Rumors have it that a band of children are in charge of the stewardship of the Cobb GOP because we’ve never seen a bigger bunch of whiny crybabies when people point out when they’ve broken simple-to-follow rules. And, they can’t figure out that their own lying and cheating has caused their own suffering, and the suffering of any newbies to the party.

PV Offers Some Sipping Brandy: First, the easiest way to read this (very long and detailed) article is to scroll down to the very bottom and click the "Print" hyperlink. This will reproduce the article in an easier-to-read format than what is on the site.

Last fall, the State GOP sent out its "Call." The Call is the formal announcement of the scheduling of the next year's reorganization process. In Georgia, we organize first by precincts, then by county, then by congressional district, and then the whole state meets for a convention. The precincts are political subdivisions defined by the individual county governments or election boards, and usually are drawn for approximately 3000 people who live in the vicinity to vote.

Delegates to the county convention are nominated based on a formula of how many Republican votes each precinct turned-out in one of the last statewide elections. (This, by the way, is the crux of Cobb's problems, but we're not ready to discuss that just yet.)

Delegates to the districts and state convention are chosen by the county organizations.

At each of the levels of organization, there is an election process of officers to represent the precinct organization to the county, the county organization to the state and district, the district organization to the state, and finally, the state convention elects a multitude of officers who (except for the past 2 years under Ralph when he was a dictator) represent the state GOP organization to the respective areas of the state.

The state party has a set of rules adopted to govern the operation of the state party and how its county party sub-divisions act in accordance with state rules. Each county develops its own set of rules that may or may not match what the state has, but they cannot be in conflict with the state party rules. Each county pretty much operates autonomously of any other county.

However, the rules of each county must be adhered to by that county, otherwise the entire county party, and, in some cases, the entire state party can be at risk of losing their operating status under Georgia law.

See, these political party organizations, whether they be GOP, Dim, Libertarian, or whatever are allowed to exist in a fundraising and expenditure mode due to specific statutes in the Official Code of Georgia. One such statute requires that the rules of each county party and a list of the current officers be submitted to the respective county’s election registrar.

Now, if a county party stops acting in accordance with their rules, and displays actions contrary to what they state in their rules (for example, if they turn their county party into a for-profit organization whereby some officers take money from the county party's treasury and use it for their own personal benefit), then it is possible for their status under these OCGA statutes to be challenged by either the State Elections Board or the State Attorney General (as an aside, the Governor would not have any say if such a matter was ever taken-up by the AG) or even the Secretary of State.

Furthermore, it would be reasonable to assume that if the state party was apprised of any deliberate or flagrant violations of any county party's own rules, and shielded their eyes from these unlawful actions, then by that act, the entire state political organization could be subject to a challenge under these statutes as well. Nothing exists in a vacuum and all actions (or inactions) have consequences associated with them.

PV Serves The Appetizer: So, the Call stipulated the following with regard to how delegates were to be allocated in each county:

Delegates to the County convention may be apportioned by precinct according to the vote cast for Sonny Perdue in the 2002 Gubernatorial Election.

The Call stipulated "Sonny Perdue" because all county parties in Georgia had previously set their allocation based on the 2000 Bush vote. Because some counties had new precincts that had been added or modified since the 2000 Bush vote, the State GOP decided to offer counties the possibility of using Perdue votes to allocate delegates for counties that experienced this problem. It was a problem because since the precincts weren't in existence in 2000, they wouldn't reflect any turnout for Bush. But, Bush 2000 vote remains in effect for county delegates to the state convention and other determinations that do not go down to the precinct level.

Now, in 2001, the last time the Cobb County GOP was organized, the party adopted rules that stated that they would allocate delegates based on 150 Bush votes in each precinct. In fact, the specific rule they adopted is in Section VII, Paragraph D of the County Rules:

“…[E]ach Precinct shall be entitled to one additional Delegate and one Additional Alternate for each 150 votes and major fraction thereof (75 or more) cast for the Republican candidate for President in the immediately preceding election or such allocation that may be dictated by the Call.”

The Cobb County Rules also state that, in order to change any of these rules other than at a convention, the rule change must be approved by a 3/4 vote of a quorum present at a meeting of the Cobb County Committee. NOT the “Cobb County Executive Committee”, but the whole county committee, which is about 250 people, give or take.

