Looking Up Delegate Information is Tough When GOP Delegate Michael Brodkorb's Party Website Hides the Information.

A certain blogger, who happens to be a delegate from Minnesota to the Republican National Convention, was in a tizzy the other day because part of the Minnesota Secretary of State's web site was down for a short time.

In his book, when a site goes down, that's a sign of a leader's incompetence.

But what does it mean when a party doesn't even put basic information on its national convention site?

I went to look up some delegate information at the official GOP convention site. There's a Delegates section with a State Delegations sidebar, but if you click on a state name, all you get is some boilerplate text and a chance to become a "Digital Delegate." There's no search function on the site to help you dig out the information in case it was placed in some non-intuitive corner.

So I decided to see if this delegate secrecy was the same for the Democrats.  Their site has the same list of states, but when you click, you get actual information about who's representing a state.

Also significantly, you can reach the lists from a number of different locations on the site.

Comments

[Mitch Berg]

I wasn't aware that the GOP Convention site was a function of an elected state Constitutional office, or that finding out about delegates to a *party* convention is on the same plane with finding filings for the *general* elections for which the SOS is responsible.

Also - while I'm not aware of any statutory requirement to post state delegate information, the SOS does have some obligation to get information out to the peasants. Er, voters.

Not to say that I entirely agree with Michael - I doubt that Ritchie would know how to reboot a server, unless you put a sticker on the switch that said "PUNCH IF YOU HATE REPUBLICANS". But you're comparing apples and axles, Charlie.

[Phoenix Woman]

You struck gold, Charlie -- one of the local GOP gunslingers showed up. ;-)

Of course, if Mitch wants to talk about GOP elected officials and information stinginess, I'm more than happy to oblige.

(http://news.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=350628)

Unlike with the SoS website, this little problem isn't a small glitch that will be fixed in a few hours:

-- "After more than five years as governor, Tim Pawlenty has filed no records with the state archives, and has been less willing to preserve e-mails and other documents than his predecessor.

While Pawlenty's decision on archiving would normally matter only to Minnesotans, documents that shed light a governor's record are typically inspected during a presidential run -- and Pawlenty's name has been mentioned as a possible running mate to Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Pawlenty's administration cites a 40-year-old Minnesota Supreme Court decision to justify retaining only records of final decisions -- not e-mails or paperwork detailing how decisions were made.

Under that policy, many of the e-mails about the Interstate 35W bridge collapse could have been destroyed had they not been ordered preserved by the attorney general." --

As the article notes, this policy is in marked contrast with that of former governor Jesse Ventura, who allowed a much broader range of documents to be archived.

Sounds rather like the history of George W. Bush's Texas driver's license records. See, in Texas, your whole criminal history is attached to your driver's license record -- and reissuing your driver's license wipes that slate clean. Seems that journalists in 1999, who were looking up the story of Bush's arrest for shooting a killdeer in 1994 (which is referenced here among other places: http://www.houston-press.com/1994-12-29/news/the-year-of-living-anxiously/full), were scrubbed by the expedient of issuing him a new driver's license number (http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/446973) shortly after he became governor and set on his path towards the White House. Except that the scrubbing only covered Texas crimes -- his 1976 DUI bust in Maine (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushdui1.html) somehow escaped the Bush Family's scrubbing machine.

[Charlie Quimby]

Actually, Mitch, I'm making one absurd claim to point up the absurdity of another. But thanks for helping me make the point more explicitly.

Your statement "I wasn't aware that the GOP Convention site was a function of an elected state Constitutional office..." sounds just like what we were saying when Michael made a big stink about the SoS not having information about *party* caucus events when they were available on the site, and few days before the office launched a caucus finder tool that blew away anything his predecessor had ever done.

Now he insists a minor listing error and some server downtime constitutes incompetence. Is Doug Baker incompetent if Ecolab's site goes down or the copy has a typo? Of course not.

But the lack of delegate information does reflect a general lack of disclosure in the GOP that starts at the top and includes our governor's archives. If Ritchie has proof the web site every day, you'd think the party could post the names of those who'll be approving the presidential nominee.

Of course, by keeping information secret, they can avoid the oppo boys digging up the kind of petty crap Michael lives for.

[barbara]

"Of course, by keeping information secret, they can avoid the oppo boys digging up the kind of petty crap Michael lives for."

Ding, ding, ding!