I was just reading an interview of a young Republican author in the Pittsburgh-Trib back in 2009 and was struck by her talking about people being thrown out of the Party. Reminded me of the unpleasant email I received from the Armstrong GOP Committee's Secretary, Kirk Atwood, 30 hours after the end of the May 18th Primary. Our correspondence to that point had revolved around my request to obtain a copy of the committee's bylaws. Kirk digressed with a slam against Sam Rohrer, calling him a "pay jacker" and questioning how he could call himself a constitutionalist, but ended with informing me that I could and would be removed from the Committee if I did not support all the Republican candidates.
I was not happy that Sam Rohrer lost in the primary, and I think that he still has an important message that should be heard, but that hardly makes me a renegade Republican, does it?
Unfortunately this is what we have to deal with when we have a broken party. The establishment doesn't understand that the downfall of the Republican Party is that by endorsing any and all candidates with an "R" by their name they are setting themselves up. When voters see that there are a lot of Republicans and Democrats in office that are taking us down the same road, they get turned off by the party. The voters don't like it when they see the party endorse guys like Arlen Specter just a couple of years ago who clearly was part of the cancer in the party. Then on top of that, the party continues to endorse candidates just like him! Who wants to be associated with that? If the party truly wanted good candidates in office that would make a good name for the party, they would allow the committee people to do their job and let the voters know who all the candidates are in the primary. Secondly, if a voter asks you who to vote for, you should be able to say, these are the candidates I support and give them a reason why. I mean, they asked and if the candidates you suggested are in the party, no rules were broken. When Armstrong GOP Committee's Secretary, Kirk Atwood, made that comment regarding Sam Rohrer, doesn't that tell us that he obviously did not support Sam and then doesn't that mean he broke his own rule and should he be subject to being removed from the committee?
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