I Have Your Back? A Tale of Republican Loyalty

When I think about loyalty, I think about dogs. They’re naturals. People have a harder time standing fast to the rigors of loyalty, which is why people who do, like soldiers, fire fighters or police officers, are admired. When they succumb to the devils of their professions, it’s somehow far worse than when a regular person does. They are the victims of our perception as much as their own infidelities.

There’s a whole other loyalty mindset, not based on loyalty by choice, but that of situation. This is the loyalty of feudal barons, Nazi Germany, Death Eaters. It is a loyalty born of the assumption that loyalty is a commodity, something to be given in return for a favor, be it wealth, power, or the opportunity to live a little longer. There is not much to be gained by withholding loyalty when it is treated as a thing to sell. Indeed, rocking the boat can be inherently dangerous.

Dwight Tostenson, former Republican Party of Minnesota finance director paid the price for confusing loyalty by choice with loyalty by situation. Tostenson actually believed that if he reported to the Minnesota Republican Party practices he saw that were probably illegal, he would be helping a party he’s spent 10 years working for and building up. This was no rookie mistake; Tostenson worked previously with no fewer than 4 committee chairs, and broke fundraising records for two consecutive years (2005 and 2006). He knew the party, knew the donors, knew which buttons worked and when to push them.

In a word, valuable.

One of the things Tostenson saw was that the Republican Party in Minnesota was drafting their employee’s paychecks, per their employee’s instructions, for their contribution to the employee’s retirement accounts.

He also saw that they did not deposit the funds.

Imagine your employer says to you, hey I need your skill sets, and I’ll pay you $60,000 per year for them, but the $15,000 you put in your 401K I’m going to steal back and spend. Eventually, I’ll pay you back. Sound good? When can you start?

Ludicous.

Here’s where the loyalty factor comes into play. As a fundraiser, Tostenson received a salary plus commission. His record breaking back to back years netted him a comfortable figure. After alerting the Party about the irregularities in the retirement accounting, the Republican Party of Minnesota gave Tostenson a 40%pay cut, eliminated his commissions entirely, and then fired him.

Tostenson valued the ideal of his Party over the actuality of it. He wrote a confidential memo to the RPM State Executive Committee outlining his experiences. The summary is damning.

The following is a list of suspected illegal activities that where (sic) brought to the Chairman’s attention numerous times since May 2006:

1. Underreporting of our debts and obligation of significant amounts ($100,000 plus) on our REC and EPB reports.
2. Significant delays in the payment of staff expense reports. FEC rules require that all expense checks be paid within 30 day or reported as a contribution.
3. Misappropriation of retirement money withheld from employee paychecks and not deposited into their SRA’s in the 30 day required by law. Some delays exceeded five months.
4. According to a January 16, 2007 complaint by Larissa Presho, apparent Tax Evasion, Insurance Fraud, and other issues.

The following is a list of issues brought to the Chairman’s attention which may not be illegal, but do create an unpleasant work environment and hostile relations with RPM vendors, with whom staff must deal directly:

1. Not paying vendors on a timely basis, berating them when they call for payment, and them refusing to pay interest charged owed them for services rendered in good faith.
2. Significant delays (16+ months) in the paying of Staff on commissions earned. I wasn’t paid on any commissions until the day my employment was terminated. Others had to wait for months instead of receiving those payments on a monthly basis per their contract.
3. Our policy of not paying staff for interest charges incurred on their personal Credit Cards when expense reports (some in excess of $5,000) got unpaid for months (some up to 4 months). This has cost me and other staff hundreds of dollars just in the past year. – Dwight Tostenson

Whether Tostenson leaked his memo or another unhappy RPM staffer did is unknown. Based on it, CREW filed an FEC Complaint on July 16th. The memo’s glimpse into the interior mechanisms of the RPM is chilling. People choosing to align themselves with the Republican Party are not valued in an environment structured to use loyalty as a weapon. When a party cuts itself off at the idealistic knees, they sound their own death knell. Without the passion stirred by ideals, there cannot be sustained innovation. Environments of fear and mistrust produce safe moves and ass kissing.

Nervous underlings won’t win elections. You can’t lead with your head down, dragging your whipped initiative behind you. The hierarchy of forced mafia-style loyalty is a tightening noose. We’re seeing the tip of a very big, extremely ugly iceberg. It wouldn’t hurt Republicans to go to the dogs, literally, and try spending some quality time with exuberant loyalty – the right kind.

In the meantime, Democrats are going to win, and win, and win.
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[tag]Tostenson, RPM, Minnesota, Loyalty, Mafia, Death+Eaters, Nazi, Feudal, Republicans, Politics[/tag]