With such a tumultuous primary, and more dark money being spent by Governor Ricketts attacking Republican candidates than ever before, we understand if executive director Taylor Gage needed a vacation. We haven’t heard from him! Yet, he did have time for a short and patronizing reply to one Nebraska Republican Party County Chair. In an email, Gage referred to our Monday release as “gossip”.
The Nebraska Freedom Coalition attempted to reach out to Gage multiple times to inquire which part of the release he was referring to. We emailed him, we called him, we texted him, but still nothing. We simply wanted to open a dialogue for the unity the state party has been espousing. In our email to Gage, we outlined paragraph by paragraph objective reality - percentages from the Secretary of State website, examples of past behavior from the state party enforcement team, and action items we plan to take moving forward. We took solace in knowing we weren’t alone in our deductions.
Last week, the great Senator Steve Erdman posted a similar letter to his legislative website. He described this year’s primary as, “one of Nebraska’s nastiest primary elections ever”. He also cited how difficult unification will be given the following:
“ the kinds of campaign tactics that were employed, some of the statements that were made, and the nature of the allegations that were lodged against Jim Pillen’s opponents.”
“Gov. Ricketts funneled $1.13 million through an organization called Conservative Nebraska in order to fund attack ads against gubernatorial candidates Brett Lindstrom and Charles W. Herbster. How can the sitting governor, who funded attack ads against fellow Republicans, now issue a call for party unity?”
Pillen’s campaign strategy mirroring Joe Bidan’s: “ hide your candidate in the basement and keep him away from public debates, so that the voting public won’t know about his past voting record as a UN Regent, or where he stands on important issues”
We thank Senator Erdman for addressing the concerns many conservative Nebraskans have across this state and also thank the great Senator Tom Brewer for responding to us privately.
Not only was Senator Erdman concerned about the NEGOP’s compromised messaging of “Unity”, Hitchcock Republican Party County Chairman and fellow freedom fighter Bruce Desautels echoed many of the same sentiments, yet again! In a response to Gage’s claims that our release was merely gossip, Chairman Desautels responded by saying that Gage’s definition was, “intellectually lazy, and serves only to further bolster NFC's assertions.” Chairman Desautels went on to say that, “the letter is the response I believe those in leadership positions of trust should expect, after making the asinine decision to "play dirty" against their own members.” and “While these players have in the past gotten away with such disgusting behavior, this time they got caught.” Bruce Desautels is the bold Chairman who called for the state's county operations to censure little Sen. Ben Sasse, the worthless Senator who is another terrible representative and who doesn’t spend more than 2 months a year in the state.
Another important aspect Chairman Desautels highlighted is how flippant and disrespectful the state party has continually treated western Nebraska. Chairman Desautels elaborates here:
“The NEGOP leadership have treated the people of the west like second-class citizens. More pointedly, they have trodden down upon rural Nebraskans as though we were dirt.
Unfortunately for the establishment, their party games have finally ‘awoken a sleeping giant’, and now the party leadership pretends to be appalled by rural activism. How long did the NEGOP leadership think rural Nebraskans would tolerate establishment hackery before the rural counties of CD-3 would finally push back? The NEGOP elites still expect that rural Republicans shut up, sit down, and be well-behaved bootlickers. Those days are over, Taylor - and you best accept that truth. What the party leadership fails to understand is that rural Nebraskans have suffered enough Republican establishment bullcrap. We're not going to take it anymore.” “I strongly advise that you, Taylor, and the rest of the party leadership, clearly understand that rural Nebraskans are done with ‘business as usual’. Chairman Dan Welch is not going to be able to BS his way out of this mess - and neither are you; so quit with the spin, because it's ‘no sale’.”
Chairman Desautels ended his email by saying, “If you want to have a serious discussion with me, Taylor, then you'll need to do better than casually dismissing NFC's letter as "gossip." We couldn’t agree more! So Taylor, pick up the phone and call us. Because right now, your call for unity in the party is really falling on a lot of deaf ears…