A Chinese philosopher once observed: ” If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.” I’m standing by the river and the bodies will be here soon.
According to a report from Steve People of of the Associated Press, Republican National Committee head Ronna Romney McDaniels is going to have her hands full through the holidays as calls to oust her from her position grow louder with GOP activists emailing each other demanding “Ronna’s gotta go.”
As Peoples wrote, the embattled RNC leader has been under the gun after the so-called midterm “red wave” never materialized and Republican insiders pointed out that during her tenure an incumbent president achieved the almost impossible by failing to be re-elected.
According to the report, “The family fight to lead the party has been largely overshadowed for national attention by the equally contentious struggle to become the new Republican House Speaker, with that election set for the first week in January. But both represent critical selections as the GOP works to overcome six years of electoral underperformance heading into another presidential election,” before adding, “Ronna McDaniel, Trump’s hand-picked choice to lead the committee and the niece of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, is running for a fourth consecutive term. But the 49-year-old is facing a rising wave of discontent from Trump’s ‘MAGA’ movement, even as the former president stays silent — at least, for now.”
According to RNC member Ron Kaufman, “It’ll be ugly as hell for a while.”
The report notes that pressure on McDaniels is also coming from the far-right Donald Trump-aligned wing of the party and that challengers to her spot are lining up to take her on.
“California attorney Harmeet Dhillon has emerged as the MAGA favorite to challenge McDaniel, who secured commitments from more than 100 of the RNC’s 168 voting members earlier this month. Dhillon is working aggressively to peel away some of that support ahead of the formal vote at next month’s annual winter meeting in southern California,” the report notes. “Dhillon said she also notified Trump of her candidacy in a brief phone call shortly before she made her intentions public this month. She did not explicitly ask for his endorsement either, although she said the president did not discourage her from challenging McDaniel.”
Even one of McDaniels biggest supporters admits that is quite a movement brewing to dump her.
“Steve Scheffler, an Iowa-based RNC member who supports McDaniel, said he’s receiving 50 to 70 emails each day from Republicans, many of them angry, weighing in on the leadership fight,” admitting that most of them bluntly state, “Ronna’s gotta go.”
The report adds, “Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward said she’s received ‘a few thousand emails’ in recent days,” with Ward claiming in a social media posting, “NOT ONE regular person not affiliated with the current RNC apparatus has urged me to retain Ronna Romney McDaniel as Chair.”