Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor. 

I had several people contact me over the Tulsa County GOP meeting last week.

 I interviewed them over the phone for the following follow up story. I interspersed some comments of my own that are not in quotation marks to emphasis the importance of what was said.

“I need to tell you about my recent meeting of the Tulsa Republican County Committee meeting. It was my first Tulsa County GOP meeting but I had attended other GOP meetings and this was perhaps the least productive and in fact the most destructive meeting of misfits that I have ever witnessed. Of the 200-300 members it's supposed to have, only about two dozen showed up. There was no agenda posted and the meeting location was moved causing some to show up at the wrong place, miles away. The meeting started with a bible reading which was going to be longer, but the chairman limited it. Then we had not one, but 3 separate prayers. this went on for several minutes.”

 Everyone in Oklahoma is okay with opening a meeting with a prayer, but three prayers? And a bible reading? That will drive away the less religious folks or those that prefer not to mix religion and politics. 

"After the pledge, we had some basic and helpful financial details on the party. Then we had the county clerk give us a talk about what the county clerk's office does and how they are trying to modernize the office. That was followed by several more minutes of questions from the members. By now had spent over an hour of what was vaguely billed as an important meeting. Then the chairman talked about the drama at the state party and gave his unauthorized & unsubstantiated rumors of what "the real story is". Bob Jack was very negative talking about the GOP leadership and the state committee, he left no doubt he thought all of them were idiots.”

 Bob Jack is from a corporate world where those below bow and scrape to those above. Which is why corporate leaders usually fail in the real world much less in politics. 

"Then he turned the topic to the county party leadership and started to address the matter of David Van's media platform known as Sooner Politics.org. Other attendees interrupted to discuss the state party drama and vent their own opinions of who's right or wrong. About 10 minutes later the chair started back in on calling David Van a divisive person, but couldn't point to any comment that Van had ever said or written. He claim was that Sooner Politics, which is a collaborative platform of RSS feeds from several dozens of conservative bloggers; has a few bloggers that say things that Chairman Jack doesn't like.”

 This next part is important and those from a church community will understand the enormity of not attempting to fix issues in private before going public.

“David tried to defend himself from the attacks by pointing out that Bob Jack had never discussed this matter with him. Instead, Bob Jack went public with his call for David Van to resign his party elective office. None of the religious leaders saw a contradiction of biblical dispute resolution teachings in this meeting.. or if they did, they kept their mouths shut.”

 A second source called in and went over what happened in an interview:

“In Bob Jack's world, David Van needs to quit because some other blogger in the platform is airing party disputes in public, bringing embarrassment to the party. The current state party chairman is from Tulsa and formerly chaired the county GOP. But some bloggers around the rest of the state are leveling some assertions regarding his leadership & character. It seems Bob Jack believes the party has a right to expect Mr. Van's media platforms to censor any opinions that are unflattering of the chairman, even while Bob Jack seems to impugn the state vice chairman. One man rose up and pointed out that several of the attendees including Ronda Vuillemont Smith and Amanda Teagarden were outspoken online and on the radio, including being on the Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite board so to ask David Van to resign would mean asking them to resign if we were to be fair about it."

“Bob Jack tried to claim his motion for removal is valid motion and that no rule requires a quorum in order to be voted on. A younger man sitting next to David Van then contested the point. The incredulity evidently got the best of the young man and he smirked in disbelief. That smirk then drew the ire of Chairman Jack and he loudly scolded the younger member for smirking at him. And that just brought even more smirking. But no quorum was even close to being there, some discussed that point, but the microphone was passed around to people bitching, mainly that opinion sites shouldn't reflect bad on the party, no one wanted to follow a Christian manner of dealing with disagreements.”

“Mr. Van kept an amazingly calm demeanor through the whole discourse and the attacks levied against him for letting diverse opinions be published on one of his media platforms. Realizing that his argument was falling apart, Bob Jack then said that unless David Van resigns, he will resign as chairman. This led to emotional pleas from a few folks who then called for the few dozen voting members to "stand up if they stand with Bob Jack"; which about 15 of the 20 present then did.”

“After the meeting people were discussing exactly who Bob Jack had such an issue with on Sooner Politics. Most hated the Sooner Tea Party but they couldn't attack them so they attacked Sooner Politics, no experts, no facts, just finding fault, and threatening David Van with a vote forcing his resignation.”

“Bob Jack's ultimatum was very unprofessional. The entire meeting was a giant waste of my time, don't feel like I could get involved after this, it was a two hour meeting. 

Leave my name out of this interview. This bunch is crazy and I sure don't need the drama.”