Lawson is the real Republican in the race

Dear editor:

This is not a personal attack, like the writer who tried to smear Marla Lawson, but in the interest of fair play, the voters should see both candidates.

Every entrenched incumbent started out little known themselves with no great political machinery to make their names household words. And we've all "stubbed our toes" at one time or another. I got a speeding ticket about 3 miles east of AJ's in 1977. So what? This is 2010.

I've had the opportunity to talk with her on several occasions and I like her views on things. While I have no personal issues with the incumbent, Tim Corder, I DO have a political problem with RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) representing our party.

I'm not knocking the man personally, he might be a great guy and an excellent next-door neighbor, but politically, he belongs on the other side of the fence with the Democrats. No personal smears now, just the facts, as Joe Friday would say.

Contrary to what the left tells you, the NRA is painfully honest in it's endorsements of candidates. Not ALL Democrats are anti-gun, and when Mr. Corder ran against Jim Alexander a few years back, Alexander the Democrat got an A rating from the NRA. Mr. Corder got an "F". While he has improved that mark since then, there shouldn't have been an "F" in the first place. No "Republican" should EVER get a poor grade on a Constitutional issue. We've come to expect that from the other side, but not from ours.

Open primaries. This is a system that allows voters from the other party to vote in YOUR primaries. In essence, they get to help pick who THEIR guy gets to run against in the fall. Sometimes, in the case of a RINO, it also allows your Democrat friends to help you out as well. Prior to the 2008 GOP convention at Sandpoint, about 20 of us met in conference and all but ONE favored CLOSING our primaries. Marla's opponent.

Then came Sandpoint. I had never been to a GOP convention, and I guarantee I'm never going to another one. I was chosen to go to THIS one as one of seven Elmore County delegates, joined by Mr. Corder and five others. This is one of those places where campaign promises and rhetoric fall by the wayside. Now you're "voting for score" and how a candidate votes is what his real positions are, not what he tells you on the campaign trail.

Most of you reading this will never attend or take part in a party convention, and you can thank God for that. From Elmore, during the voting, on almost every issue, six of us stood in agreement. One did not. On issues that most Republicans I know would oppose, one stood up for it, six of us did not.

In spite of Obama, this is still a free country and a person should vote their conscience, but when you represent the people of a particular party, your job is to represent THEM, not your own interests or agendas. A lot of U.S. Congressmen are going to find that out in November.

We don't know too much about Mrs. Lawson yet, but then, we don't know much about ANY of them in the beginning. What I DO know, is not hearsay, second-hand info or something I might have read in the paper, but what I personally saw, as I myself took part in that gaggle up in Sandpoint.

I'm not just picking on Mr. Corder, either. Every Idaho county was represented, and looking around the great hall during the voting, I saw more strange votes than I cared to, and thought from time to time: "Aren't you guys at the wrong convention?"

To be sure, I myself have voted for a Democrat or two, when they have better voting records on the issues than OUR guy does, and that DOES happen on both sides of the aisle. I never vote for someone just because they have a (R) after their name. That doesn't always tell the story.

Marla Lawson has an (R) after her name, and I believe she actually IS. Nobody knows for sure until they get in there.

Campaign signs and speeches are just window dressing. How they vote is how they think. Washington is LOADED with multiple-term incumbents. As Dr. Phil would say, how's that working out for ya?

Mike Bradbury