Posted on 09/16/2003 4:35:42 PM PDT by repentant_pundit
The AZ GOP rebellion against Republican principles and the party's platform is worse than I thought ... and worse than I reported on previously. In last week's column, I asked people to complain to state GOP chairman Bob Fannin for including the pro-abortion WISH List in the weekly calendar. If only it had been that bad and no worse.
Then I found out that when RNC chairman Ed Gillespie appeared at a state GOP function in Phoenix Sept. 3, Fannin introduced WISH List members attending the event. This is outright rebellion. Let's look at what the Republican Party and the WISH List believe in:
First, the Republican Party states the following in its 2000 platform:
"As a country, we must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions. We oppose using public revenues for abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.
"Our goal is to ensure that women with problem pregnancies have the kind of support, material and otherwise, they need for themselves and for their babies, not to be punitive towards those for whose difficult situation we have only compassion. We oppose abortion, but our pro-life agenda does not include punitive action against women who have an abortion. We salute those who provide alternatives to abortion and offer adoption services, and we commend congressional Republicans for expanding assistance to adopting families and for removing racial barriers to adoption. The impact of those measures and of our Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 has been spectacular. Adoptions out of foster care have jumped forty percent and the incidence of child abuse and neglect has actually declined. We second Governor Bush's call to make permanent the adoption tax credit and expand it to $7,500."
The WISH List website states:
"WISH identifies promising pro-choice Republican women candidates.
We examine each candidate, campaign organization and race.
Viable contenders are introduced to our members through profiles.
WISH members are urged to contribute to at least two WISH-endorsed candidates per election cycle.
WISH holds events -- from small "living room groups" to large receptions throughout the U.S.-- to benefit The WISH List and its candidates.
WISH forwards member contributions to the designated campaigns."
Virtually all WISH List members serving in office are pro-abortion, such as state rep Michele Reagan and state sen. Carolyn Allen. When state legislator Barbara Leff tried to join this group, she was rejected because she voted for informed consent in the past.
Can anyone make an argument that the Republican Party and the WISH List have compatible missions? I didn't think so. They are diametrically opposed to one another.
When Fannin was selected two years ago to become chairman of AZ GOP, we were told by high-ranking party officials that "Bob Fannin is a friend to conservatives." However, if Fannin cannot get it right on the fundamental issue of conservatism -- the sanctity of life -- he has failed the "friend of conservatives test."
Let's be honest. Fannin is nothing but a figurehead. He has very little real authority as state chairman. Other people call the shots.
Maybe the state office has become so insignificant in importance that no one really oversees it aside from fundraising and distribution of funds to candidates and election functions. Maybe the role of chairman has no importance other than to mail checks and fill phone banks. Last year, Fannin told Republicans not to speak ill of other Republicans. That's just what a RINO would want to hear out of Fannin.
If the state GOP office cannot champion Republican values, as embodied in the platform, something is seriously wrong. When the chairman introduces people who identify themselves as being in favor of killing unborn children, then ... "Phoenix, we have a problem." A big problem.
For many decades, it has been the Democrats who fall for everything and stand for nothing. All in the name of desperately lunging for votes from any live person, as well as a few dead ones and a few pets. If the Republican Party is going to succumb to this lack of principle, then it is no different than the Democratic Party. The Republican platform is vastly superior to the Democratic platform and the socialism and culture of death it champions. If Republicans will stay on message and maintain discretion in recognition of official organizations recognized by the party, its conservative values will win in the political square. It is not asking too much for that to begin with the state chairman. Organizations that determine membership by support for abortion, or sexual orientation, should have no recognized place at the GOP table. We are not the party of abortion on demand, and we do not recognize people by what they do in the privacy of their home or public bath houses.
Instead of that, however, what do we see? We see a chairman role which has been reduced to little more than a door greeter, a chairman indifferent to the infiltration of Democrats into the Republican Party, and a chairman who wasn't willing to persuade "Republicans" not to support the campaigns of Democrats Janet Napolitano and Phil Gordon, in their candidacies for governor and mayor of Phoenix, respectively. It's see no RINO evil, hear no RINO evil and speak no evil of RINOs.
The chairmanship is little more than a popularity contest. Chairmen should be a lot like parents. It's not as important to be the friend of those you lead as it is to lead them in the right direction, regardless of what they want to do. It should be an easy job. The party has already determined the course. Chairmen merely need merely to follow it, rather than to applaud when people go off course. It should have been made clear long ago that the chairman will not stand for Republicans endorsing Democrats and that abortion advocates will not be held up for applause at public events.
As rank and file conservative Republicans, we will not stand for a state chairman who champions a culture of death, nor will we tolerate a chairman who works against us.
Anything at all?
Absolutely GOLDEN. Couldn't have been said any better.
That made my day.
This proves to me that these Witch List broads are NOT pro-choice, but pro-abortion. What kind of choice can one have if she's not fully informed?
No it just triangulation.... or as Rush calls it the “The Grand Plan” .... the GOP and a national lever has been order left to absorber the middle from the Democrats
The theory is conservatism will have no place to go and are stuck with the GOP while GOP enacts thing the appeal to the middle left
Its a variation on Dem tactics and their multiple wings (all left) held together on single issues and is a reemergence of the old Rockefeller/ Country Club Liberal wing of the GOP... our single issue to hold the new GOP together is to be (big) business and national defense other that that the new GOP policy will be changed to the appeal to the middle left
We are seeing trial runs and test movement all over the place for the last few years....just my opinion... but look around and watch... you can see it happen
We are going to become the party Jumping Jim Jeffords always wanted ...
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