Let me get this straight – I feel like I’ve walked into a conversation in the middle of it, and it seems like there’s too much missing for this to make sense to me. If I understand you correctly, this thread is about Philip soliciting help with a mass mailing to WM owners. The purpose of the mass mailing is to solicit proxies from owners (per your first post in this thread where you said, “…it will ask for proxies in order to elect independent candidates…”). Do I have that correct?
In another post, when asked why Philip is asking for proxies, rather than suggesting which candidate should be elected, he gave a well-written insight to his strategy, and why he thought doing proxies were the way to go. He made a couple of interesting statements, specifically: “But this may allow us to hide from Trendwest who we will vote for.” and “I’ll be in a better position to decide whether to split the votes or cast them for 1 candidate.”
So as I understand things at this point, this mailing is to solicit proxies for the sole purpose of electing one or more candidates that Philip personally feels are the best candidates, and that he reserves the right to cast those votes in whatever way he feels will get the unspecified candidate(s) elected. In other words, his purpose with the mailing is to get proxies so that he can control the election. Is that correct?
In that same post, he goes on to say, “At the very least, that may force them to show their hand and cast 100% of their votes for the Trendwest candidates. The board would no longer be able to claim that they cast the proxies the way the popular vote goes.” In other words, Philip intends to do what he states Trendwest wants to do – rig the election, right?
Then later on Fred asks Philip if he is running for the board, and justifies his question by saying “I believe those are valid questions to ask an individual who is soliciting proxies.” Ladycody responds to him by stating, “I am sure that prior to actually soliciting proxies Philip will announce whether he intends to run or not…he’s not out to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.” Since his purpose of the mailing is to solicit proxies, and he has stated that he wants to send out this mailing immediately, it certainly sounds like he is in the process of starting to solicit proxies. So without stating whether he is running or not, he certainly APPEARS to have some sort of hidden agenda. If you want to respond to me in the same vein as you did Fred (“If I felt you had a need or right to know…”) go ahead. However, your non-response to this question, coupled with your request for proxies has made me very suspicious.
The bottom line in this appears in both Philip’s and Ladycody’s posts – whoever assigns a proxy to someone else is doing it on a leap of faith. They have to decide who they have more faith in – a company that they thought enough of to plunk money down to when they bought their membership, or a person “who they may know little or nothing about” (Philip's words). Just me, personally, but I can’t see trusting someone who won’t let me know if they are a candidate or not while soliciting others to take action with the expressed purpose of soliciting proxies – trust goes both ways, and Philip isn’t trusting me with all the facts.