District Chairman Slams Frederick for Negative Campaign

I've been waiting for this to happen. After reading Delegate Frederick's increasingly vitriolic emails against Chairman Hager, I figured it was only a matter of time before someone hit him back. I received the email below (as part of a blast) from Mike Wade, 3rd District Chairman. I don't know Mr. Wade, but thought this was worth sharing. I suppose we will all form our own opinions about this race. I will only say I have been truly surprised by the tone Frederick has taken, especially with the Mark Warner criticism and the letter to Speaker Howell.




Leadership? A Few Questions for Delegate Frederick

Dear Delegate Frederick,

Luckily, the demand of Party business has consumed my time and I have been spared up to now from your unyielding barrage of vicious statements. After almost five months of running, a lot of us thought that you would find at least one positive message for your bid for Chairman. As I peruse your recent e-mails, I am truly saddened by the fact that you have run a campaign attacking fellow Republicans with much more energy than you have ever attacked the Democrats. In your mind the Republican Party of Virginia is a defunct institution, our District Chairman are bumbling idiots and our volunteers just didn't meet with your expectations lastyear. You seem to want us to believe that Chairman Hager is a closet supporter of Mark Warner and that we should disregard his 30 years of devoted service to our Party and conservative causes. Your own Leadership in the House of Delegates has even felt the visciousness of your attacks. Delegate Frederick, it seems that without you, we will all but cease to exist.

So please, if you will, answer my questions in your daily e-mail propaganda. Answer them honestly, check your facts out and tell us the real deal. Please help us understand how your recently found interest in the Party can be credible when your record fails to support your claims of Leadership. Remember Delegate Frederick, answer based on your record not campaign hype. Most Republicans believe that it's not what you say that counts, it's your track record.

First question, would you agree that an essential ingredient to winning is to have a united Party, working for our nominee once the nomination is settled? If you answer "yes", please explain why you have made mocking comments to rank-and-file activists at District conventions when they made it clear they would not support you for chairman. Even worse, you have gone to the extreme of telling an unpaid intern who chairs a local College Republican club that she would not be asked back to intern when you are elected, all because she would not wear your sticker. At the Goochland County Committee breakfast just a few weeks ago, you stated publicly that all of the District Chairs would be challenged because they supported Chairman Hager, and that the challengers who were supporting you would win these seats. You later criticized the entire State Central Committee. Can you truly expect to rally and lead those activists and party leaders you have vilified after your callous behavior?

Second question, how can you claim to be a leader for our Party against Mark Warner when nowhere can I find you, Delegate Jeff Frederick, making any statement against the Democrat previous to your campaign for RPV chairman. As a matter of fact, on your own web-site you repeatedly thank the Democrats first for your wins in your District. You also crow about your "bipartisan ideology" with great pride on your web-site. Rather than what your campaign attacks would try to have us think it is your statements that disturbingly sound a lot like the rhetoric of Mark Warner. Thanks to that bipartisan thought process, we got the largest tax increase in Virginia's history.

Third question, how can you blame John Hager for losing the majority in the State Senate and seats in the House of Delegates, even though John Hager became chairman just 3 months prior to election day? Answer with irrefutable facts to support your claim. Surely it couldn't have been the support by some legislators for Mark Warner's massive tax increase, could it? It couldn't have been the perception of Republicans in the General Assembly as more interested in fighting with each other than in fighting for working men and women, could it? It certainly couldn't have been that many of our candidates supported the creation of new, unelected regional government with taxing authority, could it? What reasonable person would think the voters would hold that against our candidates? No, it must have been John Hager who single-handedly brought about the demise of Republicans in the General Assembly. You must think conservative activists and party leaders are clueless if you think they will buy your propaganda. While we're on this topic though, I have a Fourth Question: Since you are now so interested in our majority in the House of Delegates, what did you do, Delegate Frederick, to help our candidates who were in trouble? Remember, actions speak louder than words.

Last but not least, the Fifth Question. Would you agree that a Leader sets an example for those he leads? If yes, please explain how you have allowed yourself and staff to run such a divisive campaign. From where I sit, your entire campaign has set out to besmirch the Party as a whole, threaten or ridicule those who do not support you and apparently just makes things up when the truth doesn't suit. Is this the example you would set for our party to follow? In 2007, with Mark Warner, Tim Kaine and the Democrats pouring millions of dollars into campaigns to defeat our legislators, Republican Delegates from across the Commonwealth opened their own campaign war chests and gave generously to the campaigns under siege. What was your example of leadership in this time of need? You came in 46 th among your fellow Delegates in assisting fellow campaigns. You invested less than $3,000 from your own campaign last year, even though you ended up with money in the bank, money which was transferred to your campaign for chairman.

Is this the leadership you would propose to provide for us statewide?

You see, Delegate Frederick,getting elected chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia doesn't suddenly make one a leader. State Chairmen who are real leaders were leaders before they were elected. In this race for chairman, there is only one candidate whose track record is that of a leader who works with party activists and leaders rather than attack them. That candidate is John Hager. There is only one candidate whose record is that of a leader who was giving to candidates personally and raising money for them not just weeks before asking that we elected him party chairman, but did so for decades. That candidate is John Hager. There is only one candidate whose record is that of a leader who has the grassroots experience and long-term commitment to build our organization so that Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling and our GOP nominee for Attorney General will re-take the reins of state government next year. That candidate is John Hager. And, there is only one candidate who is working now to unite out party for the crucial United States Senate race and only one candidate who has been publicly taking on Mark Warner. That candidate is John Hager.

Sincerely, Mike Wade, Chairman, Third District Committee