WA State results at 96% - Letter from WAGOP Chairman

http://wsrp.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=7042

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Open Letter on Precinct Caucus Results

Dear Friends,

First of all, thank you to everyone who participated in our historic and exciting Republican precinct caucuses on Saturday, February 9th. The success of our caucuses was only possible because of the incredible efforts of thousands of grassroots Republican volunteers around the state.

This past week has been a remarkable time for our party. I had the great honor of speaking on the program for Mrs. Janet Huckabee during her rally in Kirkland on the day before the caucuses, and I appeared on the stage with Sen. John McCain during his rally in Seattle later that same evening. As a state party we are neutral in the presidential race, but we are supportive of all of our outstanding Republican candidates.

Recently, there has been some controversy surrounding the results of our precinct caucuses, and I want to correct some misimpressions that have been reported. Our role at the State Party Headquarters has been to gather data from our 39 county party organizations, tabulate the data and report the statewide results. We are merely the messengers for the information gathered by our outstanding Republican Party volunteers throughout the state.

It has been suggested that we intentionally “stopped" counting delegates on Saturday night before all the results were reported. Frankly, I was thrilled that we could provide the level of results that we did on the day of the caucuses. We provided our last updated numbers on Caucus Night at about 10:15 p.m., and explained to the media that we are a volunteer organization, and that our volunteers do need to get some sleep, and most of them want to be fresh and alert for Sunday church services. Nonetheless, some have spun the situation to suggest that we stopped counting because we had an intent to favor a particular candidate, which is baseless and untrue.

Our staff was actually in the office working on Sunday so we could get more numbers, and we are continuing to stay in touch with our grassroots Republican Party organizations around the state to obtain as many of the delegate results as we can as quickly as possible. We will continue in these efforts until the job is completed.

It was my decision as State Party Chairman to announce on Saturday night that Sen. McCain was the "winner" of the precinct caucuses. It's important for everyone to know that I would have delivered the same message on Gov. Huckabee's behalf (or Congressman Paul or Gov. Romney) if the situation had been reversed. The margin between Sen. McCain and Gov. Huckabee is not huge, but after running an analysis of remaining precincts and consulting with my staff, I was confident the margin would hold, and I thought I owed it to all of those who took the time to attend our precinct caucuses to provide them with that information.

My statement in no way “disenfranchised” anyone. We have continued our delegate count each day since the caucuses, and will continue until each delegate is counted. All the major campaigns have been treated fairly in this process. In fact, we provided representatives of the Huckabee and McCain Campaigns an opportunity to review the newest data before it is revealed to the media and posted on our website.

Some have suggested that it is inappropriate to refer to a candidate who received less than 50% of the delegates as the “winner”, though I followed the lead of states such as Iowa where Gov. Huckabee was named the “winner” of the Iowa caucuses with 34% of the vote, and North Dakota where Gov. Romney was named the “winner” after receiving 36%.

Working hand-in-hand with our county party organizations, we have provided the most accurate and timely information available. The latest review of data on Monday indicated that reporting issues existed in four of our 39 counties: Benton, Grant, Jefferson and Snohomish. In those four counties the data that we initially reported was a tabulation of the presidential preferences of caucus attendees, while in every other county the tabulation was made of the presidential preferences of the delegates chosen at Saturday’s caucuses. The corrected data for all four of these counties has been provided in the results issued on Monday night, February 11th. The number of total delegates for each candidate did change, but the overall ranking of the candidates has not changed.

It is important for all participants to understand that our precinct caucuses are the first step in a three-step process that allocates roughly half of our state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention. Delegates elected at the precinct caucuses will gather at county conventions, where delegates will be chosen for our State Republican Convention. At the state convention the actual delegates who will attend the Republican National Convention will be chosen. It will not be possible to ascertain the national delegate breakdown among the candidates until the state convention is held. But the precinct caucuses are an important show of strength, which is why each of the candidates campaigned so vigorously here in Washington State.

I hope this information is helpful. I look forward to working with every Republican across the state to achieve great victories in 2008. We will focus on electing Dino Rossi as Governor, re-electing our incumbent Republicans, winning new Republican seats and carrying our state for our eventual Republican presidential nominee.

But before then, please remember to vote in the Tuesday, February 19th Republican presidential primary. This is an entirely separate vote from our precinct caucus process. We will use the presidential primary to allocate roughly half of our state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention, while the Democrats in our state have chosen to disregard the votes cast in the presidential primary. Thank your continuing support of the Republican Party and of our outstanding candidates for public office.

Sincerely,

Chairman Luke Esser

Washington State Republican Party