Greg Kline’s Statement on Ambrose Removal, South Carolina Trip
Greg Kline, candidate for MDGOP Chair released the following statement yesterday regarding interim MDGOP Chair, Diana Waterman, removing MDGOP National Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose from the RNC Rules Committee, and MDGOP Executive Director David Fergusons trip to South Carolina.
Interim Chairwoman Diana Waterman’s decision to remove National Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose from her position on the RNC rules committee was wrong. Nicolee has worked tirelessly for our party. She has built bridges to our activist base so long ignored and reached out voters not traditionally aligned with our party.
Furthermore, the decision, in the particular way it was handled, is emblematic of the opaque, insider brand of politics practiced by current party leadership. The decision to remove Nicolee only serves to widen the internal divisions in our party, at the very time we need to be united.
This is the very thing I am running against in my campaign for state party chair.
Second, the decision to send the party’s executive director to South Carolina to shadow Governor O’Malley is a poor use of his time and the party’s resources. This is the time the party should be focusing on training candidates and activists in preparation for the 2014 election cycle, and focusing on stopping bad legislation in the General Assembly.
A critical Pathfinder candidate and volunteer program was cancelled and substituted with the executive director’s trip to South Carolina, and the resources and attention spent on that excursion could have been used to put pressure on members of the House of Delegates, which just this afternoon approved Governor O’Malley’s 87 percent gas tax hike.
If this is the type of leadership we can expect through 2014 then we need a change and the sooner the better.
As chairman, my focus would be maximizing our electoral opportunities here in Maryland. I would also adopt a style of leadership that is more open, more transparent and more inclusive. I would ask for your vote to help me transform the leadership culture in the Maryland Republican Party and unite us in a common cause to resist the tyrannical Democratic machine in Annapolis.
Conservatively,
Gregory M. Kline
