Category: Newsroom

As of last weekend, in the 60 state House races we’re already below last year’s final no-Republican-has-filed-yet “vacancy” tally, and that is VERY good news. last year’s final tally was 25%. Today we’re at 18%. We hope to hit 10-12% by today’s 5:00PM filing deadline.

For all of you candidates, especially our first-timers, THANK YOU for being bold enough to make your personal statement!

Go to our website homepage here, and get an updated overview of everything. (The  “vacancy” stats are in a footnote at the bottom of the page.)

5:00PM TODAY, the 10th, is the deadline for filing for both becoming a candidate and to become a PCP.

Please, please, please…if you’ve been thinking about running for office, just do it…NOW! To file go here. 

In any case please consider becoming a PCP (Precinct Committee Person). It will be an incredibly potent way for you to make your personal impact on the real-world. Remember, the name-of-the-game for Oregon Republicans in 2020 is assertive, confident action...just like Donald Trump!

This assertive, confident ACTION is how we turn Oregon red by 2022! Go here for the latest details regarding becoming a PCP.

-sam and diana

I don’t talk about my professional and business life much, but here’s a just-released interview that goes into some detail about how I run my organizations and, in our business consulting, what we teach others. Thanks much to Jason Campbell and Vischen Lakhiani (https://www.vishen.com/) of Mindvalley.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-work-system-to-make-more-hustle-less-sam-carpenter/id1489932627?i=1000466609218

Do you REALLY want to help? Diana and I are personally asking you to do something that really matters in upcoming Oregon Republican Party (ORP) elections.

If you truly want to have a personal impact on our ORP leadership, you must become a PCP (“Precinct Committee Person”). The deadline to register as a PCP is just days away: next Tuesday. This sign-up is easy to do yet the impact is huge. All you have to do is print and then fill out the SEL Form (see link below) and mail it to your County Clerk to arrive before March 10^th. If you do this, there is a 95% chance you will be on the PCP ballot and elected as a PCP in May. Then, there are two critical elections in 2020 in which you will be able to vote. One in June and one in November. These meetings will determine future Oregon Republican Party leadership. As you know, current leadership has led us to Republican super-minority status in Salem.

Leadership HAS to change and it has to change in 2020!

As a PCP, you will be a member of your county committee. You can attend meetings locally. The more you participate, the more influence you will have in county and state party leadership. You can voice your opinions and vote for county officers and delegates. You can even run for a party office yourself!

This is YOUR ticket to making an actual difference!

Here’s more: the county officers/delegates elect the state ORP officers next February. When they go to state meetings, those delegates should represent YOU! You can hold them accountable to vote for Executive Officers who will focus on what matters most: finding great candidates and then helping to get them elected!

It is so easy to get involved and make a difference! PLEASE FILE FOR PCP NOW. The absolute deadline is March 10th. There is no filing fee.

Again, simply print out this form (see below), fill it out, and take it or mail it to your county clerk. Your name will be on the May 19^th Primary ballot. The county clerk can answer any questions you have. Your application HAS to arrive at the county clerk’s office by next Tuesday!

THIS is your chance! Today, right now, please take action!

PCP Filing Form (SEL105): https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Documents/SEL105.pdf

County Clerk Contact Information:
https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/countyofficials.aspx

Let’s make Oregon red by 2022!
S-

Get this: courageous, non-equivocating Trump-supporting candidates will pick up close to  100% of the Republican base, a majority of Independents, a majority of the unaffiliated, and a good chunk of Democrats, perhaps 15% or more.

Yes, that’s in downtown Portland. It gets even better outside the city.

in 2020, non-apologetic, full-throated support of your president is the winning formula in Oregon or anywhere else!

Things are WAY different this time around due to President Donald Trump as well as our super-minority disaster in Salem…and our “moderate” state-level Oregon Republican Party leadership,  led by the iron-grip of National Committeeman Solomon Yue,  refuses to see those factors.

THINGS ARE DIFFERENT in 2020 and conceding defeat anywhere is not what I want to do. How about you?

Do the numbers! 

For crying out loud, the massive Trump rallies are consistently over 20% Democrat. And in the recent Broward, Florida rally, 27% of the audience was Hispanic. Nationally, Black approval for Trump is 34%. Romney got 6% of the Black vote in 2012.

The latest Rasmussen poll puts Donald Trump at a historically high 52% approval rate.

And don’t tell me Oregon is a special case, that it’s oh-so-blue. Do you really believe the people of Oregon are that much different from people elsewhere?

