I write today to add to the words of Publisher Jon Fleischman in today’s commentary.
Senator "Linc" Chafee’s primary win over conservative Steve Laffey is no cause for celebration in any quarter of the country, and is another reason why I hang up on RNC telemarketers and have contempt for the national Republican Party. RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman says we need to keep our "majority" in the US Senate. Really? I didn’t know we had a "majority" in the Senate. Isn’t the Senate where all good legislation goes to die? How many bills have passed out of the House and died in the Senate? What has our Senate "majority" accomplished?
Part of the problem is how we now define the word "moderate". I’m always told that I need to support "moderates". Moderate in the GOP used to mean "pro – choice" on abortion and a general avoidance of social issues in politics. Now it means raising the minimum wage, opposing the war on terrorism, failing make tax cuts permanent, signing an ominous greenhouse gas bill, giving special rights to transvestites, running deficits, proposing bonds while deficit spending, voting against the President’s Supreme Court nominees, and killing legislation to explore for oil in Alaska. The fact that GOP moderates would even associate themselves with anyone believing in the above is evidence of the downward, slippery slope the GOP is on presently.
I like MY moderate friends. They might differ with me on abortion, as I am very conservative on those issues, but most of my "moderate" friends are probably to the right of me on economic issues. They are the old school moderates, I guess.
The problem for us that we accept a way too broad definition of moderate. There is nothing moderate about Senator Lincoln Chafee. And if you look at the recent bill signings by our Governor, you’ve got to seriously ask yourself if he is worthy of the moderate moniker himself.
If the GOP is to survive this century, it must continue to hunt down and defeat RINO’s, especially those that can’t even bring themselves to be fiscally conservative. I look forward to participating in that process in the future.