided. Again, the political team has worked for almost 12 months to put together a ballot security program that will be the best ever utilized by ALGOP. We have worked with the campaigns of Governor Robert Bentley, Attorney General Luther Strange, Speaker Mike Hubbard and Senator Del Marsh to provide quality poll watchers in the precincts where we believe most of the voter fraud is being committed. A great deal of the voter fraud that has been identified in previous elections has been occurring in the seventh congressional district, where several counties have more registered voters than adult population. We must have quality poll watchers in these precincts if we are going to reduce voter fraud in Alabama. We placed poll watchers during the June primary in selected counties in the seventh district where fraud was suspected. As a result, we identified several instances of voter fraud, and the evidence has been turned over to the Attorney General for prosecution.
The ALGOP political team has worked diligently to develop our 2014 political plan for the last 18 months. This plan should not be thrown out by a few people to satisfy their personal preferences. The ALGOP political team is very competent and is composed of Political Director Britney Garner, Voter Engagement Director Zach Bowman, Chief of Staff Harold Sachs, and Joe Domnanovich, who has worked as a volunteer with the Alabama Republican Party for over 30 years analyzing races at every level. There is not anyone better than Joe at what he does.
As background information, you should know that Speaker Mike Hubbard, Senator Del Marsh, ALGOP Chief of Staff Harold Sachs, ALGOP Political Director Britney Garner and I met right after the June primary and discussed each of the legislative races to determine the roles each of us would play in this election to ensure that we keep our super majority. We have since talked multiple times as circumstances and situations have dictated. It was determined that they would handle the campaigns of the incumbent legislators, and ALGOP would handle targeted House and Senate districts where we do not have incumbents. I do not believe that a select few members of the Steering Committee should step into this process during the last three weeks to dictate how campaigns will be managed and funded.
I am not asking for any action to be taken by you at this time but I felt that as a member of the State Executive Committee you should be aware of the problems that are being cause by a few members of the Steering Committee. I have attached an overview of the ALGOP 2014 Political Plan.
The email was met with mixed reactions from the executive committee and members of the ALGOP. Armistead is serving his second term as ALGOP Chairman after receiving over 60% of the vote in both elections, but some members of the committee won't be endorsing him for a third term.
Nothing like waking up to your email inbox filled with the childish late night rants of the Alabama Republican Party Chairman. Quite pathetic. Anyone who would support this guy for a third term has no business being on the ALGOP State Executive Committee.
- Clayton Turner, YoungRepublican Federation of Alabama State Chairman
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