No. We aren’t that different except for one thing:  we Oregonians have been intimidated into thinking we’re different, and our own Republican leadership leads that argument, conceding defeat in our cities. Dismissing “blue” districts outright, Chris Barreto of the state-level Oregon Republican Party, said this on her Facebook page just this morning, in defense of the ORP’s abandonment of blue districts: “The history of Oregon races is that any district with 15% difference or more (in Republican/Democrat voter registrations) has never been flipped.”*

That IS history!

This is now! This is 2020. It’s a special time and we should NOT concede defeat anywhere.

Want more? For the last several years, unequivocally supporting Donald Trump and not apologizing for being conservative has been the smart and pragmatic protocol for winning Oregon elections, although our own state-level ORP leadership swamp wants you to believe the opposite.

Here are three real-life Oregon examples:

1. In 2019 in Deschutes County, in her first political effort, Patti Adair defeated a three-term RINO commissioner. Patti is unapologetically pro-Trump and in fact managed Donald Trump’s 2016 Eastern Oregon presidential campaign. (And interestingly enough, just before her commissioner victory, she was unceremoniously dismissed from the ORP Executive Committee…for being conservative.)
2. Dennis Richardson won his Secretary of State office in 2016…decidedly without ORP support. Dennis was unabashedly in-your-face conservative. He never apologized. He was never intimidated. He didn’t trash-talk President Trump.
3. Until Knute Buehler unleashed his million-dollar multi-media slime assault on me in the 2018 gubernatorial primary campaign, per scientific polls I was winning that primary race. My campaign spent literally 1/10^th of the money Buehler spent. And my staff was 1/10th the size. The ORP spurned me through all of it, in fact with one Executive Committee member going way out-of-bounds, endorsing Buehler in that primary campaign. I had endorsed Donald Trump in early 2016.

And consider this:  give me just one major race in Oregon in the last 20 years in which a RINO has won!

Really. Just give me ONE!

OK, here’s more: look what happened in Kentucky HD99 three days ago (February 25th), per Ronna McDaniel’s tweet: “Big win in Kentucky House District 99! It’s a district Democrats have held for 33 years, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by double-digits, and one the Democrat governor carried in 2019!”

C’mon. It’s a new world if we get bold and start acting like winners! I am so, so damn tired of seeing Oregon Republicans scurrying like scared rabbits into the nearest hideaway, denying their own president, bolting for cover from the obnoxious but relatively small progressive hate-Trump contingent.

Let’s stand up straight and be proud of our conservatism. And let’s take advantage of the Trump phenomenon! To do otherwise is a November 3rd death-wish…

But if you’ve already painted yourself into the never-Trumper corner, last-minute equivocation won’t save you. (Right here in Central Oregon where we live, Diana and I could give you three names…).

We have less than two weeks until the candidate filing deadline. If you are a Trumpster, then run for that House or Senate seat you’ve been thinking about…yes, even in downtown Portland.

Especially in downtown Portland.

Many districts still have no Republican candidates!** And in those districts you WILL get the nomination! This is the chance of a lifetime, to ride the November landslide election coattails of President Donald Trump!

So you don’t win your first-ever race in 2020? Think about 2022 and how things will be then, with two more years of Donald Trump’s leadership….

Be bold. Be unapologetic. Take action. You have until March 10th to file!

Our website? www.makeoregongreatagain.com
-sam carpenter

 

*And for that matter, I challenge the ORP Executive Committee to demonstrate their attention to finding candidates in districts with LESS than a 15% difference in voter registrations. How much time have you spent? How much money have you contributed to those candidates?

** See the footnote at the bottom of our homepage message on makeoregongreatagain.com to see what districts have no candidates. There’s maps available there too, for both House districts and Senate districts.

I’m running for ORP National Committeeman, with internal ORP elections to be held on March 21st in Portland. And so the nasty social media personal attacks have begun from the tiny ORP contingent my friends and I  affectionally call  the “dirty thirty.”

Here’s some of this ORP-loyalist public Facebook chatter. Statewide, there are maybe 30-40 of these highly-vocal “moderate” state-level Republican Party supporters who think the current Solomon Yue/Bill Currier/Jeff Grossman ORP regime is terrific just-as-it-is. They incessantly blather back and forth with each other. No one else is paying attention. (Notice that there are no “Likes” on any of the comments I list below…in contrast to the 3,0000+ Likes I received  on my Facebook Page in the first two hours of my  post re the Senate Walkout back on the 26th.)

Actually, the banter is quite humorous…I think you’ll enjoy the frenzy of it.

The problem is, these nasties represent a sizable chunk of the approximately 130 Central Committee members/delegates  who will vote in the upcoming ORP/RNC Committeeman and Committeewoman elections.

