Guest Commentary by Robert Danos
reprinted with permission
From Robert Danos, former Chair of the Henderson County GOP, former spokesman for the 11th District NCGOP in response to the announced candidacy for '12 of Dr. Dan Eichenbaum:
I will detail for you here each of the 4 major reasons that Dan Eichenbaum should not be our nominee and why he would be an electoral disaster if he was.
I challenge him to refute any of the points below. They can all be backed up by the other candidates in the 2010 primary and I also sent reporters from the Asheville C-T, Hendersonville T-N, and WLOS documentation of all of the online party and abortion flip flops attached in case he tried to deny them in the future.
In response to this, we can expect much sound and fury and long, tortured responses from Dr. Eichenbaum. However the 4 key black & white questions he can not answer in a satisfactory way will remain - Did you break your promise to endorse the primary winner - yes or no? Did you hide your personal history from the voters - yes or no? Did you pivot on the issue of abortion during the primary - yes or no? Did you mislead the voters about your actual political past - yes or no?
If any readers want to ignore the promise breaking, abortion flip flopping, hiding his political history, and personal baggage I would still ask them to try and find one neutral political observer in the state who thinks that he wouldn't get trounced by Shuler given the points below (which the DCCC has been well aware of since 2010.)
1) Dan Eichenbaum Broke An Ironclad Promise to the Voters: Eichenbaum was the ONLY of the 5 unsuccessful candidates in the 2010 GOP primary that never kept his promise to endorse and support the winner. All of the other men - Greg Newman, Kenny West, Ed Krause, and Jake Howard - made the same promise as Eichenbaum at multiple public forums to endorse whoever won. Each of them kept their promise.
In 20 years of working conservative politics I have never seen a candidate fail to live up to this black & white honor-bound promise.
He has been spinning trying to explain this away but some questions in conservative politics are as a simple as "Did you keep your word to the GOP primary voters to support the nominee - Yes or No?"
This promise was witnessed at multiple forums by the other candidates, club presidents, party chairs, and hundreds of voters.
2) Personal Baggage: He has been married 4 times and he never revealed this to the primary voters. Such a candidacy killer in socially conservative WNC should have been made known to the voters. That's one more than Trump and we saw what GOP voters in early primary states told the pollsters once they knew that part of his story.
However one feels about some one's personal life in politics, I don't know anyone who thinks that Heath Shuler couldn't end the campaign based on that alone.
3) Abortion Flip Flop: During the 2010 campaign Eichenbaum pulled a 180 on abortion from a Libertarian position to the one most Republican primary voters were looking for. (download document from here)
His original position was that the federal government had no role to play in social issues whatsoever. However, in under 4 months on the trail talking to Republican primary voters his position went from "I would remind you that, on a constitutional basis, abortion is not a federal issue and is, therefore, more properly one legislated by the states and their citizens." to "Technically, abortion is not a federal issue for constitutional reasons. I do NOT, however, agree that it should be legislated by the states and their citizens." His campaign staff was not aware that both polar positions stayed up on the Q & A section of his website for months.
It was not surprising to those of us who followed his campaign however. His campaign staff openly mocked those of us in the GOP who believe in social issues as "Theocrats". They deride anyone who believes that the federal government has a role to play in those issues.
That is why Eichenbaum's photo of himself on his paid Mike Huckabee-led tour of Israel is so ironic. His original positions during the 2010 campaign were polar opposites of those of a strong social conservative like Huckabee.
4) Doctored Political Resume: Again, so easy to document that it is an insult to all Libertarians, not to mention the Republican primary voters of WNC.
Eichenbaum introduced himself to the voters in 2010 as someone who had decided to "stand up" in opposition to Obama as a citizen candidate and that this was his "first foray" in to politics. That is 100% false.
As Republicans we of course welcome anyone who wants to join our party - candidates included. However, we expect them to let the voters know their true political history in making an informed choice.
Eichenbaum to this day refuses to acknowledge his very active role as a LP candidate, donor, and LP county chairman.
He continues to insult the voters by repeating the phrase that he was "“never a big ‘L’ Libertarian” instead of a simple honest accounting. http://tinyurl.com/24t5fnf paragraph 19.)
The facts:
- He first announced for the 2010 Congressional race in June - as a Libertarian with a capital L. See attached. Who announces for Congress as a member of a party they are not dedicated to heart and soul?
- Sometime between then and filing he switched to the GOP and simply cut and pasted that online announcement. [See page for download]
- He ran for Cherokee County Commissioner in 2002 as a Libertarian. http://tinyurl.com/24t5fnf paragraph 19.
- He was the Chairman of the LP of Cherokee County: http://lpnc.info/get_involved/county_orgs.html#c
[see screen capture here --TP]
On that last point he says that "As there were only three persons registered in Cherokee County, the party leadership listed me as the contact person in my area." Does that pass any one's baloney test? Would YOU agree to be the "contact person" for a party that you weren't dedicated to heart and soul? He makes it sound like some sort of accident.
- Donations: the only record of Eichenbaum ever contributing to anyone or any party BEFORE preparing to run in the '10 GOP primary (after changing affiliation) is to the LP: http://tinyurl.com/44smdfr Note that all donations before the summer of '09 were to the LP. See chart http://tinyurl.com/5w5rx57
We can not afford a candidate who tosses his past, principles and promises away like old handkerchiefs.
I urge you to pass this along to ever conservative in the district.
Robert Danos
http://twitter.com/#!/RobertDanos
Links to supporting documents
abortion
announcement
endorsement excuses
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