The Call also required a written response from each of the counties by December 26, 2002 on what their specific plans were with regard to how they were going to organize AND how they were going to allocate delegates. That is, by what number of votes per delegate that the delegates to the County Convention would be allocated.

PV Serves The Salad For Roughage: So, when the Call occurred last fall, the Cobb GOP dithered and twiddled their thumbs whilst all other county parties got their paperwork in order to turn in on time…because, like everything else in the world, there was a due date for the counties to acknowledge the call and to confirm how they were going to call a mass precinct meeting, etc.

Cobb was late and the nice, but naïve, members of the State Executive Committee voted to give the Cobb GOP a waiver for their tardiness. But, that waiver only applies to the state GOP, not any congressional district convention to be held that has Cobb County as a participant.

Now, the paperwork the county filed only contained the specifications for how the mass precinct meetings were to be held. No mention of the delegate allocation was spelled-out.

There was a Cobb County Committee meeting called for December 30 (yes, Marilyn Gilhuly has more than a few screws loose to call a meeting during a holiday break). In this meeting, the Committee approved of some changes to the rules regarding changing how Cobb is organized. The county used to be organized via state house districts, and now they are organized via sub-commission districts. The rules were revised to reflect this organizational change.

BUT, no subject was raised regarding changing the delegate allocation from 150 to 50 votes per delegate. And, that would have been the time to change it, during a meeting of the county committee. And, knowing this committee the way we do, Gilhuly, Ploener, Stafford, Molesky, Strickland, Mickey, Minnie and the whole bunch of other Mouseketeers would have had enough fabricated proxies to get the vote they needed.

But, these fools didn't think about it then when they could do it legally. They thought about it later. "Later," as in long after they filed their papers with the state and were granted a waiver for missing a deadline. "Later," as in it was too late to change any rule for the mass precinct meetings at that point. "Later," as in the Cobb GOP is SOL.

But, do you think that stops prolific liars and cheaters? Surely you jest. Are you even ready for the tasty meat? Have you been reading the Vine over the past year? We don't know about this; you might be vegetarians who might have an allergic reaction to the truth and then we might get sued...oh well, read at your own risk...

PV Serves The Hearty Slab O' Beef: So, Chair Marilyn Gilhuly, First Vice-Chair Paul Ploener, Frank Molesky, Legal Counsel Doug Shaddix, and Goofy (the Disney dog, who, seriously, would be eminently more qualified to run this party than these guys) decide that because the Call stated that they could alter the election upon which the allocation was based, that also meant they could just change the allocation as well without going through the legal procedures spelled-out in their county party Rules.

The allocation they unlawfully changed it to is an allocation of one delegate per 50 votes, instead of 150 votes. Thus, in effect, tripling the number of delegates they can stuff a county convention with. Now, in all other circumstances, you might think it would be good to encourage all the folks who want to participate to come in and pay $20 and participate, right? Wrong!

There is a sinister little goal that all of this is being done in hopes of accomplishing: that Anthony-Scott Hobbs get elected chairman of the county party. Now, look, we don't mind a fair race between two people. In this case, another guy by the name of Scott Chadwick is also running for the seat.

But the fact is, Gilhuly and Hobbs don't have the votes for Hobbs to win if they stick to the 150 vote per delegate allocation. So, they opt to stuff the ballot with fraudulent delegates. And, despite what morons like MDJ columnist Bill "how-many-times-have-you-forgotten-to-take-your-lithium-dosage" Kinney believe, this is not a matter of "Republicans eating their young." Some Republicans simply don't put up with liars and cheats. And, if the "young" are engaging in such activity, they need their asses solidly kicked.

Now, in addition to just making-up the new 50-vote allocation rule, the Cobb Gil-hooligans did one other thing that displayed sheer stupidity on their part. Two weeks before the February 8 Mass Meetings, they asked the State GOP Legal Counsel Randy Evans and Parliamentarian John White for guidance on their changing the allocation rule. To be accurate, it was First Vice Chair Paul Ploener who sent an e-mail request to John White and asked him if they could change the allocation.

White, in a series of e-mails, patiently explained the rules of both the state party as well as the county party and informed Ploener and other Cobb officers that they were not allowed to allocate based on the 50-vote rule. And, all these e-mail responses occurred prior to the February 8 meetings.