And yet, maybe 500 Republicans statewide support the ORP regime as it is. This means the ORP Executive Committee interacts with literally one tenth of one percent of our 704,000 Republican base…and maybe one-third of the 150 member Central Committee thinks that’s just great. Here are the stats and full explanation.

The state ORP really is a social club. Do we really want this kind of leadership to continue?

Read the following admittedly anecdotal but real-life comments from these angry, vapid state-level ORP supporters and see what you think. The following are actual Facebook Comments a friend sent to me. I’ve given quick  anti-septic responses following each of the five separate threads:

Maria: “Evil is afoot?’ Good grief. The state-level Republican Party is already destroyed. It’s obvious to everyone. “I refused to work with others?” How could that be? I was not elected to office.

And, Maria: “Honorary Chair” is meaningless. The word “honorary” in this context signifies an unpaid ambassador/fund-raising position. Every state party that is not on the Trump2020 campaign investment roster will identify “honorary chairs.” The ORP Executive Committee has been promising a multi-million dollar Trump2020 investment since last Spring. That was a year ago. It’s not happened because, quite simply, state Oregon Republican Party leadership is a joke.

Yes, Maria regarding the “loud” point you make. Our blog reaches 100,000 people per week. You reach 15-20. The ORP facebook Page? It might reach 5,000 in a good week. Re John Lee: He’s a good man. And Darlene, leave Marylin Shannon alone. After 40 years as a loyal Republican, she doesn’t deserve your silly accusation on the heels of her obscene dismissal.

And, tell me who I have personally accused of anything that is not true. Bill Currier, Solomon Yue and Buehler? Give me details of anything I’ve said that is not true. Mostly I’ve defended myself against attacks, just like I’m doing here.

Nothing much here except to note Egner’s thoughtful  “ding bat f’ing nitwits” and “sucking Cross off” remarks. BTW, I have not talked to Michael Cross in a year, just met Paul Romero, and have nothing to do his campaign or with the Joey Nation’s campaign. Nor are any one of those three involved in any way with what I do. There’s no “conspiracy” of some kind. Maybe it seems like a conspiracy because 95% of Oregon Republicans prefer new leadership at the ORP and they are tired of being quiet about it. The real conspiracy is that 5% of Republican RINOs control the other 95% of Republicans who are true conservatives.

Carol: John Lee is on “the wrong side of history?” OMG. You are a historian?

Maria: Why not ask your “really hard questions” right now? So far, all you people do is call me names and accuse me of being a liar, just as Buehler did in the 2018 gubernatorial. Here’s the length I had to go to defend myself. None of you, including Buehler,  have ever indicated one actual  instance of me telling a lie! Not once. How come? It’s because I do my research and I don’t tell lies.

Instead, maybe the state ORP should answer some questions, like the 12 listed here. NO ONE from the ORP Executive Committee has EVER addressed even one of those questions.

Egner: nice language. Who exactly did I talk “s**t” about? Give me specifics.

I have been a donor friend of WLN and Richard Burke for many years. Why would I bad-mouth him or his guests? You have evidence that I did that? No, you don’t.

Karen: The ORP did not support Donald Trump until January 2019. Passing a Trump-supporting resolution now is meaningless. The ORP is on-record as being anti-Trump until they discovered it was politically stupid in the face of my challenge in the executive elections of February of that year.

Me? I endorsed Donald Trump in April 2016, way before he became President and nearly three years before the state-ORP got a clue.

The ORP needs a full-time, paid Executive Director, Chairman and office assistant. I know this is true because one of my businesses is as a consultant fixing struggling businesses (nearly 1,000 across the U.S and Canada in the past eight years, with zero failures,) and I’ve written a bestselling book, now in its third edition, about just that. The ORP needs serious leadership. Period.

None of those paid people would be me. And note that for years  the state-ORP has been paying rent (at $1,500 per month most recently) for an office space that is NEVER open to the public. Part time, incompetent Republican leadership without even an office presence is never going to get us anywhere. Never has. That’s why we’re where we are. Why would we want to continue to do what we’ve been doing” It’s clearly way past time. for change.

Solomon Yue, the Wizard-of-Oz behind the ORP curtain?  That’s a whole story into itself.

-sc

 

Note that right now, 30% of Oregon House Districts and 33% of Oregon Senate Districts have no Republican Candidates for the May primary elections.

Your state-level Oregon Republican Party Executive Committee leaders want you to believe it’s not their job to find, cultivate, encourage and promote candidates for public office. And yes, by their actions and non-actions, they also hope you’ll agree that the ORP Platform can be ignored.

