The next skirmish between Ron Paul supporters and establishment party leaders for control of the Maine Republican Party takes place Saturday morning in Waterville.
The Maine Republican Party’s State Committee will hold a closed meeting to consider five resolutions presented by members, according to Charlie Webster, chairman of the Maine GOP. Saturday’s meeting offers the first opportunity for disgruntled supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul to meet state party leaders since the Republican National Committee replaced 10 of Maine’s national convention delegates pledged to Paul.
Webster said the petition relates to a challenge to 20 Paul delegates elected at the state party convention in May. Jan Martens Staples and Peter Cianchette, longtime Maine Republican Party insiders and supporters of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, filed the challenge prior to the convention. Scheduling conflicts and concerns about the inability to gather a quorum made it impossible to hold the meeting prior to the national convention, Webster said, but party rules mandate that a meeting to consider resolutions proposed by petitioners take place.
“These are just a series of resolutions which are unnecessary and, even if introduced, would have served no purpose,” Webster said Friday while waiting to board a plane for the return trip from the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.
A Republican National Committee decision to replace 10 of the delegates, based on problems with how they were chosen at the state convention, makes the resolutions “no longer pertinent,” according to Webster.
While the resolutions to be considered Saturday might be moot, an underlying rift between Paul supporters and party leaders is not. As campaign season enters the critical post-Labor Day phase, conflict within the Republican Party threatens lingering distractions and could harm the GOP’s chances in Maine’s 2nd District, where the party hopes to gain a seat in the U.S. House and an Electoral College vote for Romney.
With all indications that the presidential race will remain extremely close nationally, which makes voter turnout especially important in electoral battlegrounds like the 2nd District, party leaders must create “the largest possible coalition to win,” according to Ronald Schmidt, a political science professor at the University of Southern Maine.
A choice by disaffected Ron Paul supporters to sit out this year’s election in Maine could have national implications, Schmidt said. Because Question 1, a referendum on legalizing same-sex marriage, will likely motivate voters who support Democrats to the polls, Schmidt said the impact of Paul voters opting out on Election Day would be magnified.
With the stakes so high, Webster and Republican candidates in Maine must convince disgruntled conservatives “to rally around the national party without sounding like the national party,” Schmidt said. If they can’t, the party also runs the risk of fumbling opportunities to attract other “non-Paul voters” who could be turned off by the perception of a Republican establishment with no interest in the grassroots.
“If I were Charlie Webster, what would keep me up at night would be how to convince Paul supporters to stay with the party when they feel that the party does not support them,” Schmidt said. “After what happened in Tampa, I think it would be considerably more difficult to sell.”
Webster disagrees. Because so many of Paul’s supporters latched onto the Republican party this year, their departure would not represent the loss of a core constituency that helped the party gain control of the Legislature and Blaine House in 2010, he said.