And, just in case there are those of you who like to always claim the Political Vine lies, we have this juicy e-mail written by Paul Ploener to the entire Cobb Executive Committee in which he admits the specific ruling by John White and his recommendation to everyone else that they just ignore the ruling:

From: PalPlo@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 4, 2003 6:28:31 PM US/Eastern
Subject: Allocation of delegates

Dear Fellow Executive Committee Members:

Last Saturday at the Breakfast, some questions arose on how to allocate delegates for the County Convention. We have received a ruling from the State Parlimentarian that states that we should allocate based on 1 delegate per 150 Sonny Purdue votes. [emphasis added] We feel that we have a case that we should allocate based on 1 delegate per 50 Sonny Purdue votes.

Doug Shaddix has conferred with State Party Counsel who believes that the local party has the right to do as it sees fit and the call gives us the leeway. Doug Shaddix believes that we can go ahead with the one delegate per 50 Sonny Purdue votes. The safe play would be to go with the 150 number, but this would only give us authorized strength of 755 versus 1893. Paul Ploener, Marilyn Gilhuly, and Doug Debolt feel that we should proceed with the larger number of delegates or he allocation of 1 per 50 Perdue votes/precinct. We need your input.

We are willing to go ahead with the allocation of 1 delegate per 50 Sonny Purdue votes if the majority of the Executive Committee concurs. Please respond to this email to Paul Ploener, Marilyn Gilhuly and Doug DeBolt. DO NOT FORWARD TO ANYONE! THIS IS CONFIDENTIAL.

Regards,

Paul Ploener, 1st Vice-Chair”

PV Offers Some Analysis of Ploener's E-Mail:

1. First things first, we'd like to personally thank County GOP Secretary Doug DeBolt for forwarding this "confidential" letter on to us. Though Doug has been previously involved in helping in proxy fabrication on behalf of Ploener, Hobbs and Gilhuly, this act to get the truth out may be a signal that Doug is getting disgusted with these cheaters as well.

2. With regards to the premise of this letter, it is against the rules to hold Executive Committee Meetings in secret. A "confidential" (i.e., secret meeting) is not allowed under county party rules. Nor is any decision rendered via e-mail remotely valid.

3. EVEN if we put aside the unlawfulness of the e-mail meeting, the Cobb GOP must produce valid time-and-date stamped responses from a majority of the Cobb Executive Committee meeting stating that they agreed with the 50-vote rule and these e-mails must be dated prior to February 8. We doubt that even Mr. DeBolt would bother with fabricating all of those e-mails from each of the Executive Committee members. Gilhuly and Ploener would do it, but, DeBolt is digging himself in deeper than he can handle if he helps fabricate any more documentation.

4. You will note that Ploener specifically states "The safe play would be to go with the 150 number, but this would only give us authorized strength of 755 versus 1893." Right. Because Ploener, Hobbs and Gilhuly all believe that Hobbs cannot win if only 755 people show-up at the convention. They need to stuff the convention fraudulently so that Hobbs has a better chance of winning. Stuffing the convention with 1200 extra people dilutes the votes of people who are there legally. These actions are precisely what the Democrats have done for decades in Georgia, and to have Republicans engage in the same act is disgusting.

The bottom line is that the Cobb EC specifically asked for a ruling, they were told the ruling prior to February 8, and they chose to ignore the ruling when it didn't match what they wished to do.

PV Serves Dessert: Now, during the time of Ploener’s ongoing correspondence with John White, some of the folks on the non-rule-breaking side were concerned that on the February 8 meetings, Marilyn and her Gil-hooligans would STILL cheat and allocate delegates based on the 50-vote rule. So, John White provided some of them with a copy of his ruling. And, in one of the sub-commission mass meetings where this copy of White’s decision was displayed, a loud protest occurred due to the rule-breakers.

One of the supposed “newbies,” a guy named Michael Altman, got all upset and accused Sue Everhart of being "disruptive" in the meeting because she and others challenged the fraudulent delegate allocation. Yeah, that's right. Sue and people like Donna Rowe are ALL "disruptive" when anyone breaks the rules. We guess this newbie who doesn't like "disruptions" in political meetings probably thinks hit-and-run drivers or bank robbers should never be reported either.

In another meeting, Sub-Commission District 3B, a written protest on the 150 vs. 50-vote rule by Sewell Mill 01 Precinct Chair Bill Simon was given to the Mass Precinct Secretary, Craig Dowdy, to be part of the record.

