"We're working hard out here, this is not a vacation. . . . ."

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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32144.html


Pols in paradise: RNC in Hawaii



Republicans delight in depicting President Obama as hopelessly out of touch with average Americans, but the decision by the Republican National Committee to hold its winter meeting at a tropical resort is turning the accusation on its head.

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Yet at a moment when millions are out of work and millions more struggling to get by, the party’s governing board will plot its comeback on the island of Oahu, sipping drinks poolside, catching rays on the beach that abuts the villa and raising questions about whether they’re as politically tone-deaf as they accuse the president of being.


The decision to meet here, where temperatures stayed steadily in the 70s all day Wednesday, is causing some prominent Republicans to cringe.


“Do I want voters to think that Republicans do nothing but go to beach resorts in January? No,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters last week.

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Steele defended the decision to hold the party confab here, arguing that party officials were not just burying their feet in the sand and hunting for the best mai-tai.


“We’re working hard out here, this is not a vacation. This is a working meeting,” he told a local TV station.

The party is tending to its regular business. State chairs spent much of Wednesday morning reviewing the party’s strategy in winning governorships in Virginia and New Jersey last fall, as well as in last week’s special Senate election in Massachusetts. They also unanimously voted for a resolution rejecting a proposed “purity test” on GOP candidates.

(ah, so that purity test didn't fly after all)

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Committee members here, most of them sans jacket and tie, acknowledged the criticism but said there was some symbolic value to having the session in America’s 50th state.

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Given the president’s falling poll numbers and Democrats' own internecine battles after the loss in Massachusetts, though, some senior Republicans argue that the decision to meet here pales by comparison.


“It’s dumb, but it’s a sidebar,” said longtime GOP consultant Mike Murphy. “I’ll take a dumb meeting in Hawaii over a disastrous health care plan and bad economic management anytime.”
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he's got that right, it is a dumb meeting. a meeting of NO. keep consulting Mike.