State Party Convention — Missoula June 19-21

The Montana GOP state convention will be held in Missoula June 19-21.  Please click here for more information.  The registration fee and hotel expenses are discussed at that site.

All Republicans are invited to attend.  If anyone is planning to attend the convention and is interested in serving as a delegate, please contact me at yellowstonegop@gmail.com as soon as possible.

Executive Board openings — and new volunteer coordinator

1.  At the June 5th county meeting, we will also have elections for several Executive Board positions.  Anyone who is interested in serving on the Executive Board or who wants to suggest someone else for an Executive Board position should contact me.  We have a great Executive Board and whoever joins us will find the experience rewarding. 

A very important vacant position that needs filling is that of Secretary.  We have been truly fortunate to have Cindy Graf serve as our secretary, but she is stepping down now that her term is up.  She has graciously offered to help train her replacement.  Ideally, a candidate for secretary should have good computer skills, with familiarity in working with Word and Excel documents.  Please contact me if you would be interested in this position or know someone who would be a good candidate.

2.  The State GOP’s “March to Victory” plan calls for having a county-wide volunteer team, headed up by a volunteer coordinator.  I am pleased to announce that Tena Moore has graciously agreed to serve in this important position.  Our goal is to have a lot of volunteers, each doing what they are good at and are interested in doing — and each giving short, discreet amounts of time.  There are lots of things that need doing in an election effort — making phone calls with a phone bank team for a few hours, being part of a literature drop team for a couple of hours, being part of a team to help put up signs, being part of a letter-writing committee, helping with computer skills and internet savvy, or putting to use whatever other ideas you might have on how to help our candidates.

Tena’s job will be to put together groups of volunteers for each task that we have, avoiding the “volunteer burnout” that comes from asking the same people over and over again.

Our network of precinct captains is an important backbone to our volunteer network for the upcoming election — but many precincts do not at this time have a precinct captain in Yellowstone County.  Furthermore, each individual precinct captain has experience and expertise at different things and different amounts of time available.  So I encourage all precinct captains as well as all Republicans to contact Tena to get on our county volunteer list so we can start putting together a winning volunteer team. 

This is shaping up to be a year where things look very good for Republicans on many levels, from the Presidential race to control of the legislature.  The key this year is going to be grassroots volunteer effort at the local level. Volunteer today!

Call Tena at 855-6231 to get us rolling toward victory in November.

State and County GOP conventions

1.  The Montana GOP State Convention will be held June 19-21 in Missoula.  In a Presidential election year, there are actually three conventions that are held simultaneously:

a.  A meeting of the State Central Committee (4 Executive Board members from each county) will meet to vote on any rules changes and to elect a Naitonal Committeeman and National Committeewoman.

b.  A state party Platform Convention — eligible to vote in this meeting are State Central Committee members as well as those who will be running as Republicans in the fall election, holdover state senators, etc.

c.  A convention at which delegates to the Republican National Convention will be elected.  Up to 25 delegates can be elected from each county.  The vote from each county is weighted based on the number of votes cast in the Republican primary.  More about this in number 2.

2.  We will be holding a Yellowstone County Central Committee meeting/county convention in the first week of June — tentatively set for Thursday evening, June 5th at 7PM at the Crowne Plaza.  All are welcome to attend, but only those who are precinct captains/precinct committeemen and committeewomen as of after the June primary are eligible to vote.

This means that only those who turned in a notarized form in the last few months will be eligible to vote.  And (this is important) there are some contested elections for precinct positions — only the winners of those precinct elections on primary day will be precinct committeemen and women eligible to vote at the county convention.

It is very important that precinct committeemen and women/precinct captains all come to this meeting the first week of June.  We now have a large Central Committee here in Yellowstone County, and we need to have a big turn-out in order to have a quorum.

3.  Those who are interested in attending the Montana State GOP convention as a delegate or an alternate, please contact me.  Please note again the dates of June 19-21, and that the election of delegates from Yellowstone County will take place about 2 weeks prior.

4.  Those who are interested in attending the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in September as delegates or alternates should read more information at the state party web site and fill out an application if you are interested in being considered.  There is a delegate selection committee that will review all applications, and that committee will recommend a slate of delegates at the state convention.  Other nominations will be allowed from the floor, and the delegate convention in Missoula will elect the delegates.

Steve Daines to speak at Billings Pachyderm Friday, April 4th — and new website

We are very excited to have Lt. Gov. candidate Steve Daines with us in Billings on Friday at noon at the Elks Club. He made a surprise appearance at the Yellowstone County LRDD on Saturday night after originally having a conflict, but he elected to have Sen. Roy Brown do all of the talking for their ticket that night.

Let’s have a big turn-out at Pachyderm for our future Lt. Governor!

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Please also note the new link to Rep. Ken Peterson’s website in the links to the right.

2008 Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner a success

Thanks to the hard work of countless volunteers who sold tickets, made plans, decorated, donated auction items, and worked hard before, during, and after the event — the 2008 LRDD is in the books and was a great success.

1.  We had a capacity of 300 tickets and sold every one — there were only a few open seats to be seen at the dinner Saturday night.

2.  Our silent and live auctions, 50/50 raffle, and book sales brought in nearly $6000.

3.  Nearly every candidate for statewide, legislative or county elections was present.

4.  The meal was great!

5.  Our keynote speaker, Michael Graham, was a big hit — funny, provocative, inspiring…

A big thanks to everyone who made the evening come together!  This was a great way to launch into the next phase of the 2008 campaign season.

NEARLY SOLD OUT — only a handful of LRDD tickets left

You can call Jack Chandler at 670-7705 to check on availability, but by the time you read this, the last tickets to the 2008 Yellowstone County LRDD may have been sold.

Websites for Attorney General candidates

Please note that we have added links to the websites for our two Republican Attorney General candidates.  Visit their sites to learn more about their positions and their campaigns.

Lee Bruner  for AG

Tim Fox for AG

Michael Graham to headline March 29th Yellowstone County Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner

Boston talk-radio personality, Boston Herald columnist, and National Review Online contributor Michael Graham will be headlining the Yellowstone County Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner in Billings on March 29th.

His humorous delivery of a serious conservative message is one you won’t want to miss.

Click here to purchase tickets.

From his bio:

After spending six years as a touring national comedian appearing with stars like Jerry Seinfeld and Robin Williams, Michael Graham became a GOP political consultant, working on successful campaigns from Chicago to the Carolinas.

Graham is a frequent guest on national TV and radio shows, appearing as the “token conservative”  on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Hardball with Chris Matthews and the Don Imus radio program, among others.

He’s the author of three books of political humor and analysis, including REDNECK NATION: How the South Really Won The War.

As you can imagine, thriving as a conservative talk-radio host in liberal Boston, Massachusetts takes a pretty healthy sense of humor!  Michael will make for an entertaining but serious touch with which to end this year’s LRDD. 

Taylor Brown’s new website

One more website hot off the press — Taylor Brown for SD 22.

Check it out and please bookmark it and link to it.  If you live in Taylor’s district, contact him and get involved!

New featured candidate websites

Please visit our most recently featured websites:

Brad Johnson for Secretary of State

Michael Lange for U.S. Senate

Kirk Bushman for U.S. Senate

Susan Anderson for HD 51

Please send us information about other campaign websites so we can link to them. Those of you who have blogs or websites, please link to other Republican candidates, since this helps drive the “Google rating” up for these sites, making them easier for supporters to find with search engines.