Let’s bury those self-serving myths NOW. Here is part of  the first paragraph of the ORP Bylaw document, the Mission Statement of the organization: “The purpose of the State Central Committee shall be to elect Republicans, who promote the platform of the Oregon Republican Party, to public office.”

There’s more of course, but the above is literally the FIRST LINE of the mission statement. (Go here for the Bylaws: https://aa25e0d8-4b65-4802-b334-5ccc140f980a.filesusr.com/ugd/cf64a0_ff938c5f19474eca8b0acec5d052dfce.pdf).

Good Grief. It’s all so simple!

And no, I am not suggesting the ORP endorse candidates in primary campaigns.

If finding and helping good Republican candidates is not the ORP’s central responsibility, then what exactly IS the organization’s job? Is it to have social gatherings, do an occasional press release, endlessly rework and obsess about the very Bylaws that are being ignored, maintain a website and…promote Taiwan. (As an aside, and I’m just asking: does even one Taiwanese give a rat’s butt about political affairs in Oregon, USA? And anyway, aren’t foreign affairs the domain of the U.S. President and his State Department?)

If the ultimate purpose of the state-level Oregon Republican Party isn’t to assist in creating and maintaining conservative power in Oregon, as its own Mission Statement clearly states, again I ask, WHAT precisely IS its purpose?

And there’s this. In Salem, the Senate Caucus and the House Caucus have their own herculean tasks to perform: passing and stopping legislation and, in whatever way they can, protecting you and me. They are overwhelmed heroes, as-is. Finding candidates is a good thing for anyone to do, but does anyone really think that’s among our legislators’ primary responsibilities?

Let’s elect new ORP leadership to come in and do what the organization actually, per its own Bylaws, calls for itself to do.

WHO in their right mind, wants even more of what we’ve been enduring over the last decade?

Let’s make that change starting NOW.

This rejuvenation begins on March 21^st with the internal ORP election of both a new RNC Committeeman and a new Committeewoman. In June are the ORP Congressional District elections. This November will be the County Executive Committee elections, and early next year are the state-level ORP executive elections.

However, for you to participate and vote, you must be an elected PCP (Precinct Committee Person). The filing deadline is Mar 10^th and the ORP PCP elections are in May.

(Info here: PCP Filing Form SEL105: https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Documents/SEL105.pdf, and…

County Clerk Contact Info: https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/countyofficials.aspx)

Let’s use our new-found excitement and energy to propel Oregon to a Red Trifecta in 2022!

America will be watching Oregon in fascination.
-sc

 

From the Japan Times: “Republican Party official Solomon Yue tweeted to more than 100,000 followers that the virus was stolen from Canada for use as a bio-weapon.”

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/02/07/commentary/world-commentary/coronavirus-spreads-fake-news/

 

 

Guest Post by Art Robinson

(Written by Art Robinson, this is his compendium/two-decade summary of events regarding state-level Oregon Republican Party leadership -sc)

(Art continues…) 
As the figures above show, Oregon Republicans have been losing for about 15 years. They have lost regardless of the fact that Oregon grass-roots voters on average favor Republican policies, and Oregon Republican County Parties have worked hard and effectively.

My purpose in writing this article is to explain why I think we need a new National Committeeman. Solomon Yue has been National Committeeman for almost 20 years. He is one of the most skilled political operatives in Oregon. Unfortunately, he has not used these talents for Oregon and instead has been harmful to Republican candidates and policies.

Republicans have lost because of failure of the Oregon State Republican Party, which is completely controlled by Solomon Yue and his “fixer” Jeff Grossman. Having served one term as Oregon State Republican Party Chairman and having been nominated five times as the Republican candidate for Oregon District 4 Congress, I am very familiar with the cause of this failure.

1. At an ORP Executive Committee meeting during my term as Chairman, I looked at the Committee, which contained some very affluent individuals – far more wealthy than myself, and said, “I notice that the entire sum of contributions to the ORP from all of you combined is only about $300.” (I personally donated about $25,000 to the ORP during that term and loaned the ORP about $25,000 more). Tyler Smith was apparently the only other donor.

Solomon Yue immediately objected. “I pay all of my expenses of about $10,000 as National Committeeman. That’s my contribution!” I replied, “I think you are doing OK.” Solomon replied, “What do you mean?” “Let’s debate that here right now Solomon.” I said. “We’ll include the money you paid to yourself from Independent Expenditures to one of my own congressional races.” Solomon paled and looked around for some way to exit the room. (He was on the wrong side from the door.) There was no debate.

