Aroostook’s party of real Republicans

To the editor:
    In response to State Republican Chairman Charlie Webster’s contention that I do not represent “Aroostook County views” (May 27th HPT) let me remind him that I was elected by Aroostook County Republicans to represent their views, not to represent Aroostook County as a whole.     That is the problem with the GOP hacks who are running this party like “Democrat lite.” They feel we must always kow tow to the liberal sentiments of the Democratic majority with the hopes of gleaning some of the scraps from the Democratic table. We stand for nothing — not even our own platform — and that is why we have lost election after election in this state. Charlie’s message of “just get Rs elected” (no matter whether they are real Republicans in their belief systems or not) is asinine, and he has heard that over and over across the state in every county — not from just one Amity Republican. Charlie Webster represents party hacks like Snowe and Collins, and not grassroots Republicans, and he knows it.
    As evidence that I do represent my constituents from the County at the State Party level, I submit the following evidence:
    During the February meeting of the Aroostook County Republican Committee (ACRC) a revision of the resolution that I originally presented condemning socialist phonies Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe for their vote on the Stimulus Package giveaways passed 17-7. During the March meeting of the ACRC, with Webster present (!) the ACRC passed the anti-Gay Marriage Resolution which I had introduced 23-1. This was the same resolution that Webster then gave the lead in discussing over to the sole openly-gay member of the Maine State Republican Committee (MSRC) a few weeks later, and over which he eventually ruled that NO RESOLUTIONS COULD HENCEFORTH BE BROUGHT BEFORE THE MSRC from any of the counties. This was also the MSRC meeting at which I had been charged unanimously by my constituents on the ACRC to complain that our anti-Snowe/Collins resolution did not even make the MSRC agenda, which I subsequently did.
    During that same March meeting of the ACRC, a Sound Money Resolution which I had also introduced calling for a return to Constitutional currency passed unanimously, 24-0. During the May meeting of the ACRC, a resolution I had presented reaffirming the right of the citizens to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for the redress of grievances also passed overwhelmingly.
    I don’t know who it is that Chairman Webster seems to think I should be representing, but it isn’t the monied interests that control the Maine GOP at the top and run roughshod over our own platform day after day, and session after session. It isn’t the Rockefellers and their Trilateral Commission and Council of Foreign Relations which call the shots for Snowe and Collins (and thus for Webster.) It is the Republicans of Aroostook County who elected me that I represent.
    Webster repeatedly called my views “extreme” in that same letter. I should remind the chairman that he is thus calling “extreme” the vast majority of ACRC members who voted as I did on these important matters. I have not been in the minority on any important matter at the county level for months. In short, Aroostook County Republicans truly “get it,” and that has the political machine worried. Even were all of our views “extreme,” let me remind him that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” (Barry Goldwater)
    I think it is becoming more and more apparent that the Maine Republican Party needs to listen to the grassroots and the counties more, not less as Webster would have them do. Nothing else has worked to win us any major elections in this state. Now it is time to listen to new (old) ideas (LIKE THE PARTY PLATFORM) and the elected members of the MSRC, who truly are seeking to represent their constituents and the party platform, not only to the soft whispers of Democrats in disguise like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.