Shame!!!!!

As most of you are aware, there is a campaign for the Minnesota State GOP Chairmanship. I have two very dear friends on both sides of the campaign and because of that, I have kept my preferences in the race to myself. Something I intend to continue to do. So far, the campaign had been positive with each candidate laying out, for the delegates, what he will do in the next two years to move the Minnesota Republican Party forward. However that ended yesterday when I got the most shameful letter in the mail.

"As the race for state party chairman begins to heat up, I feel compelled to urage a not of caution to the campaign of Joe Repya. Perhaps he and members of his campaign should remember our party's history..." (all emphasis is in the original)

The letter writer then goes on to talk about the 1966 campaign that led to Reagan's 11th commandment "thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican". I shall come back to this.

"I was reminded of this recently when I rea a comment by Mr. Repya where he made the following statement.

"I turned down the offer because of the despicable condition the Minnesota Republican Party is in following a greatly mismanaged and poorly executed election in 2006." - Joe Repya May 23, 2007

Whipping out my handy dictionary/thesaurus I looked up the word "despicable" and found the defination of the word. "Despicable [dispikebl] adjective contemptable, worthless and deserving to be despised"."

OK - I don't know what dictionary the letter writer used, but according to Merriam Webster online the defination is "so worthless or obnoxious as to rouse moral indignation . " I bring up this defination, not to quibble with the letter writer, but to give a broader concept of the word, for the letter writer does choose a very narrow defination of the word.

That said, there is certainly a lot going on in today's MNGOP that would lend itself to the Merriam Webster defination. The actions of certain people within the party HAS BEEN contemptable. What is going on right now (in the immigration debate) is indeed worthy of moral indignation! We have not (as a party) lived by our core beliefs of smaller government and personal responsibility. Instead we do "whatever it takes" to keep power and that is, to a majority of Americans, contemptable indeed.

"Friends, you and I are the Republican Party and our party is not in "despicable condition.

Here I will jump in. There is context to the Repya quote that the letter writer conveniently leaves out. Context that I am aware of as I have seen and heard Mr. Repya speak on this before. The context is that the leadership, not the activists, are the ones that have done things that left our party in the lurch. The grass roots did not put the party in this shape - the leadership did!

"The leaders of the Republican Part are not "despicable." the activists of the Republican Party are not "despicable". And frankly I don't believe anyone who wants to lead the Republican Party should call our Party "despicable".

Negativity, pessimism and these blatant violations of Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment do not represent the kind of vision and leadership our party needs. "

OK - back to the 11th Commandment thing....I have long had this discussion with my liberal friends...since when is commenting on a leaders record or voting record considered to be "negativity". It is NOT negative to comment on the elected officials record when you disagree with them. It is called laying out the lines of deliniation. Couple this with the the fact that the MNGOP's entire campaign strategy last year was to demonize Mike Hatch and every other liberal candidate on the ballot!

THAT is the thing that struck me (and disappointed me) about this letter. The entire letter is negative and it is the one thing that the letter writer harps on (vis a vis the Repya campaign) is negativity. That and violating Reagan's 11th Commandment - which the letter writer also does...

Everything about this letter, when it came, struck me as "low". It came in a plain envelope with no return address or any indication as to what it was and who it was from. It could have been a solicitation for all I knew. It gave us no reason to vote FOR anyone - a hallmark (if you will) of the currently state and national party leadership. Then there is this gem from the final page.

"I'd ask that you keep in mind what has already come out from this campaign, and please take with a grain of salt and a skeptical eye whatever is sent out or worse yet, whatever half-truths or falsehoods are pushed to our "friends" in the media."

So they throw out this attack and then tell everyone who gets it not to take any response seriously? Sheesh - I thought the Republican Party was better than this!

UPDATE AND BUMP! Well that certainly didn't take long. Based on the single comment, the party already has a letter out disputing the Star Tribune's story. All I can say is it is going to be a wild and wooly week.