FYI

I participated in a Deputy Chair candidate forum last evening hosted by St. Paul Republicans and crowd of almost 100 people gathered at O’Gara’s in St. Paul to watch. A reporter for the online publication Checks & Balances was in attendance and reported today on the event.

Below is the complete article.

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Last night, the St. Paul City Republicans held a forum/debate with the three announced candidates for senior positions in the Minnesota Republican Party, Tony Sutton currently the sole candidate for Chair, Dorothy Flemming and Michael Brodkorb candidates for Deputy Chair  at O’Gara’s Garage in St. Paul.  The candidates for Deputy Chair led the evening answering questions for nearly 45 minutes.

During the course of events a question was asked for each person to describe their campaign effort and Fleming beamed when the term “cheerleader” was ascribed to her and the term “pitbull” was applied to her opponent Brodkorb. Fleming, stated to the crowd her husband had purchased WiFit for her and that she intended to be in a more fit form later in the campaign.

She refused to make a commitment on switching races and running for Chair saying, “absolutely - I will not commit here that I am not willing to run for state chair. Tomorrow is another day.” This is something we had heard previously and came as no surprise. Its possible Sutton’s competition is an actual known quantity.

The debate covered a wide-range of topics and here are some we seek to highlight. The issue of salary for party officers was addressed and Fleming said, “Yes, I’d be happy to take the salary,” whereas Brodkorb reaffirmed his commitment to serve nonsalaried. Instead he wants to reinvest the compensation amount of $100,000 for hiring field staff and re-building the party’s e-campaign

During the debate questions were raised about who each person is ultimately accountable to should a conflict between the party and the legislative caucuses arise. The crowd at first seemed to favor Fleming, but that quickly changed after her repeated sniping at Brodkorb. Fleming was booed for a quick second throughout the crowd after attacking Brodkorb’s “government job.”

Brodkorb didn’t respond to Fleming’s repeated attacks and instead talked about “volunteerism being the engine that drives the party” and respectfully reminded the attendees that he wouldn’t be taking a salary as Deputy Chair.  If there were a temperment test, Brodkorb passed and did not engage in similar personal attacks against his opponent.

After watching last evening’s debate, Fleming might need to re-think her strategy of attacking Brodkorb and instead focus on her accomplishments and goals for improving the Party.  As we previously noted, Brodkorb has a quasi-celebrity status amongst the Republican faithful and the crowd wasn’t interested in seeming him unfairly attacked.

We believe the audience mostly attended the evening to gain insight into these two candidates and left with the impression of this being a contest of two different philosophies on a political party’s purpose. Fleming seems to advocate a party of conservative ideas, where the concepts and thoughts will get people energized and result in Republican electoral victories. Brodkorb on the otherhand self-describes as a platform Republican and speaks to a party providing a tactical arm to elect candidates and a means to deploy all forms of new technology to do so. Source: Checks & Balances, March 12, 2009