You see, Solomon, during my 2012 campaign, had paid himself personally $80,000 and paid additional amounts to his political associates from Independent expenditures supporting my candidacy. In addition he handled television work and printing work arranged outside of Oregon and near his friends. Printing and TV usually involves handsome financial kickbacks. (These kickbacks are not publically reported.) These funds all came from about $600,000 that was intended to help my election effort. The contributors were affluent people who had similarly helped my campaign in an earlier race. Solomon did not locate or recruit these donors.

Solomon had approached me after my first campaign, during which I received no help from the Republican Party and lost to DeFazio by 9 points. Solomon said that he was a high official of the Republican Party and that the Republican Party thought I could win next time, so they wanted to help me. The help later turned out to be the formation of this $600,000 “super pac” funded by my previous supporters, controlled by Solomon, and operated counterproductively.

Ironically, during that same campaign, Solomon advised my campaign to spread a rumor that a Republican officer in CD4, whom Solomon disliked, had pretended to be a volunteer while making money from his political work. We did not take that advice.

A lot of money passes through Solomon’s hands. For example, interests in Taiwan apparently pay for his sponsorship and Republicans outside of the U.S. make substantial contributions.

Solomon and his retainers do very well from this.

2. While driving to an Executive Committee meeting one evening, I received a call from a colleague urging me to immediately contact one of the county parties. The colleague told me that the county had just that day elected a new Chairman, and that Solomon Yue and his fixer Jeff Grossman had attended the election and were telling the new Chairman that I, Art Robinson as ORP Chair, would use my authority to unseat him because I thought he would not support me.

Actually, I did not know that the county had held an election, and I did not even know the man who had been elected!

Solomon describes this kind of activity in Chinese terms that he says he learned as a very successful student in Maoist China. The Chinese strategy, according to Solomon, advises the defeat of an opponent by “Drying the grass, waiting for a wind, and lighting a fire.” The “wind” is the advent of some issue that can be distorted to use against the opponent, and the “fire” is the public contest.

Most important is “drying the grass,” which involves a stealth whispering campaign of lies to ruin the future opponent’s reputation before the “wind” arises. In my case, Solomon and Grossman constantly “dried the grass” under me, an ORP Chairman who refused to be their vassal and because I am a pro-liberty Republican, rather than one who submits to the statist goals of establishment friends and contacts to obtain public office.

As soon as I was elected as ORP Chair, my reputation became the target of a lot of grass drying. When I began a direct mail fund raising campaign, an unprincipled and false whispering campaign was initiated claiming that I was doing so just to get control of the ORP mailing list for my own personal use. Actually, just the mailing list of people donating to my own congressional campaigns was already 10 times larger than the ORP donor list under Solomon Yue.

When I discovered after my election as Chairman that the ORP was out of funds and had $30,000 in unpaid obligations besides, I ordered that no more salaries be paid or obligations incurred until the finances recovered. The office staff would have to work as volunteers. A few months earlier, retiring Chair Allen Alley had paid all ORP bills up to date and left $40,000 in the treasury. That money had then been paid, in significant part, to ORP insiders.

The grass drying campaign then circulated a false rumor that I had laid off the staff so that I could put my children into paid secretarial positions in the ORP office. My six “children” included five with doctoral degrees in medicine, science, and engineering and one still working toward a doctorate – an unlikely group to be seeking paper shuffling jobs for the ORP. Still this was an effective lie, which was actively circulated for many months. You see, most central committee members did not know of the accomplishments of these young people.

Solomon Yue has stayed in office in the ORP for two decades largely by means of numerous whispering campaigns by himself and his retainers used to influence Central Committee voters and ruin the reputations of opponents.

In 2016, however, he gained re-election by only 8 votes, running against Perry Atkinson. Perry had been a very successful two-term ORP Chairman who presided while more than $9 million was raised for the ORP. (Actual contributions, not the bogus more than $1 million recently claimed by Solomon-controlled Bill Currier, which was actually just a financial pass through in order to use the ORP mailing permit. The ORP Treasurer provided to the Central Committee the accurate very small income amount to the ORP from this mailing work.)

It was difficult to dry the grass under Perry, so a different tactic was used. A group of Solomon retainers was organized to inundate Perry with apparently independent calls demanding he withdraw because his candidacy was tearing the ORP apart. Perry, a very mild mannered and likeable man, almost did withdraw as a result. Ultimately, he remained a candidate but campaigned very little – giving Solomon his 8 vote margin.