After all of these horrible "disruptions", then the fun really started in e-mails this past week. The most interesting one comes from Anthony-Scott Hobbs himself. Let's listen in to Anthony's keen sense of what's fair:

----- Original Message -----
From: Politicsofchange@aol.com
To: DShaddix@KSLAW.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 8:26 AM
Subject: Addressing Cobb Delegate allocation
CC: [a bunch of other people]

Doug-

Per our conversation yesterday morning, my intent in requesting this meeting this week is to resolve this issue of 50 or 150 votes per delegate immediately. With that, what do I need to do to request the State Party to make a formal ruling on this matter now?

In the end, are we to disenfranchise our membership about this process and this organization if we do not produce logical rationale of why the State Party may throw out our Cobb Convention results and/or delegates to the District and State Conventions? They (THE MEMBERSHIP) are what is most important at this juncture. We have a responsibility to them to finalize and end this issue. We all have worked too hard over the years to create a new energized grass roots organization here in Cobb. What a public relations nightmare for the State Party, if they were to rule against our membership from participating.

Even though I am not a Party officer or was privy to the final decision of Cobb's votes per delegate equation; I read the call and was at the County Committee meeting on December 30th where the call was read and accepted. Have any at the State Party heard from our Cobb officers and why the interpretation was made as it was?

Furthermore, it was not fair to our newcomers for those that have threatened contesting our Cobb County results prior to the mass precincts being held. Nor, was it appropriate for those that created havoc and confusion during the mass precinct meetings about the 50 or 150 issue. We lost many newcomers on Saturday soley due to this issue and its implications. I encourage you to call Michael Altman, John Nash, or Sandra Thompson in 2A about what happened at their meeting. Almost 20 people left the meeting in disgust.

On Saturday, 10 out of 12 subcommission district chairs were elected from my grass roots team. Many are new to the Party, others seasoned, but all with the motivation of moving the Party forward. At least from the phone calls that I recieved this past weekend, I would anticipate that a high majority of the Cobb delegates support me as Chairman. If I were to lose the Chairman's race, my supporters nor I would have no intention or cause to contest the Cobb Convention or its delegates. To contest the convention or our delegates for the Distict/State would only bring the Cobb Party down and disenfranchise all those that participated. For those that threaten to contest the results, what are their motivations: personal or for the good of the Party?

Let me know about confirmation of the meeting and I will be there. If the meeting does not take place, I would still like to initiate the process for the Party to rule on this issue as soon as possible.

Please advise on whether or not we should get a petition from our membership regarding this matter, consequences of State Party ruling, etc.

Sincerely,

Anthony-Scott Hobbs
Cobb GOP Chairman candidate

PV Offers A Few Observations of Hobbs' Letter:

1. This statement by Hobbs is quite amusing: "We all have worked too hard over the years to create a new energized grass roots organization here in Cobb."

The fact of the matter is, Hobbs hasn't worked on one thing in Cobb "over the years" because he hasn't lived in Cobb "over the years." He moved to Cobb sometime in 2000, but was not involved in any politics in Cobb until the state chairman' race of 2001. He did some consulting work for Art Morris in 2000 but didn't even register to vote in Georgia until February 2001 (this information can be obtained at the Cobb County Board of Elections on Waddell Street).

Kinda tough to "build" a party if you aren't registered to vote because one of the stipulations for participating in party politics is that you must be a registered voter. Prior to moving to Georgia in 1999, Hobbs lived in 6 different locales inside of 5 years. Or, it may have been 5 different locales inside of 6 years. Keeping up with Hobbs is quite the exhausting endeavor.

2. With regard to Hobbs's statement that "Nor, was it appropriate for those that created havoc and confusion during the mass precinct meetings about the 50 or 150 issue. We lost many newcomers on Saturday soley due to this issue and its implications.", we have to ask, is Anthony Hobbs on drugs?

Because, only people on drugs would believe it's "wrong" to protest when someone violates the rules. Only people on drugs would think it's "unfair" that other people have to witness people protesting the cheaters' actions.

We don't know Hobbs's heritage, but we suspect he has a relative who was part of the Gestapo in Germany during WW II. Because, this is the way dictators actually gain power, either in organizations or in government. By quashing legitimate protests and claiming they are being "fair" to new people who wouldn't know what fair was if it bit them on their foot.

