What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

Republicans in Governor Terry Branstad’s orbit tried to rig the game to ensure that the March 8 Polk County GOP Convention ratified a long list of at-large delegates to the third Congressional district and state conventions later this year. Shane Vander Hart provides good background at Caffeinated Thoughts. Activist Kim Schmett, who was the GOP challenger to Representative Leonard Boswell in 2008, complained to the Des Moines Register, “Some unknown person is coming up with an ultimate list. Why have a county convention at all if 40 percent of your delegates are hand-picked ahead of time?”

Sounds like Branstad’s team was not satisfied with results from their efforts to turn loyalists out to the off-year precinct caucuses in January. The governor needs to prevent any serious challenge at the state convention to Kim Reynolds’ nomination for a second term as lieutenant governor. I am convinced that if re-elected, he will step down in the middle of his sixth term to ensure that she becomes governor.

State convention delegates may also end up selecting the GOP nominee for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat, if no one wins at least 35 percent of the vote in the June primary. Similarly, a third Congressional district convention may select the GOP nominee if none of the six declared IA-03 candidates wins at least 35 percent of the primary votes.

The Iowa Republican blogger Craig Robinson worked with Polk County GOP Chair Will Rogers and two Branstad campaign staffers to resolve concerns over delegate selection. As a result, the at-large slate was reduced from 100 to 50 delegates guaranteed to be at the district and state conventions. Vander Hart commented, “While I’m glad they responded to the backlash it should be the Polk County Republican Executive Committee, not the Branstad Campaign, determining this list.” Obviously.

The Polk County GOP addressed the controversy in a Facebook post I’ve excerpted after the jump. UPDATE: Added some comments below from Dave Chung, an Iowa GOP State Central Committee member. SECOND UPDATE: Added excerpts from Craig Robinson’s commentary.

And now for something completely different: music geeks may enjoy Seth Stevenson’s analysis of the strange time signature of the theme from the original Terminator movie, which (amazingly) is 30 years old this year.

Excerpt from Polk County Republicans of Iowa Facebook status, March 1:

As a Delegate or Alternate Delegate to the Republican Party of Polk County Convention, you should have received your “Call to Convention” which included a proposed agenda, platform, rules, and a list of recommended delegates to the Third District and State Conventions titled as Exhibit “A”.

Since its arrival, we have received feedback from delegates expressing concern about the fairness and transparency regarding the drafting process of Exhibit “A”. Many of you may have questions regarding how Exhibit “A” was developed. It was our intention to use the Exhibit “A” as a process by which our elected officials, candidates, their spouses, volunteers, donors, and county party leadership would have the opportunity to serve as delegates to the District and State Conventions. Additionally, this would allow many of our elected officials, candidates, and their spouses to campaign for themselves and others throughout the state.

Based on your recommendations, we will be proposing that the Rules Committee recommend the following changes to the Convention Rules in Section XVI which better address the rules to affect the following changes:

1) The removal of Exhibit “A.”

2) There will be delegate slate now referred to as Exhibit “B.” This slate is greatly reduced in number from over 100 to 50 individuals which includes elected officials, candidates, and essential Convention personnel.

3) We recommend that the delegate process be changed to allow all precincts with at least one credentialed delegate at the county convention to elect one (1) delegate to the District and State conventions. In addition, each precinct with at least five (5) or more credentialed delegates to be eligible to elect up to elect one (1) additional delegate to the District and State Conventions. (This would allow over 200 people to advance to the District and State Conventions from their individual precinct as delegates.)

We offer our sincere apologies that Exhibit “A” created controversy at a time when we work for the unification of the Party and our efforts to elect Republicans.

David Chung, member of the Iowa GOP’s State Central Committee, discussed the controversy on his Hawkeye GOP blog. I recommend clicking through to read the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt.

With the possibility that the 3rd District Convention could nominate a US House candidate and that the State Convention could nominate a US Senate candidate (not to mention the fact that the State Convention will nominate a Lieutenant Governor candidate) the stakes could not be higher. The allegation is that campaigns are trying to game the system by encouraging counties to adopt rules and/or slates that are favorable to their candidate.

I see that Spiker is looking into these allegations. As a member of the Republican State Central Committee, I wonder what he is planning to do if he becomes convinced that these allegations are true. If there is substance to the allegations, I believe that these actions are both and unethical and improper – but, I do not believe they are illegal or violate any state law or RPI rules. By that I mean a campaign trying to influence a county party is not a violation of rule or law.

On the other hand, I think that the root of the problem is the way Polk (and other counties) elect delegates in the first place. […]

I really do not mean to pick on Polk County here. They are not the only county whose practices fall outside of the rules. In fact these same comments apply to the way we have chosen at-large National Convention delegates in Iowa. I find it ironic that many of those who are claiming outrage over the situation in Polk County were supportive of or even complicit in the same kind of behavior that elected a national delegate slate at the 2012 State Convention.

There is plenty of blame to go around here. The Liberty Folk were only following a long tradition that my guys had established of using the nominating committee to let a small group of insiders control who got to attend the National Convention.

SECOND UPDATE: The Iowa Republican publisher Craig Robinson sounded pretty upset in his March 3 post, “Heavy-Handedness of Branstad Campaign Has No Place in Caucus Politics.” Excerpts:

The 2014 list, which since Saturday morning has been scaled back from 100 people to 50 people, had little rhyme or reason as to how it was constructed.  It included county and state officials, but it also gave delegate spots to many of their spouses.  The list also gives a delegate spot to candidates running for office in Polk County, which was not done in 2010.  Also included were former U.S. Ambassadors, as if getting to serve in that capacity wasn’t enough, the Polk County GOP now wants to honor you by making you a delegate for life.

The original list of 99 at-large delegates also included people who were characterized as “donors” or “executive volunteers.”  In some instances, the donor classification fit.  For example, Bruce Kelley, from EMC Insurance, has been an outstanding donor to the Polk County GOP since 2009.  Yet, other people on the list who were classified as donors last gave to the Polk County GOP in 2010 if at all.  Even then, a lot of these donors contributed amounts of $10, $20 and $40, which appears to be delegate fees or maybe a meal at a convention.  The term “executive volunteer” seems to be code for political operative, employee of the Branstad administration or state government, or if you are held in high-regard by the powers that be in the Branstad campaign.

An email sent to selected individuals by Governor Branstad’s campaign to a select group of delegates in mid-February helps one better understand how the at-large delegate list from Polk County came to be.  The email was sent to people who are delegates to the Polk County convention and who are also political professionals or “current/former Branstad staff who wants to ensure the best possible outcome from the convention for the Governor and Lt. Governor.”  The email [sic]

The original at-large delegate list from Polk County was loaded with political professionals and current and former Branstad staff.  Why these people are not capable of going through the same process that everyone else who wants to become a delegate to the district or state convention has to go through is beyond me.  It’s either laziness from the Branstad campaign and the people they want to be delegates, or an utter disrespect of our caucus to convention process.  Unfortunately, since the same tactics are being used by the Branstad campaign in other counties, it appears to be both.