On Saturday 14 June 2008 05:24:22 pm Toby Nixon wrote:
> I don't know what the situation is in other states, but here in our
> district in Washington, PCOs are expected to deliver literature for all
> Republican candidates.

Speaking of literature, is there any official RLC literature available? I
could always include that literature as well.

--
David Johnson

At 01:21 PM 6/14/2008, David Johnson wrote:

>Many of us Ron Paul supporters are getting active in their local Republican
>parties. Four local Ron Paul supporters, including myself, have run for and
>have likely won, a spot on the county central committee. I think we can avoid
>bitter discussion over foreign policy, because this is at the county level.
>
>But there is still the problem of McCain. The local party will expect us to
>actively campaign for all Republican candidates, including McCain. We had an
>announcement that the local GOP business meetings will be combined with the
>local McCain campaign meetings. I can handle the local and state candidates,
>but I can't stomach campaigning for McCain. It's not just his stance on the
>war, it's his big government attitude on everything else.
>
>I don't know if I can hold my breath all the way until November. Surely other
>RLC members have been in the same situation before. How did you manage to not
>campaign for Bush in 2000 and 2004?

The party committees themselves, as opposed to something like the RLC
or other such organizations, exist to support party candidates,
including ones you don't like.  They are not, nor should they, start
non Republicans over republicans.  If you don't like certain
candidates, then just don't involve yourself with McCain related
events and use that time to support other candidates you like more.

If you use your time and energy within the party to support
down-ticket candidates that you really like, you will be far, far
more effective then using your time and energy to attack McCain.  If
you spend your time being anti-McCain, then the rest of the party
will turn against you AND your positions.

On Saturday 14 June 2008 08:49:29 pm W. Guy Finley wrote:
>
> Because if that's your position you are working for Obama -- period.

Whoa there, pardner! This isn't a black and white world. The sheeple may be
content with choosing between two evils, but I am not. I'm not asking how I
can support McCain, I'm asking how to be a good Republican without supporting
McCain.

We are in this mess precisely because our party kept voting for the lesser of
two evils. Well, the lesser evil is still evil! My vote is most likely going
towards Barr. As a party committee member, I cannot campaign for him, but in
the privacy of the ballot box I'm going to follow my conscience.

The Republican Party isn't a football team, I shouldn't be forced to vote for
a guy just because he puts on a red jersey.

--
David Johnson

On Saturday 14 June 2008 09:23:21 pm Jason Burkins wrote:
> >  I'm asking how to be a good Republican without supporting McCain.
>
> You cannot.

Then I guess I'm out of the party. Thank you for clearing that up. When even
the libertarians in the party tell me to support the fascist, the message is
clear that I do not belong.

I'll be waiting for that announcement that the RLC is endorsing McCain...

--
David Johnson

On Saturday 14 June 2008 10:18:10 pm Jason Burkins wrote:
> No one wants you to leave, we need you to help fight to change the
> party from within, but you have to realize as the rest of us have
> that McCain has won the Republican nomination and party officials
> cannot advocate against the nominee.

I'm not asking how to advocate against the nominee, I'm asking how not to
advocate for him. There is a difference. Is there a third way? Is it possible
to be neutral with regards to one single candidate out of dozens? Must I root
for anyone the party sends my way?

I was actually looking for real world practical advice on how to avoid being
an active McCain supporter. How to campaign for other candidates without
having to campaign for him. Did everyone here actively support Bush in 2004?
If you were a party member in 2004, and did not actively support Bush, please
tell me how you did it. Did you tell the party chairman "no"? Did you print
up your own literature that didn't include Bush? Did you find other ways to
earn "brownie points" with the party so you didn't have to wear Bush
teeshirts on the weekends? What did you do?

--
David Johnson

On Saturday 14 June 2008 10:24:23 pm W. Guy Finley wrote:
> There's only one shot at liberty and that's working within the GOP to
> get it back to its roots and that's why I'm in the RLC.

We don't get the party back to its roots by rolling over and supporting
whoever the party establishment tells us to.  Why should the party care what
we think, when they know we'll wave the banner for any big government
candidate they throw our way.

--
David Johnson

On Saturday 14 June 2008 10:18:10 pm Jason Burkins wrote:
> No one wants you to leave, we need you to help fight to change the
> party from within, but you have to realize as the rest of us have
> that McCain has won the Republican nomination and party officials
> cannot advocate against the nominee.

I'm not asking how to advocate against the nominee, I'm asking how not to
advocate for him. There is a difference. Is there a third way? Is it possible
to be neutral with regards to one single candidate out of dozens? Must I root
for anyone the party sends my way?