3. Solomon has been using the ORP as a foreign lobbying base for the country of Taiwan. He really should register as an agent for a foreign country. He takes Taiwan functionaries to Republican events (at a price) and uses his position to provide them with valuable access to politically powerful people. He even orchestrated an ORP resolution favoring Taiwan.

Foreign policy is the province of the President of the United States. It is not the responsibility of state Republican parties. The ORP does not use its position to lobby for Canada, or Mexico, or Germany, or France, or other foreign countries. Yet, Solomon uses his position as Oregon National Committeeman and his access to the ORP and RNC to lobby for Taiwan.

4. The successful effort by Solomon, Grossman, and their friends to drive ORP Chair Suzanne Gallagher out of office, their failed efforts to do the same to Art Robinson, and their final victory in putting their retainer Bill Currier into office (through whispering campaigns and lies about his far more qualified opponent, Wally Hicks) are well known.

Suzanne was driven from office because she thought she was ORP Chair. She did not realize she was expected to be a stand-in for Solomon Yue. After she resigned, I permitted my nomination because my family and I decided that this was a fine opportunity to help more than 100 Republican candidates win office. We have the skills to do so.

Wally Hicks was subjected to a false whispering campaign saying that he had lied – that he had not really graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Meanwhile, Currier bragged that he had many very large donors lined up who would fund the ORP lavishly if he were elected. Wally had actually raised $400,000 in his spare time for the Richardson gubernatorial campaign, but he was positioned by Solomon and friends as being unable to raise money. After Currier was elected, it was found that Currier’s advertised large donors did not exist.

When I took office, it was expected that I would raise substantial money for the ORP. I have more than 40 years of experience in doing this for scientific institutions, and have the necessary skills. So, Solomon, Grossman, and retainers immediately attacked my efforts. They knew that they could not control me and were determined that I would fail.

First, they manipulated the Executive Committee, in meeting after meeting, where it was alleged that my election over Bill Currier was fraudulent. These claims were even leaked to the Oregonian, whose reporter questioned me about this. One cannot approach affluent donors with an active cloud like this positioned over his head. The matter was finally settled in a November Central Committee vote that was overwhelmingly in my favor.

I then told Margie Hughes to start arranging appointments. My plan was to personally visit every individual we could locate who had given substantial financial help to the ORP in the past. I told Margie to arrange the appointments for January and February. The election was the next November.

Instead, at a January 6 Executive Committee meeting, Jeff Grossman threw out the meeting agenda by means of an obviously prearranged vote by Solomon Yue retainers and then proposed an agenda with 14 points of restrictions on my activities. The 14 points were essentially a complete list of all of the Chair’s duties, resources, and responsibilities, which Grossman’s motion ordered cancelled.

Grossman’s motion was an effort to recall the ORP Chair from office, a power that the Executive Committee does not have. Solomon’s retainers passed this motion easily and advertised the vote throughout Oregon. Bill Currier then “offered” to assume my duties.

I refused to comply.

Yet, I now knew that Solomon had the votes to redirect any money I raised away from the donor’s wishes. Meeting with donors and convincing them to support specific activities when I knew I could not fulfill obligations to them was impossible.

So, I made a third effort. The ORP Chair appoints the members of the budget committee, and the budget must be rigorously followed. I appointed Republicans of good reputation, some I knew and some I did not – one from each congressional district – and proposed to them a budget that contained specific plans to help candidates and county parties. This budget also contained prohibitions on wasting the money on insiders. The committee passed this budget unanimously.

The Executive Committee, with a majority of Solomon’s retainers, then rejected this budget and substituted a budget Solomon had produced, which put money in a very large slush fund that they could spend at will. Jeff Grossman commented at the Executive Committee meeting that he liked this fund because Robinson would probably not raise that much money, so he could advertise that Robinson had failed. Therefore, I put my budget forward at a Central Committee meeting in opposition to Solomon’s. The Solomon Yue group conducted a very intense lobbying effort, the members were confused, and my budget was narrowly defeated.

In addition to these three failures to put myself in a credible position to approach affluent donors, I tried one additional effort. I appointed Ames Curtright as Finance Chair of the ORP, a position that unfortunately requires Executive Committee approval.

ORP by-laws have been changed extensively by means of Grossman’s activities during Solomon’s terms of office in order to move more and more authority away from the Central Committee and into the Executive Committee. Solomon and Grossman consider the Central Committee generally a nuisance that they must continually manipulate.

Ames Curtright agreed to donate $25,000 to the ORP and to arrange at least four identical contributions from his associates. With this $125,000 in hand, he would work vigorously to raise much more. This is a common way in which a finance chair is chosen and functions. An affluent donor is appointed who begins by donating and then raising money from his affluent friends.

