Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Oklahoma could be Minnesota

Richard Engle discusses how the party is including (rather, excluding) the Ron Paul Republicans who have come to the GOP in droves this past year in his editorial, Defining Oklahoma’s Conservatism, in the Tulsa Beacon April 24.

Similar to Minnesota, the Oklahoma GOP has Neocons, Values Conservatives and the "new" Liberty Republicans, the latter being quite similar to the Values Conservatives.

What Engle misses is that the Liberty Republicans have been here all along, just as they apparently have been in OK, as he points out that some prominent Republicans have been drawn and quartered for appearing to be too sympathetic to the Ron Paul Republicans.

We also have a situation in Minnesota where the party is forcing regular old grassroots Republicans, the Values Conservatives mostly, to choose. Many who hadn't been Paul supporters are finding themselves very uncomfortable with the heavy-handed tactics by the party by which they are ordered to enthusiastically support McCain, with whom they find little agreement, and to vote for a precise slate of candidates for national delegate. They're questioning why the head of the MN GOP is using such vitriol against these enthusiastic new recruits as well as the Ron Paul Republicans who have put years of work into the party.

In the words of Richard Engle, "[T]hey are being accused of dividing the party? What they are doing is building the party."

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