Recently I have remarked about the annual Oklahoma Constitution report on the voting records of every member of the State Legislature and bewailed the continuing collectively low conservative voting averages.
On rummaging through some older papers, I found one titled “RINOing Republicans in Name Only” authored it showed by “Chuck Muth” in 2009. Mr. Muth is not known by or to me, so corroborating the story has not been possible for me. However, I knew the sender and thus it was accepted.
In a brief summary, the story is about the Tennessee House of Representatives having gained a Republican majority in the 2008 election for the first time since 1868, after the Civil War. The GOP Caucus had hopes of electing a true conservative to be speaker and had him chosen. Then, it said, on January 13, 2009, it developed that one of their number had conspired with the Democrat minority to unanimously vote for him, which with his vote assured his election. He promptly appointed Democrats as chairmen of half of the committees and thus thwarted the programs for which the majority was elected.
The choice part is that the Party Central Committee met and formally declared the miscreant to be a RINO and resolved that he be:
- Forever banned from seeking elective office in the State as a Republican;
- All media outlets in the state were requested to cease referring to him as a Republican; and
- Receive no support, endorsements or financial backing by party affiliates.
Space does not allow showing the entire story as received, but the author allows that the party had every right to do this since there is a “Constitutionally protected right of freedom of association” and the party committee is the official governing body of the party.
Where is this leading? Well, in 2006 when the Tulsa Area Republican Assembly (TARA) chapter of the Oklahoma Republican Assembly was chartered, I, as founding president, was informed that one of our duties was to declare such wayward individuals to be RINOs and notify state and other chapters and also the national office to notify all the other states of these declarations. There was no directive that such declarations be distributed to the media in general, nor was there a prohibition from doing so. The Republican Assembly and chapters are not to be official parts of the party so that another mandate could be carried out. That is to issue official endorsements of candidates in primary/run-off elections and distribute the decision results to news outlets. That continues to be done, but it takes a 70 percent vote to make an endorsement.
In the current election series, as well as past ones for some years, it seems to me that the party officials have bent too far back to observe the non-endorsement rule. In my opinion, it should be incumbent on party officials, as well as major supporters, to be pro-active in preventing the campaigns from becoming trashy as has been for the last few elections. There is no place in the Republican Party for “politics of personal destruction” to be so public or extensive and party officials, in particular, should take an active part in attempting to tone down, or terminate, such carrying on.
That includes telling candidates to cease and desist. Further, when a candidate declines to moderate and be honest and truthful, the Party officials should repudiate him or her publicly.
In the cases where the source of the problem is one of the professional campaign advisors – known to commonly resort to such tactics – it would be well for the party officials to publicly repudiate and publicize the name of the offending entity. When it comes from one of the “dark money” organizations, the same should be the case and the candidate benefitting should repudiate the source also. Also, the address, city, telephone, and management names, as well as major sources of their donations should be disclosed, if possible. These suggestions, if acted upon, might go a long way to cleaning up and making campaigns more gentile and civil.
Of course, none of this will happen if we, the people, don’t rise up and raise a fuss publicly. Also it is my policy to refuse to vote for a candidate following that course of campaign action. If a few of those ended up losing by a substantial amount, we might see a major reduction in the presence.
We are a nation built on civility and individuality; it is time that the ways that made us great were returned to our general conduct.
PRESDT-45 seems to be willing to take them on.