Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 15, 1990 TAG: 9005150495
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A lot must be done to reverse the GOP's rush toward irrelevance. The state organization's disintegration has progressed beyond the point where a token sacrifice of a party official or two might appease critics and contributors.
Even so, party leaders must recognize, at the least, that Donald Huffman's usefulness as state chairman has ended. As a signal of their seriousness and a first step toward revival, they need to inform Huffman of that, too.
Republicans have had problems enough retaining credibility and contributions as Virginia's minority party through a decade of statewide electoral defeats. Now, after years of questioning the Democrats' fiscal responsibility, the GOP is saddled with revelations of its own financial disorder.
Get your checkbook handy. Here's the pitch: Please give to the Virginia Republican Party; we need the money because we owe the bank more than $100,000 on loans we took out to pay back taxes.
Would you respond to a pitch like that?
So far, party officials have responded to the damaging revelations mostly with dismay that their internal audit was revealed. The leak itself suggests a level of infighting that could not have been long tolerated or suppressed. But why and how the dirty laundry was aired is beside the point.
The point is that the party's leadership has become a liability. Having failed for a decade to elect a statewide candidate, and thus a titular leader, Virginia Republicans might have expected to look to party headquarters for leadership. What they have found is worse than no leadership: incompetence too scandalous to hide.
Huffman cannot escape the scandal. The Roanoke attorney, who was recently considered for a federal judgeship, has shown political skill as party chairman. He has ties to religious fundamentalists, but has played a largely neutral role in struggles between the GOP's moderate and fundamentalist camps. That is to his credit. Unfortunately, he has failed as a manager.
The audit directly criticizes him, as well as the party's executive director and treasurer. Among signs of weak The Roanoke attorney . . . has ties to religious fundamentalists, but has played a largely neutral role in struggles between the GOP's moderate and fundamentalist camps. That is to his credit. Unfortunately, he has failed as a manager. oversight were bounced checks, missing balance statements and budget overruns. Huffman himself signed a bank loan last year to pay part of the back taxes and penalties owed to the Internal Revenue Service.
So far, the state GOP's central committee has not moved to replace the party officials, and the delay only compounds the crisis. Republican legislators have been grumbling, as well they should. They were the state party's primary success story in the 1980s, increasing in number from about 30 to 49. Yet they haven't received the say in party affairs that they deserve.
At the least, recent revelations ought to provide occasion for the legislative caucus to assert more authority within the party.
Democrats are quietly gleeful about all this, of course, but they shouldn't be. Nothing corrupts a political party more than insufficient competition. Virginia's political health would suffer in any case if the GOP were allowed to disintegrate further.
Huffman has said he'll resign if a majority on the central committee wants it. But he shouldn't wait to be asked. It's time he - along with the executive director, treasurer and budget director - pursued other opportunities.
by CNB