Dave Dumeyer, the 6-year chairman of the Lancaster County Republican Committee, announced his resignation Thursday, and as I’m putting the article together tonight, I was thinking about what moment defines Dumeyer’s tenure.
To me, it was the nomination of Dennis Stuckey and Scott Martin in the 2007 GOP primary for county commissioner. To understand why, we have to reverse back to the 2003 primary.
2003 was the year it appeared social conservatives had seized the lead in the party as Dick Shellenberger and Pete Shaub, two candidates endorsed by Lancaster County ACTION (Americans for Christian Tradition In Our Country), became the local party’s faces and voices. Shellenberger had received the county GOP’s backing, but Shaub did not after a series of bad ethics allegations. Stuckey was running at that time but inevitably lost during the primary, a sign that moderate conservatives had lost control of the party direction to the social conservatives. Dumeyer was in the beginning of his time as party chairman.
There’s no need to dwell here on what happened during the following four years. A lot of decisions were made by the board of county commissioners, a lot of money spent, a lot of lawsuits and a lot of rancor spilled into the public dialogue. Suffice it to say that what did happen prompted Dumeyer, who at this point had five years as party chairman on his resume, to form a committee to screen candidates for the 2007 primary, and neither Shaub nor Shellenberger decided to seek another term. Stuckey stepped up. So did Martin. So did several others. The committee, made up of several prominent local Republicans like former county Commissioner Terry Kauffman, screened a questionairre given to all candidates then made their recommendations about who was qualified to serve on the board of commissioners. And by qualified, I mean: Who has the ability to serve on a board charged with overseeing a more than $200 million budget.
Stuckey and Martin made it out of the screening committee, then nabbed the GOP’s endorsement very quickly on at a endorsement convention expected to be a rough-and-tumble affair among Stuckey, Martin, Jere Swarr and Charlie Smithgall (Heidi Wheaton ran but did not seek endorsement).
In May 2007, Stuckey and Martin triumphed. And Dumeyer had this to say to me afterwards:
Finding candidates who appeal to all county Republicans rather than to particular factions will keep the GOP on top, Dumeyer said.
“We have dispelled the myth that people who get endorsed by the Republican Party have to be perceived as holding certain religious views,” Dumeyer said. “That’s not knocking people’s faith, but (party endorsement) can’t be based on where you go to church.”
In other words, conservative fiscal ability (not just responsibility) was needed in county government circa 2007, not just social conservatism, according Dumeyer. The party’s pendulum had swung back to being led by the fiscal side.
There’s going to be talk about how under Dumeyer’s watch the GOP’s edge over Democrats in Lancaster County voter registration has shrunk since 2004; how John McCain performed poorly here during the 2008 presidential race compared to his Republican predecessors; as well as other internal Republican arguments. But from my observation, the lasting legacy for Dumeyer is how the party swung from being led by the social conservative faction to the fiscal conservative wing.