Mr. Hobbs is absolutely wrong in declaring the protestors' actions as "not appropriate." The only way the protests would be valid is IF they were made prior to the County Convention. Because, if you make them after the Convention, then the opposite side can claim that you are merely a "sore loser." In this case, it doesn't matter who wins the election at the convention because the entire convention is unlawful and now is the time to make that point, not after the Convention. And, making the protests become part of the record of each mass precinct meeting is quite legit. Hobbs knows this, which is why he's now arguing about "fairness" hogwash.

People on the side of the people who protest the rule-breakers are NOT “sore losers.” Especially since no election has occurred yet. They are people who demand that the rules be followed. That Hobbs and his crew doesn’t get this means that they likely won’t follow any rules if they get elected, whether by legal or unlawful means.

So, suffice to say, Mr. Hobbs is full of manure when he claims he has worked to build anything in Cobb. He is out to win, not for the good of the party, but for himself and what he can do with the resources (both financial and other resources) of the county party.

Furthermore, his pleas of “I didn’t have anything to do with the final decision on how delegates were allocated” are BULLSHIT!!! He knew exactly what was going on as Cobb GOP Finance Chairman (which is a position on the Executive Committee as spelled-out on the Cobb GOP Web page) and he chose not to stop it.

He knew of the decision by John White and he chose to ignore it. His pleas of how this will “destroy the Party” is crappola as well. The Cobb Party is already in shambles due to people like his and Gilhuly’s antics over the past two years. The best way to build this party would be to completely scrap this heap and get rid of all of the rot. Because, once the rot is gone, the people who are truly interested in building a party based on rules and fairness will come together and build it. Rot doesn’t have any desire to stick around and wait for a house to be built. Rot takes over and destroys existing houses because it is less time-consuming. Only people with integrity will stick around and re-build the party.

So, if Hobbs is allowed to continue his march of breaking rules, there is no telling where this rule-breaking bunch and all his followers will end-up. The state GOP won’t have to worry about poor ‘ole Cobb. They will have a lot to worry about themselves.

PV Concludes With A Mint Chocolate Wafer This is not, by the way, mere “gamesmanship” by Gilhuly and Hobbs. This is winning by breaking rules. People who flagrantly break rules in order to gain power have some other agenda in mind…and it is very likely not a good one for people concerned.

Twice in the past two years, 2nd Vice Chair Craig Kootsillas has asked Doug DeBolt, Secretary of the county party, to show him the proxies from county committee meetings. Twice, Marilyn Gilhuly has stepped in and nastily refused him the opportunity to review the proxies.

When leaders refuse to allow members and officers of an organization to review proxies, you can bet that something unlawful is going on with those proxies. There is a format to proxies and rules governing who can assign and how they can be assigned and we suspect they were not assigned properly. But, people like Secretary Doug DeBolt have no problem with his conscience when he continues to hide these bogus proxies from view.

Additionally, Craig Kootsillas also requested copies of some balance sheets and party income statements from the Treasurer, Harry Eubanks. This request had to do with trying to figure out how much money was actually raised and spent during the General Election. Marilyn likes to claim one thing, but since no one is allowing anyone else to examine the financial statements, yeah, we’re a little suspect of anything she claims. (Note to Harry Eubanks: Remember, you’re a CPA. Since Marilyn is refusing those income statements to be public, we think it’s safe to say that those financial records are likely as bogus as the proxies and that’s the reason why Gilhuly won’t release them. If any shenanigans do occur, we will personally be writing a complaint on you to the CPA board.)

So, we believe there is a LOT of mischief occurring in the management of this GOP county party. And, if Marilyn’s personal choice for chairman (Anthony Scott-Hobbs) wins, no one will ever know what’s going on until it’s too late. This bullshit has to be stopped in its tracks or we will all look like idiots in this state for not preventing a disaster. When rules are broken, behavior must be punished. Otherwise, the entire process is in jeopardy.

Oh...one final thought to leave with you. If ANYONE in this state Republican organization, OR any elected GOP officials, OR people running for GOP office, OR even if the President of the United States steps in and displays support for these cretins who flagrantly break rules and then hide under a veil of feigned innocence, they (or he or she) will gain the Political Vine as your/their permanent political enemy. No threats, just promises.

And, if you're already an enemy of the Vine, the animosity will get ten times worse. We don't buy the stupid adage of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." We believe in blowing our enemies out of the water in much the same way the U.S. military blew the Taliban out of Afghanistan.