Will the real New Hampshire Young Republican, please stand up?
(As Charlie Pierce might say, Optional Musical Accompaniment To This Post.)
If you’ve been following along, you know that two groups of young New Hampshire Republicans – reflecting the split between Tea Party/Libertarian conservatives and the state party establishment – met this month and elected separate slates of officers to lead a reconstituted state chapter of the Young Republican National Federation.
The competing factions have been fighting for control since their April meeting ended in chaos and the group lost its charter. The Tea Party faction blames party leadership for that debacle, claiming “they attempted to hijack the Young Republicans convention with out-of-state college students.”
Un-uh, replied Ben Tasker, who was elected vice-chair by the establishment faction. “None of the students were out of state and you had out of state college students from St A’s registered, so I don’t see your point here.”
And so, as the two groups prepare to make their case to the national federation, they’ve created dueling Facebook pages,
…dueling Twitter accounts,
…and even dueling PACs.
Saturday, the group led by Bob Burns announced it has registered “New Hampshire Young Republicans” as a state political committee with Burns as chair and Shaun Doherty as treasurer. “Any other rogue groups that pop up are not valid and should stop using the ‘Paid for by NHYR’ tag on their website.” they declared.
Sunday, the group led by Joe Sweeney retaliated by registering a federal committee as a “subordinate” committee of the Republican Party.
