The Republican National Committee has a bit of a crisis on its hands. With three consecutive disastrous elections in a row, something has to change in order for the party to have any chance in 2024 and in the future.
The problem is that a solution does not seem to be forthcoming.
The RNC will be holding elections for Chairman at their January 2023 meeting. At a time in which the RNC needs fresh leadership, the candidates seeking to lead the party areā¦..not great.
On one hand the disastrous three-term incumbent Ronna Romney McDaniel. The handpicked choice of Donald Trump (after she stopped using her maiden name of course), she has led the RNC into one disaster after another. This is the Chairman who made sure the establishment did everything they could to protect Donald Trump, from stumping to his renomination, limiting competition in the primary, all the way to being involved in the plot to organize fake Trump Electors.
And she still might be the most qualified of the bunch.
Mike Lindell is also running for RNC Chair. Yes, that Mike Lindell.
Remember, Lindell is under FBI investigation and once said he has enough evidence to put 300 million people in jail. What more do we need to say?
Harmeet Dhillon is also running. She appears to be the current flavor of the month for the loser wing of the GOP, with Charlie Kirk among her supporters. Dhillon is running because, apparently, the RNC under McDaniel isnāt Trumpy enough:
āWe are in the era of lawfare and we keep on losing in the courts," he said after welcoming Dhillon to his web show Tuesday. "Maybe we should have a chairwoman of the RNC thatās a lawyer that has a killer instinct."
Dhillon clearly agrees. During their conversation, she accused the McDaniel-run RNC of an āappallingā misuse of funds, claiming the leadership buys RNC chair votes āwith donor money.ā And she suggested the RNC should invest in an army of election lawyers to help challenge electoral processes. She seemed to be referring to the very kinds of failed, conspiratorial lawsuits she supported after Trump lost the 2020 election.Ā
āAs a result, we donāt have a cadre of lawyers whoād be specializing in election litigation and willing to do it year-round,ā she complained.
Do you remember when conservatives hated the concept of trial lawyers being in office? We have now reached the point where āconservativesā think a trial lawyer should be Chairman of the RNC specifically to use her trial lawyer skills to litigate against election results and election law.
There are few better ways to show how Donald Trump has poisoned conservatism than that.
Those seem to be the three candidates right now. Other candidates like David Bossie or Lee Zeldin have bowed out. In Bossieās case, heās supporting McDanielās re-election. And McDaniel claims to have the support of over 100 of the 168 National Committee members, implying she finds the election a fait accompli.
But none of them are what the Republican National Committee needs right now. The RNC, if it wants to be competitive, needs somebody who would meet the following criteria:
A Chairman who will focus on the job at hand and not media appearances;
A Chairman who will not defer to the whims of any candidate for public office or any elected official;
A Chairman who will not spend the entirety of their term filing frivolous lawsuits;
A Chairman who will not spend the entirety of their term still fighting the 2020 Presidential election;
A Candidate that will focus on candidate development and recruitment;
A Candidate that will focus on establishing a ground game in all fifty states in order to boost Republican turnout;
A Candidate that will focus on a robust absentee ballot chase program in order to effectively compete with Democrats.
But instead of a candidate who will do any of that, RNC members get to pick between these Three Stooges instead.
The RNC Chairman, whoever it will be, will clearly be an acolyte of Donald Trump. But thatās the last thing Republicans need right now. They donāt need a Trump gopher; the RNC needs an adult.