"RINO'S" In The Woodpile

Last week was an incredible discovery for me. I knew the Republican Party had been infested with liberals, but I didn't know to what extent, until I had the opportunity to attend the State GOP Convention in Sandpoint last week, as one of seven Elmore Country Delegates.

"RINO's".....(Republicans In Name Only), were EVERYWHERE. I'm not going into great detail in this blog, because I'm still fuming from what I saw and heard up there, and fear it is a disease that has probably infected all 50 states.

There was discussion on the floor that normally wouldn't apply to a party membership that once ran somewhat along the same course laid out by our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. Time after time....after time.......I thought to myself during the debates......"Why is this even an issue? Here? Among Republicans?"

Was I even in the "right" place? (pun intended!). I was hearing debate that you'd expect to hear at a Democratic Caucus........not at a supposed GOP convention.

It's bad enough that the party of Ike, Goldwater and Reagan, now parades a presidential candidate who is no more conservative than Ted Kennedy, but at least HALF the delegates (in THIS state anyway), feel it's ok to disregard "Constitution" as no more than that thing you take in the morning. It's ok to back people who want to control freedom of speech. It's obviously alright to knuckle under to the United Nations...to keep the borders open...to continue to allow our troops to die everyday for a "war" the Congress has still never declared.

A hot topic was the open primaries, in which Democrats can walk across the street and vote for whichever GOP candidates that feel would be easiest to beat in November. Now.........WE can't vote in THEIR caucuses, so why should they be allowed to come over to OUR side and pick their opponents?

RINO's on "our side" maintain that keeping the GOP primaries open to all, we'll attract more Independents in the fall. "Well"............(as Ronnie used to say).......if we would run some decent candidates, and stand by our original principles.......if our elected ones would VOTE in Congress as they SHOULD, instead of making deals with the lobbyists, there WOULDN'T BE any problem at all in attracting Independent voters!

Most Independents are former Republicans............we know that from the Ross Perot numbers alone. If we didn't welcome so many moderates and liberals into our party, and VOTE for them as well, the GOP would be in much better shape than it is today. A lot of Republicans are becoming embarrassed to admit their party affiliation, and are looking for other people to vote for.

This too, was apparent, whenever John McCain's name was mentioned, only about HALF of the delegates stood and applauded. It is my understanding that there is a sizeable portion of Hillary supporters who will NOT be supporting Obama in the fall. This would be a clear opportunity for a good Independent party candidate to jump into this race, with so many people wishing they had someone else to vote for.

Along that line, there was considerable resentment for all of those "Ron Paul types" being there, and being in delegational positions, to boot. We were accused of trying to interfere with "status quo" and "swing the GOP back to the right", they grumbled.

Well EXCUSE US PROFUSELY!!!! A GOP event SHOULD be to the "right" should it not? "These radicals dare to come up here, try holding us to adhering to the Constitution, and shoving CONSERVATIVE values down our throats!........My God....the sheer AUDACITY! And at a "REPUBLICAN" gathering, of all places!"

As my readers know, I've been a Ron Paul supporter from the start, because he's RIGHT in what he wants to do, which has probably been a dumb move all along.......trying to be a REAL American within the structure we've surrounded ourselves with today. In spite of pre-convention meetings we tried to keep secret, word still leaked to the press. The RINO's knew there'd be a few of us up there, but had no idea how many, and in so many delegate positions. They were taken by surprise. INFORMED too..........and challenged the "powers that be" with their OWN rulebook, FORCING the vote for the new Party Chairman to be done by BALLOT, unstead of visually from the podium. This insured we got rid of RINO Kirk Sullivan, and replacing him with Norm Semanko, who is (dare I say it), actually a CONSERVATIVE. This "secret" paperslip ballot was insisted upon, because we KNOW how many delegates are pressured into voting a certain way, and you traditionally have to stand up and be counted. A "secret paper ballot" does not allow any of the delegation chairmen to see if you voted HIS way, or your own, thus freeing those under pressure to cleanly vote as they wish.

Only those wishing to "stack the deck" would oppose...........and they did.......and they lost. In spite of a very narrow loss (199-192) to keep the primaries open, I predict our new chairman will still manage to get our next set of primaries CLOSED over the next year or so. I really do look for that to happen. That bothers a lot of those who attended, and I'm glad it does. It should. If they're gonna think, speak and vote like Democrats, they should LEAVE and BECOME Democrats.

When the Constitutionalists took their turns on the open microphones during debate, you'd have thought they were speaking in some foreign language, to many of our "immigrated liberals".........things that aren't rocket science at all, but common sense, and AS our founders meant it to be.

It wasn't TOTAL stupidity, though. The vote was virtually unanimous when we ALL agreed for our party platform to stand behind the ABOLISHMENT of the Federal Reserve Bank. Obviously, even the libs understand robbery by the IRS.........yeah, they comprehend thievery. THIS, I must admit, was a pleasant, unexpected surprise.

By a pretty good majority, we even opted to push the government to get OUT of the U.N.............This, I would have thought, SHOULD have been unanimous, but a majority worked just as well. It DID show, however, at how divided the GOP has become.

You true conservatives out there..........if you are oldtime Republicans (you remember......back when the party actually stood for something, had values and morals), you'll be proud to know that your Elmore Country Delegation did pretty darned well. There were seven of us, and six of us consistently voted "conservative."

For those of us Ron Paul types, it was a dismal occasion in two respects. First, the media has kept Congressman Paul from being heard from by the masses, and the numbers have virtually eliminated him mathematically, and he pretty much HAD to drop out....no point in pursueing this any further. Leastwise not in the GOP.

Secondly........our presence, which upset so many, some of them compared it to December 7th, 1941. Disgraceful.

In a way, that's true......it IS disgraceful that it TOOK a "Pearl Harbor" to get the party headed back toward the right..........as it's SUPPOSED to be. I mean, we ARE talking about the GOP, are we not? You know.....as in....right wing?....conservative?.....Constitution/Bill of Rights?.....Republican? Didn't that USED to be what we stood for?

We are in deep trouble, and so is the country. We need to start sorting through that woodpile out there, before those "termites" in it whittle the cord down to nothing before winter sets in.

I had a chance to talk with Butch Otter, Jim Risch and a few other of our elected officials. The one who impressed me the most was Bill Sali. He was the only one shaking hands with me, who wasn't looking around to see who else or who might be more important to speak to. Like a firm handshake, eye contact tells you a LOT about a man. I had Bill Sali's undivided attention throughout the entire conversation. He assumed nothing, LISTENS to you and asks questions. His genuineness is probably the main reason the Idaho Statesman hammers on him the way they do. Straight-forwardness and honesty are distastful traits to leftwing factions like the Statesman. Sali is OK in my book. He calls it like it is, which naturally makes him a political outcast in Washington D.C.

Overall though, the Republicans need to clean out their shed, before pointing fingers at the other side. Personally, I'd like to see them ALL go down the road. There ARE a few Independents in various offices now, but the White House is RIPE for the pickins' if a good 3rd party candidate were to suddenly jump into this race. There are an awful lot of thoroughly disgusted Democrats and Republicans out there who CRAVE another name on November's ballot. And why not? America's presidential choices have never been this poor.