So, Ames attended the Executive committee scheduled to confirm his position. Tyler Smith, ORP attorney, led off with a strong endorsement of Ames. Then, however, it was Solomon Yue’s turn. Knowing Ames to be a justifiably proud man, Solomon extensively and egregiously insulted Ames. I was astonished when Ames just replied, “I don’t want to fight with you. I just want to raise some money.”

So, it was Grossman’s turn. Grossman was also very insulting and included even an insult to Ames’s Christian faith. Ames (who is now deceased) was a very devout Christian. When Grossman finished, I was again astonished. Ames simply said, “I don’t want to fight with you. I just want to raise some money”

So, the committee’s Solomon Yue retainers, including Currier, went to work on Ames with further insults. Finally, Ames had enough. He looked at Solomon and Grossman and said, “I’ll write that $25,000 check right now if you two will resign.” Then, of course, Solomon’s majority on the committee voted down Ames’s appointment as Finance Chair.

Several other ORP Chairs have reported similar problems with Solomon Yue.

Solomon’s extensive and unprincipled activities to remain as National Committeeman have almost nothing to do with electing Oregon Republican candidates to office – the primary mission of the ORP. I estimate that the ORP could have put at least 3 more Republicans into the Oregon legislature by no more effort than that Solomon’s people expended in trying to drive me from office. Solomon’s apparent personal and political interests are to control the ORP for monetary gain and (far more important than the money) to use the ORP as a platform keep himself in membership on the Republican National Committee. There he makes a lot of mischief.

In 2012, Solomon was a vigorous pro-Romney opponent of Ron Paul, and a very strong supporter of Mitt Romney. He orchestrated anti-Ron Paul activities in the ORP that drove many idealistic young Republicans out of the ORP.

Nationally, Solomon and Grossman were instrumental in writing an RNC rule change that prevented Ron Paul’s primary-won delegates from being counted. It was obvious that Romney would be the nominee, but Ron Paul’s supporters wanted him to be recognized. The rule change, however, prevented this. This was part of the Mitt Romney effort to keep Ron Paul from participating in the convention.

In 2016, Solomon vigorously opposed Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. He favored establishment candidates like Jeb Bush. There was a problem, however, with the rule change he had orchestrated in 2012 against Ron Paul. The last hope of the anti-Trump and anti-Cruz people was that neither would receive a majority on the first ballot. This could create a brokered convention wherein a Bush or related candidate could be brought forward. Yet, only Cruz and Trump qualified under Solomon’s own RNC rule from 2012. Others could not be considered. So, Solomon engaged in a vigorous fight against Reince Priebus, because Reince was unwilling to change Solomon’s rule back to the original so late in the primaries.

When I was ORP Chairman, I attended RNC meetings and watched Solomon Yue in action. To put it mildly, he is counter-productive, and he is surely no asset to Oregon.

Solomon is a chameleon. He is now changing his advocacy from Mitt Romney and Romney’s friends to President Trump. Any less, would be fatal to his position.

I have purchased and passed out thousands of President Trump campaign signs in Oregon and have always strongly supported both Senator Cruz and President Trump. The primary mission of the ORP is to aid the people of Oregon. The President’s actions are definitely helping Oregon.

American freedom is being unconstitutionally attacked at the national, state, county, and local levels throughout our nation. The state and, where possible, county and local contests must be the ORP’s principle emphasis. Yet, consider the figure with which I began this article. Solomon Yue’s tenure as top officer and controller of the ORP has paralleled worse and worse Republican losses in the Oregon legislature and less and less ORP funding. We need a National Committeeman who works for Oregon.

This is not coincidental. So long as Solomon Yue and his retainers control our state Republican Party, these losses can be expected to continue.

This article is already long, but I could increase its length substantially by further specific descriptions of specific Republican losses in Oregon that have in significant part been the result of corruption and incompetence in the Oregon State Republican Party led by Solomon Yue.

Some were also harmful to our nation. There are, of course, many very fine principled people in the ORP such as Treasurer John Lee, but they are overridden by Yue, Grossman, and their friends.

The removal from office of Solomon Yue and the election of a principled replacement would go a long way toward a Republican resurgence in Oregon. John Lee would be an excellent choice.

Art Robinson
Former ORP Chairman

P.S. I notice that the coming ORP meeting where the National Committeeman will be elected for the next 4-year term has been scheduled in a location especially near the homes of those Central Committee members who are expected to be more favorable to Solomon Yue. It is essential that all Central Committee members attend. The extra drive to the meeting may be your most important action in reviving the Oregon Republican Party.

