Dana Garrett finally learned that I was the 1st signatory to the now infamous letter we produced for Saturday, and I thought I'd offer the explination. Here is the full text of the letter:

Dear Delegate,

Just this past week while many College Republicans were helping to plan this weekend’s convention, Mike Protack was attacking Delaware’s College Republicans on an ultra-liberal website. It’s a shame that one of our candidates chooses to take shots at the next generation of our Party. I hope you will agree that this is inappropriate and does little to strengthen our Party going into a tough election cycle.

On behalf of Chairman Seth Wimer and Delaware’s College Republicans,

Then the signatures.

Yes, I am not only the first signatory, but I am also the one who had the idea to write the letter and distribute it at the convention. The letter, which had zero state party or Ting campaign involvement, was directly referencing Protack's comment from his interview with you:

"I will admit when a College Republican student who has never made a mortgage payment, served a day in the military, taken a sick child to the hospital or planned a parent's funeral on Christmas Eve says I have no conservative credentials because I support "universal health care" I do hope for a friendlier more informed process but I don't lose a minute of sleep over it."

I saw that remark, and felt that he was attacking the organization as a whole. Regardless of the actions of Seth Wimer to endorse Jan Ting, which I did not know of until shortly before you posted it, I felt that Protack's statement's were unjust and unfair. I e-mailed the link to that post to some other CRs at various schools in Delaware and suggested that we use it to make a splash of sorts at the convention. They all agreed that it seemed that Protack was attacking our organization, and all felt that we needed to defend ourselves in light of what Protack had said.

I then drafted the letter and got it signed, then kept a lid on it until Saturday morning, when we passed it out at the convention. Apparently it struck a nerve with Protack ad his campaign people, who, as "Z" described, tried to remove the letter. Protack also mentioned it to the Newark Region at the very least (they went roughly 2:1 for Ting). You never attack something that viciously if it isn't true.

Dana, this letter is part of the democratic process. I stand by my principles. CR's do not need to be shielded from hardball. We understand what the stakes are. Many of our members experienced Carper's education "reform," and have seen with their own eyes . We are not pawns of the state party. We acted autonomously, spreading what we saw as something that was merely informative. We received not only angry feedback from some Protack supporters, but very positive feedback from people who were not necessarily pro-Ting.

The College Republicans were not asked to put the message out, we did so on our own. I will take full responsibility for its creation and distribution. Yes, it could have been much more explicit in retrospect, but we wanted it short to ensure that delegates could actually read it. Dana, the letter was not an attack on your person. I have enjoyed this vetting of commentary over the Ting-Protack issue, even though I may be a little defensive of you. All questions over the letter were directed to me, and I ensured that my verbal explanation specifically pointed to Protack's interview. Please undestand that we were participating in this democratic process, not corrupting it.

Posted by Ryan S. on Monday, May 01, 2006 at 10:16 PM | Permalink |