Being Generally Unhelpful

From the file of ways to neither win friends nor influence people comes tonight's story out of Howard County.

The Howard County Republican Club is a reasonably large group of Republicans in Howard County that has a large and extensive contact list. Apparently, that was an inviting target for club member John Wafer, who is also a member of the Howard County Republican Central Committee. Wafer, claiming to act on behalf of the entire committee, made a motion at tonight's meeting to compel the Club to hand over their entire contact list over to the Central Committee, claiming that this was "routine" and that "it happens all the time." Club members, being of sound mind, rejected the motion nearly unanimously.

There are a number of related problems that are here:

1. If a Republican Club within the county has a larger and more useful contact list than the County Central Committee, then one of these groups has fallen asleep at the switch; and,
2. If a Republican Central Committee member feels like the Committee is entitled (for lack of a better term) to access to a club's mailing list, it would seem that the aforementioned Central Committee member seems to think they are more important than they really are.

And nowhere that I am aware of "routinely" sees clubs turnover their lists to Central Committees. When I was President of the Anne Arundel YR's, I was never even asked to turn over the list. We information flowed down, we got it out without making a big to-do about it.

Obviously this appears to be an isolated incident, but I hope that all Republican Central Committee members take heed from this. We do not need Central Committee members to stoke ill will with committed, organized Republican Clubs, least of all in an election year. These Central Committee members need to "do no harm" as it were, and avoid taking actions that are generally unhelpful at best or, in this case, generally knuckleheaded.