Spark It Up!!!: Jeff Frederick's Support?

People are writing a lot of stuff about the Jeff Frederick/RPV mess. Good Sense, Spanky, TooCon and many others have thoughts posted for and against Frederick.

My views have been posted and they have not changed. I supported Frederick but he let me down. The first charge against him was all it took for me. While his actions may have not been illegal, it was definitely stupid. Directing money to his own company was stupid no matter what the reason. Hiding that fact on the FEC filing then amending that filing to show the truth was a day late and a dollar short for me. That is all it took for me and I will not support that behavior from any chairperson of any organization I belong to. Yes people - It is that simple for me. I don't care if he was elected with 99% of the vote, that move showed me he is either a crook or just plain incompetent if he was thinking no one would notice this. Sure Frederick is a solid conservative with a voting record to match, but this is not about voting records or political stance. The RPV is a business and it needs leadership. This is about leadership and I lost trust in Frederick. If you want to hate me for it then feel free. Like I said, it was a simple decision for me as to support Jeff or not. Simple.

The next beef most folks have is how the SCC handled this. I am on record as saying it should have been handled better, but the result would have been the same. The SCC had the votes to remove and they did. That power is granted to them via the Party Plan. That plan is the real problem IMHO. Anyway, we now have a war against the SCC members and I have no problem with that. As with the removal of Jeff, there are some SCC members that need to be addressed also. My hope is that instead of using this mess to attack each other and lay blame on one side or the other, we must now fight to make the changes to the plan and get the right group of SCC members supporting us. If not, show them the door just like Frederick.

The one thing I noticed about this was the support for Frederick. I read letters from Unit Chairs supporting or not supporting Jeff. They would be written as if they speak for the unit membership but it was revealed many times that most members knew nothing about the letters of support or non support. On judgment day in Richmond, the day Jeff needed support...less than 100 people showed up to rally for Frederick. I also noticed on the one thing anyone can point to as a Frederick achievement is The RPV Network. This website cost close to $20,000? Guys that is absurd, but that is another post entirely. The network has 1261 members. When the mess started a group was formed - We Support Jeff Frederick for Chairman. As of this writing the group has 152 members. That is a whopping 12.05392% of the total membership supporting Frederick. Those opposing Jeff started a group and that was quickly removed, banned...you pick the right word. That move killed the RPV Network. In one click of the mouse those controlling the RPV Network sent the message that dissent against Jeff would not be tolerated. They spent $20k on that? Look at the message that move sent to the RPV members. And let us not be naive, this is Frederick's website.....With that said and the numbers are there for all to see and it is clear there are plenty of grassroot people that don't support Frederick. Why? It goes back to "reasons" to support him. Other than the start up of the RPV Network what are Frederick's accomplishments as leader? If you read all the hundreds of posts and comments by those supporting Jeff it is amazing the best they can do is "he was elected"...so was Nixon. If you compare achievements to gaffes there is nothing to argue. As a GOP buddy of mine said at the last meeting "I voted for him but I cant find any reason to now support him." I said we have the RPV Network and we laughed and parted ways. There are a lot of people just like me and him. We supported Jeff and were let down by him. It has nothing to do with being a party insider or what Bob McDonnell said. It has to do with leadership, performance, and the first charge on the SCC hit list. Just last week a fellow ODBA blogger was being attacked for his/her stance on this issue. I told them they should read the filthy comments I have deleted for my stance.

I made my own mind up over Frederick. If a few so called friends want to hold that against me so be it. I have found these "political friends" to be more of a pain in the ass than real friends. They better take a look at those numbers above and accept the fact that the support for Frederick was there a year ago, but is it there now? I really doubt that it is. In fact, I am in awe at the support Jeff has received. If my fellow republicans don't like my views then by all means stay away. In a month, my vote is just as important as theirs. To my friends that have supported me even if they disagree I say thank you! We will share a cigar and many good times in the future enjoying friendship and fellowship. To those that don't...Good riddance.