Audio: Former Del. David Ramadan (R) Says Republicans Chose Convention Partly Because That Would Allow Them to Disqualify Amanda Chase From Running

See below for audio of some verrrry interesting comments by former Virginia Del. David Ramadan (R) about why Virginia Republicans chose a convention, rather than a primary, to nominate its candidates in 2021. According to Ramadan:

• “A candidate by the name of Amanda Chase, who’s the current state senator from the Richmond suburbs area, has declared that she is running this year for governor. She is a, to say the least, a fiery, far-right candidate who had pretty much alienated everybody in her own caucus as much as everybody that knows her – with the exception of a few absolute far-right groups that she has played to. This is somebody who has gone out and said Democrats hate white people, she says the craziest things. She has been kicked out by the Republican committee in her area – sitting state senator who got kicked out by her own committee and she no longer caucuses with the Republicans in the Senate, because she knew she was going to be kicked out of that as well…she’s been alienated in the Virginia Senate.”
• “And she said that she wants to run in a primary this year. Which, with the number of candidates running, there was the common belief that if you have five or six or seven  candidates running and you get one extreme candidate like her who could bring in 20-30 percent of  the vote, she could end up winning the nomination. And that scared some people to the point that they thought, okay, well let’s vote for a convention where we control the process. And among that control could be the possibility of disqualifying her altogether from running in the  convention because she had violated party rules. And she’s been kicked out of her local committee and she’s technically not a Republican…right now she’s an independent…a person who is no longer a member of a  local committee is no longer a Republican in technicality. And therefore, if that person goes to a party-controlled process, that person could be disqualified from running in a party-controlled process.”
• “It was not discussed at this State Central Committee meeting, which is an open meeting and everybody watched it online, but this is one of the dangers for her. If she should run in one of the most likely scenarios, that there’ll be some  people that’ll move to disqualify her, and…the committee will likely disqualify her, yes. So the party decided to go for…a convention.”
• “The day after, she put out…another Facebook post where she said that she’s going to try to even to get the…party to reverse that decision, and she has spoken to people or one person who thinks he can change five people’s minds on the committee – which if you do simple math, would still not get her the votes because the vote went 41-28, so even if you flip five people and you’re able to bring back the vote for another five-hour discussion, you still are not going to be able to flip the decision.”
• So was the Republicans’ decision to hold a convention specifically aimed at excluding Chase? According to former Del. Ramadan: “It wasn’t the whole process, it was part of the process…of the coalition that came together.”