Ron Paul Supporter Russ Millotte Blocked from Taking Elected Position

Russ Millotte, a Ron Paul supporter elected by the Alaska state Republican Party convention last April as their chairman (to take effect this year), has been blocked from taking control by the existing executive committee.

The Alaska Dispatch's take:

After a couple of hours of back and forth between insurgent party chairman-elect Russ Millette and his supporters, and the members of the party's State Executive Committee, plus an hour or so of the latter huddling in the secrecy of an executive session to consider Millette's future, the committee voted to sack him.

The story details a lot of internal-Alaskan GOP wars and backbiting dating back to the Palin days and culminating in Lisa Murkowski's 2010 write-in victory over Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller, who won an insurgent victory over her in the primaries; many party old guard stuck with Murkowski, not the actual Republican candidate Miller.

By April 2012, [angry Miller fans] had merged with equally unhappy supporters of failed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul to try to take over the party. They succeeded and elected Millette the new chairman....

Millette was accused of being a crummy fundraiser for the Party during his past 10 months as chairman-elect, and as Finance Chair.

After deliberating on Millette's fate, they emerged from behind close doors to announce that the job of the chairman-elect was to raise money as the finance chair, and noted that Millette flunked what could be considered an internship on the way to the chairman's post.

"He failed to perform his duty as finance chair," said Ruedrich, still a member of the executive committee as of late Thursday night. "Grounds for removal is failure to carry out or perform."

David Nalle of the Republican Liberty Caucus paints it as a pure old guard coup against the new guard Paulites in a Washington Timespiece:

A plan was put forward to hold a hearing on the charges [against Millette] at the installation meeting of the Executive Committee on February 1st. Then, to the surprise of party members who described the action as "a sham" and "a witch hunt," the hearing was moved forward a day so that the new committee members would not yet be seated or have a vote on the accusations.

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Ron Paul Supporter Russ Millotte Blocked from Taking Elected Position