The moves inside the Republican Party of Virginia to oust Jeff Frederick have made it to the media:
Virginia Republican Chairman Jeff Frederick faces an ouster vote by the party’s governing body next month.
A half-dozen members of the state party’s central committee say at least three quarters of the panel’s members have committed in writing to calling for Frederick’s departure.
The party leaders spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they consider the issue a personnel matter.
The letter outlines several alleged breaches of the state party’s rules, including using his company to process online donations to the party. Frederick didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Meanwhile, Virginia Virtucon is reporting that Frederick has refused to resign and will instead stay and fight:
Sources tell Virginia Virtucon that RPV Chairman Del. Jeff Frederick will NOT resign from his post and will stay and fight the attempt to remove him. A vote to remove Jeff is now scheduled for April 3.
(…)
Those same sources say that Del. Morgan Griffith is whipping the vote count on SCC to make sure that there are at least 20 votes in support of Jeff so as to defeat the attempt to remove him.
But, those efforts may be thwarted by the fact that Gubernatorial Candidate Bob McDonnell has apparently publicly backed the ouster effort:
[F]ormer attorney general Bob McDonnell, the state Republican Party standard-bearer as the presumptive gubernatorial nominee, endorsed the effort to remove Frederick in a statement Thursday.
“It is clear to me, after hearing from Republican leaders across the state, that as we move forward with our campaign, as well as the other statewide and House of Delegates races, it would be helpful for the Republican Party of Virginia to have more effective leadership in this pivotal year,” McDonnell said in an e-mail.
That would seem to me to be game, set, and match. When the guy who is going to be at the top of the ticket in a pivotal election year says that the Chairman needs to go, it’s going to be hard for anyone on the Executive Committee to disagree with him.
The only thing Frederick can accomplish by continuing to fight this is to tear the RPV apart.
H/T to Bearing Drift on the McDonnell quote.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Why is Bob McDonnell trying to undermine Jeff Frederick? He claims to be a conservative, but lately he’s been running to the left. If that’s a strategy to appeal to lefties in Northern Virginia, fine, but he doesn’t need to undermine a good conservative chairman while he’s at it!
March 12th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Because Jeff Frederick is incompetent and a dolt, perhaps ?