Overbeck: The Douglas County GOP helped blow school board election
The Douglas County Republican Party’s strategy for the Nov. 7 school board election was a novel one: We refuse to support the three solid Republican, eminently electable school board candidates because they favor the Douglas County School Board (DCSB) tax and debt measures (5A and 5B) on the November 7 ballot. Instead, the Party focused solely on promoting the only candidate standing against the school funding measures, Dave DiCarlo. The Party’s favoritism amounted to cancelling the other three conservative Republican candidates, just as the left notoriously cancels all conservative voices.
They spent $7,000 of the Party’s meager funds on a campaign mailer promoting only DiCarlo. They listed only DiCarlo’s name on the Douglas County Republicans website under “school board candidates.” Their Get Out the Vote phone script touted only DiCarlo, never mentioning the other three Republicans. For weeks prior to the election, a tsunami of operatives swarmed the numerous Douglas County Republican and conservative Facebook pages, boosting the sole “endorsed” candidate, while undermining and defaming the three well-qualified pro-bond/mill levy candidates.
The Party violated its own main purpose as enshrined in the Douglas County Republican Central Committee bylaws, Article II Section II: “The primary purpose of this organization shall be to elect Republican candidates to office….” Not that the Party shall elect only candidates who oppose school funding. Not that the Party shall elect only the candidates they like. Not that they shall elect candidates based on some purity test. They also violated the most obvious rule of politics: If you don’t vote for your Party’s candidates, you’re helping the other side win.