Video Illustration of How the GOP Establishment works

[SonofThunder]

This article is about a South Carolina GOP establishment hack bullying a prospective candidate for office and protecting the incumbent's seat.

This particular person was extremely active in the South Carolina Ron Paul grass roots. He was also smart enough to film the encounter. In fact, despite the establishment's hack's intentional attempt to misinform him about the filing requirements, this video and this video alone allowed him to stay on the ballot, despite the GOP establishment disqualifying some 200 candidates recently.

http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/05/16/intimidation-republican-style/

This is how the GOP used to work. Here in SC we are a little behind some of you other folks in replacing the establishment, but we are working on it, have no fear.

I just wanted to post this story because it shows exactly how we end up with candidates like Mitt Romney. It's the same from the local level all the way up to the national level. The establishment hacks will use every dirty trick in the book to protect "their seats."

 

[SonofThunder]

Even more amazingly, this was just released by the establishment hack herself:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Charleston County Republican Party
Contact: Lin Bennett, Chairman
843-296-3105

Lin Bennett Issues Statement on Ruegner Video

The video released by Peter VonLehe Ruegner today is unfortunate and misleading. While I did ask to meet with Peter, it was not to ask him not to run, it was, in fact an effort to get him to run for an office

I had requested several meetings with Peter but he did not respond. At the time I had heard that Peter was interested in running for an office. Actually, I was excited. I did not at the time know what office Peter intended to run for but did want to talk with him about the possibility of running for school board. It is not unusual for County Chairman to recruit people who are interested in running for an office to do so. These meetings are normally confidential.

Wham Peter arrived at the filing office, I did ask why he had not contacted me. He told me I could talk in front of his friends. That is not an appropriate agenda to discuss things with a candidate. I told him I would not. And we went through the filing process.

A couple of days later Peter did come by the office and we had that chat. I told him that I did want him to run for office but was looking for a good candidate for school board. He a advised me at the time that he was not interested in that and we talked about the House race. I told him it would be tough and that my experience with new candidates running for a seat like this without experience usually resulted in them not remain actively involved again. I also told Peter whatever the results of the election were, I expected to see him still involved. He told me he would be. Gave me a hug and left the office.

With respect the filing papers, Peter was not the only candidate that attempted to give me copies of their filing papers. I took no one’s. However, as a result of their efforts and the fact that I actually saw the paperwork when they came to the, they were cleared to be placed on the ballot after the Court’s ruling. Certainly we cannot hold them responsible for a process we were not aware would come to this end.
It is a shame that people who are seeking to be leaders in our community are failing to be leaders during a time when emotions are high and people are exerting efforts to figure out how to overcome them. Now is the time when we need leaders.




Lin Bennett, Chairman