P.P.S. Solomon Yue has recently circulated a campaign email that presents an incorrect picture of his activities. For examples:

1. Solomon represents that he has supported Donald Trump. Solomon was a very strong supporter of Mitt Romney because Romney is a part of the failed Republican establishment that Solomon has sought to please. Solomon used his ORP position to work vigorously against both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in 2016 in an effort to prevent the nomination of either one of these men. After Donald Trump was elected, Solomon has claimed to be a Trump supporter, but his work undermines the values that President Trump represents.
2. Solomon states that he supported Dennis Richardson. I worked very closely with Dennis in both his campaign for Governor and for Secretary of State. Solomon’s shenanigans and those of his retainers in both races were, in my opinion, significantly harmful to Dennis’s campaigns.
3. In his position as National Committeeman at the RNC, Solomon has supported statist policies that can significantly harm our nation, generally choosing sides based upon those which enhance his own career in politics.
4. Solomon states that he has effectively worked for increased ORP funding. The graphical figures above illustrate the non-effectiveness of his actions.
5. Solomon Yue seeks reelection every four years to a large extent on the basis of his activities within the national party taking place far from Oregon – which are presented by him in a favorable way to benefit him. However, as our national committeeman, he has a responsibility to Oregon. The few fundraisers he has helped arrange are not worth the trouble he has caused the ORP. Since the ORP has constantly failed under his leadership, it is time for new leadership.

Solomon is skilled at manipulating people. It is actually not difficult for one smart individual – with plenty of money and time spend on it – to make personal contact with enough ORP members to assure his reelection every 4 years. He works, himself and through his retainers, around the state to help elect members whom he thinks will be favorable to him and is often behind bylaws changes that will extend his tenure as well. Solomon works with detailed information about each individual voting ORP member specifying who needs to be contacted and what to say to each one. Most people who run for office in the ORP try to personally contact the Central Committee members or have friends contact members. Solomon and Grossman are masters at this, but this does not qualify them to control the ORP.

Many people who have observed Solomon’s unprincipled actions over the years have speculated as to his motives. It is not necessary, however, to speculate. Solomon is a skilled political operative and should have been a benefit to the ORP, although Maoist tactics really do not belong inside the ORP at all. Instead, the ORP has constantly failed under his leadership.

We need a new National Committeeman.

-Art Robinson

Where the information is.

With our two MOGA2020 online resources, find great information instantly.

100,000 of you have already subscribed, but here’s a summary you can share with your friends.

First, our website: www.makeoregongreatagain.com. Read the homepage message and do what it asks if you want us to push information to you. (Be sure to join the email list.) Also, for a long backlog of posts, click on NEWSFEED on the homepage toolbar. There’s much more on the site too. Just prowl around. You can also download my MOGA book for free.

Our second major online presence is the Facebook Page. Here you will find all the major posts that you’ll find on the website plus frequent (and oftentimes funny) memes. There will be the occasional Live Feed, too. Be sure to Like the page.

There is much happening now, and our MOGA2020 energy is immediately focused on:

1. helping to find candidates for “vacant” House and Senate district races. Deadline for filing is March 10th, and to…
2. reinvigorate/redirect our state-level Oregon Republican Party leadership. The Internal Election for ORP National Committeeman is on March 21^st. Yes I am a candidate.
   You might want to share this post with your friends! Thanks!

-sc

What most Oregon mainstream media political pundits get stupidly wrong is their refusal to accept the phenomenon of Donald Trump.

If we have courageous, non-equivocating Trump-supporting candidates, those candidates will pick up nearly 100% of the Republican base, a majority of Independents and unaffiliated, and a good chunk of Democrats, perhaps 15% or more THAT is a winning formula in Oregon or anywhere else.

Don’t tell me about “Blue Oregon.” Not this time around.

And ask yourself this question: can you imagine a Republican voting for a Democrat? No way!

Now think the opposite: can you image a Democrat voting for a Republican? Of course you can, evidenced by Donald Trump’s 2016 victory.

Mainstream media political commentators assume Oregon voters hate Donald Trump! Our voters are no different from the rest of the country, and they are not stupid. It’s so many of our Republican candidates who are intimidated, offering the same old lean-left protocol. (Either that, or we have no candidates at all. As I write this, 30% of our House and 30% of our Senate districts have no Republican candidates filed at all.)

Elsewhere in the country, in November, watch the Trump landslide happen. Let’s see how many of our Oregon candidates have stood up tall to take part in it. And let’s see how many of our mainstream media political pundits notice.

Our website? www.makeoregongreatagain.com
-sam carpenter