by Debra Heine
As the Republican National Committee’s annual winter meeting approaches, GOP insiders are voicing concern over a top RNC establishment figure who is up for reelection.
The RNC will meet for three-days on Amelia Island, Florida, starting on January 6, the same day Congress convenes for what is shaping up to be a contentious session for the certification of the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden.
Longtime Republican lobbyist and never-Trumper Ron Kaufman currently serves as the national committeeman of the Republican Party of Massachusetts and as the senior strategic adviser at the Washington D.C.-based international law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge in their government affairs practice. When he joined the firm, Politico noted he would be working with “former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, raising the possibility of a potentially fearsome twosome.”
As the RNC treasurer, Kaufman wields considerable power which he has allegedly used to quash conservative, pro-Trump resolutions.
He is running for reelection this week against a more conservative challenger, KC Crosbie, who is currently the national committeewoman for the Republican Party of Kentucky.
Since he was first elected to his MA post in 1988, Kaufman has reportedly presided over only 5 wins out of 162 House races, is 1 for 13 in U.S. Senate races, and 0-8 in presidential races. Yes, Kaufman was a senior advisor to former Mass. governor Mitt Romney during Romney’s ill-fated run for president in 2012.
“Not only does Ron have the worst record of anyone on the national committee; it’s the worst record since the Republican Party was founded,” quipped John MacDonald in the Lowell Sun.
But even more damning than this abysmal record is Kaufman’s history of working with Democrats against GOP interests while employed at the RNC.
Since 1994, Kaufman has worked for the lobbying firm Dutko Worldwide, which lists Democracy For America (DFA) as one of its clients. DFA is a powerful left-wing political action committee that is dedicated to electing “people of color and white progressives,” according to its “about” page.
According to Open Secrets, DFA paid Kaufman’s lobbying firm hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The conflict of interest here should be obvious.
In his piece in the Lowell Sun, MacDonald offered an explanation for Kaufman’s record of failure: “Ron actually works against electing Republicans, because if there were a Republican congressman from Massachusetts, his clients would no longer need him, and Ron might actually have to sell his million dollar home, located just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol building,” MacDonald said.
According to former national committeeman for the Republican Party of Arizona, Bruce Ash, Kaufman was behind the rejection of an anti-black Lives Matter resolution during the national convention last summer. Ash was first elected to serve as an RNC committeeman in 2007, and retired in 2020.
Ash told American Greatness that Kaufman offered a proxy committeeman from Alaska a payoff to vote against the resolution, which stated in part that “Black Lives Matter” uses the unobjectionable phrase as “a title for a radical political group, rather than uplifting Black lives, [and] actively impedes racial equality, universal human dignity, and the foundational family structure while promoting Marxist/Communist tenants who have ulterior motives contrary to our Constitutional Republic.”
Ash said that after much wrangling on the wording of the resolution, the committee held a vote and it passed. Then the chair of the committee held a five minute recess and members left the room. When the meeting reconvened, Peter Goldberg, the committeeman from Alaska requested a reconsideration vote on the BLM resolution. During that second vote, Goldberg and another committee member voted against the resolution and it was defeated.
Ash said Goldberg later told him that Kaufman had offered him a free four-day stay at the Trump Hotel, which he was certain was part of a “contemptible” deal to quash the resolution.
According to RNC insiders, Kaufman’s challenger KC Crosbie, an early Trump supporter who has been endorsed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), is a much more acceptable choice for the RNC treasurer position. Jim Lyons, the newly elected State Party Chair of Massachusetts, has also endorsed Crosbie for RNC treasurer, telling American Greatness that she has the requisite experience for the post.
President Trump will reportedly address the RNC confab on the second day of the meeting, and is already considered a frontrunner for 2024, if his efforts to overturn the 2020 election don’t pan out.
– – –
Debra Heine is a regular contributor to American Greatness.
Photo “Ron Kaufman” by the Republican National Committee.
