Alaska GOP convention kicks off; tea party says it's staying home
Source: Anchorage Daily News
The Alaska Republican Party's biennial convention kicks off Thursday in Juneau. But a whole swath of the faithful will be missing: the Ron Paul backers and tea party members who overwhelmed and overthrew the traditional leadership at the last convention, in 2012.
Two years later, the struggle for control of the Republican banner appears to have subsided, following the state executive committee's ouster of the new chairman elected in the conservative wave in 2012, Russ Millette. Millette said he and his supporters are disillusioned with the party and won't even be making the trip to Juneau.
... Party leaders voted last year to hold the 2014 convention in Juneau, which beat out a proposal from the Mat-Su area. Millette and others think that the site selection was strategic -- the Southeast location is more difficult to reach for their allies in conservative hotbeds like Fairbanks and the Mat-Su.
... Some of the Ron Paul supporters and tea party members are now defecting to an alternative group, the Alaska Republican Assembly, which is planning its own convention and "Freedom Fair" in Wasilla later this month.
Read more: http://www.adn.com/2014/04/30/3449548/as-republican-convention-kicks.html
