Washblog

According to Strong's page for her 2005 campaign for state Party Chair, she served under President George H. W. Bush "as the Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, U. S. Department of Transportation, and as Vice Chair of the Georgia State Republican Party."  She is was trained by the Local Elections Division of the Republican National Committee and proudly cites her experience in "aggressively" dealing with illegal voter activities in minority areas

I called Ms. Strong today to ask what she meant by her statement on The Reagan Wing that the "siphoning off of traditional Democrat votes in King and Pierce Counties" was a successful Republican technique in the 2004 election.  Were you referring to the tactic of cleaning up the voter rolls in traditional Democratic-leaning areas, I asked?

No, Strong responded, what she was referring to was the Party's appeal to swing voters and conservative Democrats on the issues.  But this quote refers to traditional Democrats, I said. Are you equating conservative Democrats with traditional Democrats?  No, she said.  We appealed to traditional Democrats too.

I asked Strong if she thought what Lori Sotelo did with her challenges to King County voters was legal. "Yes, I think that what Lori Sotelo did was legal," she said. "The voter rolls needed cleaning up."  But Sotelo signed affidavits that she had personal knowledge about voters that she didn't have, I said.  'Well, I can't get into all the specifics,' Strong responded.  The Sotelo challenges were focused, I said, on high Democratic voting areas.  And there appears to be a Republican effort on a national level to "vote cage" in minority, poor, and otherwise Democratic areas. Personally, I said, I believe what you were describing here was related to cleaning up voter rolls in Democratic areas as a political tactic.  That's not true, she said.  Republicans don't want to take qualified voters off the rolls.  Voting is an American right.  The voter rolls do need to be cleaned up.  But you need to do it the legal way.'

Is Ms. Strong's denial credible?  Here's why I think not:

1. Strong is a connected and active political insider within Washington's Republican Party, which has demonstrated a pattern of working to disenfranchise and discourage probable Democratic voters.
2. In Georgia, as she says on her campaign site, she specialized in "aggressively" challenging minority voters on the theory that this illegality "usually occurred in poor minority communities." (Frequently Asked Questions).
3. The plain English-language meaning of the phrase "siphoning off votes" means pulling votes away from one candidate or side to the benefit of another. A look in the dictionary or Googling the terms "siphon" and "vote" confirms this meaning in the context Ms. Strong used it.
4. Ms. Strong writes that persuasion on the issues is less important than war-like tactics and boasts of "threatening to bring in federal troops" into minority areas.  She states outright that "war" tactics should not be neglected for the sake of "the attractiveness of candidates and messages." (6)

Ms. Strong, having recently come from Georgia, was evidently working hard to tell Washington Republican leaders what she thought they wanted to hear.  Was she mistaken?   Well, this is a very intelligent person with keen political insight and obviously highly developed social skills.  Otherwise she would not have attained the position of Vice Chair of the Georgia State Republican Party.  Between early 2003 and late 2005, she reported, she had been busy emceeing at Republican events, Chairing Bush/Cheney for African Americans in Washington, forming coalitions with organizations, registering hundreds of voters who she knew were Republican through churches.  Clearly, she was thoroughly socialized in the expectations of the Washington State Republican Party.  

Perhaps Ms. Strong's statements are more blatant than those of other state Republicans.  But it is clearly an emerging aspect of the Republican culture to violate ethics, tradition, and decency in the most public and blatant way possible, as if the corruption of public decency itself is part of their campaign to reshape American politics.  Witness Anne Coulter, Pat Robertson, and their death threats, for example.  Or consider Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna's use of fake attorney general letterhead to shill for a Republican candidate.  We can take nothing for granted in a world like this.  Please, dear progressives -- those of you who have influence, organizing skill, and resources: let's figure out some comprehensive way to protect votes and voters in this state.

Many thanks to Bob Nelson for sharing his research, which included or led to many of these sources

1. Reality Check: How Long Will Washington State Republicans Remain Deaf and Blind to What Makes It a Minority Party, And When Will The Bleeding Stop?, The Reagan Wing.  Rose Strong, January 10, 2005.
2. On Friday (7/27/07) I emailed a request to Brenda Galarza, the public records official for the SOS, for a numerical breakdown on all removed voter registrations from all counties for all reasons since January, 2006.
3. I extrapolate this by comparing a February, 2007 press release from the SOS that reported that about 175,000 had been removed up to that point and the July 27, 2007 Voter Registration report, which shows a total of 352,927 voter registrations removed.
4. Berry, "Democratic National Committee v. Edward J. Rollins," Footnote 28. Quoted in REPUBLICAN BALLOT SECURITY PROGRAMS:  VOTE PROTECTION OR MINORITY VOTE SUPPRESSION--OR BOTH? A REPORT TO THE CENTER FOR VOTING RIGHTS & PROTECTION  SEPTEMBER 2004 By Chandler Davidson, Tanya Dunlap, Gale Kenny, and Benjamin Wise, Republican Ballot Security Programs
5. Making the List: Database Matching and Verification Processes for Voter Registration
6. Frequently Asked Questions, Accessed 7/29/07.  As noted on the site, these are Rose Strong's responses to a questionnaire offered by Tim Goddard, who operates "Flag of the World," a political weblog that focuses primarily on Washington state politics.  These questions were asked of all State Chair candidates who ran in 2005.  "(W)e decided to leave this on Rose's website because her views still remain the same."

   The quote below is excerpted from one of Rose Strong's answers on the FAQ
   I know that the Southern states had to figure out ways to clean up voter registration lists to ensure, as much as is possible, that dead people and others not eligible to vote did not participate.  I was appointed to work in minority communities to aggressively help clean up illegal activities, especially as they related to poll managers and absentee ballots.  The problems usually occurred in poor minority communities, and Democrats were very adept at "creative" balloting.  I even threatened to bring in federal troops in some of the precincts for which I was responsible.  Regardless of the attractiveness of candidates and messages, if the Chairman of the Party does not understand the "war" Republicans are in on election day in a state like this, we will continue to lose.