Audrey Scott you are no Sharon Day

Nor for that matter are Joyce Terhes or Louis Pope!  (New readers see previous post.)

Who is Sharon Day you ask!

Remember the controversy in the spring of 2009 about whether Michael Steele’s RNC would endorse Charlie Crist for the Florida US Senate seat when conservative Marco Rubio was the up and coming challenger in the Florida Republican primary.   Sharon Day was the one hold out of the three national committeemen for Florida who refused to sign the Rule 11 waiver letter!   She said NO!  She said that the voters should choose their candidate in the primary and not have it decided by Michael Steele and the boys in Washington!

As we know, the rest is history—Crist bolted from the Republican Party and showed himself as the middle-of-the-road (Me first!) career politician that he is.

Here then is the May 2009 story from The NextRight entitled: “Rule 11:  Why Steele has no say on Crist.”   Hat tip:  Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum.

Author Soren Dayton begins:

There were a series of questions about whether the RNC would endorse Arlen Specter. Michael Steele has been asked about endorsing Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. And now people are getting their underwear in a knot about Charlie Crist.

I hate to be super pedantic, but the RNC does not make the endorsement decision. A state’s delegation to the Republican National Committee control that process. And Sharon Day, RNC Secretary and Florida Republican National Committeewoman, has refused to support an RNC endorsement:

Sharon Day, of Fort Lauderdale, who holds the post of national Republican committeewoman from Florida, refused Greer’s request to sign a letter authorizing the national Republican Party to help Crist in the primary.

Party rules say the party must stay neutral in primaries unless all three members of the national committee from a state sign a letter authorizing the party to take sides. Greer, also a national committee member, and Paul Senft of Bartow, Florida’s national committeeman, have both signed the letter.

This is the so-called “Rule 11”.

Go back and read the Tampa Tribune article from which the quote above is taken.  You need only change the names and it’s the same story in Maryland!*    Day also said this:

“We have a process to elect our candidates in primaries,” she said. “I’m not endorsing any candidate, but I represent all Republicans.”

* In Maryland there are two differences.  The first of course is that none of the national committeemen stood up for the voters.  The second is that there is some question about whether Rule 11 was ever intended for state races (such as the race for governor).  Lawyers should decide if the Rule 11 waiver is intended only for national races as the one in Florida for a US Senate seat obviously is, and determine if the waiver was illegally employed in Maryland for Michael Steele’s old friend Robert Erhlich.