I was actually looking for real world practical advice on how to avoid being
an active McCain supporter. How to campaign for other candidates without
having to campaign for him. Did everyone here actively support Bush in 2004?
If you were a party member in 2004, and did not actively support Bush, please
tell me how you did it. Did you tell the party chairman "no"? Did you print
up your own literature that didn't include Bush? Did you find other ways to
earn "brownie points" with the party so you didn't have to wear Bush
teeshirts on the weekends? What did you do?

--
David Johnson

After they win the nominantion, yes we do.  It's not "rolling over", it's getting behind the nominee of the party.

Maybe if folks could have been working for a conservative who actually had a chance to win we wouldn't be in this position right now but we are.  He's the nominee, he's not perfect, but he's better than Obama and those are your two choices.

--Guy

--- In RLC-Action@yahoogroups.com, "W. Guy Finley" <wgfinley@...>
> I don't agree with McCain on a lot of things, he certainly wasn't my
> first choice for the job either but HE IS the nominee of the party.
> Unfortunately he's the one we got saddled with when the conservative
> vote was split amongst various candidates who failed to get out of the
> way so that one could emerge and defeat McCain.

That's just wishful thinking on your part. Not one of the main
Republican contenders was any more conservative than McCain overall.
Huckabee is more conservative on the social issues, but far more
liberal on everything else. Giuliani is more conservative fiscally,
but considerably more liberal socially. Romney is on par with McCain
at best--he promised more spending and changed his social positions
every time it was politically expedient--and only managed to get
conservatives to support him by tapping into the common misconception
that being pro-big business is conservative, even it it's via policies
that increase the size and scope of government. The only candidates on
any primary ballots who ran as conservatives were Ron Paul, Fred
Thompson, and Duncan Hunter. Adding the support of all of the
conservatives together wouldn't have beaten any one of the big three
liberals, McCain, Romney, and Huckabee.

The moderate majority of the GOP owns the party. It has the lion's
share of power and is willing to use it by any means necessary to
further marginalize the conservative element of the party (as many
conservative delegates to state conventions, like mine in Indiana, are
learning first hand this year). This is an imbalance of power that has
gotten progressively worse for conservatives in the party over time.
And every time we reward them for selecting a nominee who merely
offers Democrat-lite ideas, we make them stronger and set back any
efforts to reform the party even more. I'm also a precinct
committeeman, and was a delegate to my state convention, and will be
supporting everyone except McCain. I frankly hope he loses. Gaining
what miniscule advantages he offers over Obama (if there are any at
all) is not as important as the long-term goal of reforming the GOP. I
think some of the other responders who suggested we take a passive
approach to McCain while we actively support conservative candidates
farther down the ticket who we want to gain more power in the party is
the right approach. There's nothing wrong with doing this. There are
still plenty of Republicans holding high office who themselves will
not publicly support McCain.

A lot of Democrats demonize those who voted for chose to vote for
Nader in 2000, rather than Gore, who at that time ran as a centrist.
As a result, the party has gotten progressively more liberal,
appointed a far left DNC chair, and offered more liberal candidates in
2004 and now in 2008, when they are have a cakewalk to the
inauguration with their most liberal candidate ever. The Democrats are
Nader's party now because a fraction of them decided in 2000 that
reforming the party was more important than seeing Gore beat Bush.
Here's a good article that makes that case:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11018.html

David,

You ask a good question. Like all good questions, the answer is "it
depends".

It depends on what state you are from. Here in Jawja McCain is despised
by many for being McAmnesty. Its a silly position to take in my book, as
the reason people come here illegally is that we don't make it realistic
to come here legally. McCain attempted to work on that solution and had
his head handed to him.

It also depends on why you can't support McCain. Is there nothing about
McCain you can support? His steadfast opposition to earmarks? His votes
against the Bush Tax Cuts because the refused to first address spending.
His vote against Medicare Part-D?

Finally it depends on what you are required or asked to do as a central
committee member. When I served on my county executive committee my main
duties were organizing and manning booths at county fairs, corralling
volunteers to march in parades, and arranging to local candidate
meet-n-greets at the local Carvel.

Is your dislike for McCain so great you can't site behind a table with
McCain bumper stickers? Because as a Central Committee member you'll
probably be asked to find volunteers to work that table with you. A few
potential volunteers will probably tell you "I'd like to help the party,
but I can't support a big government nominee like John McCain". And now
you've got a new recruit into the RLC.

Your party chairman could ask you if you'd be willing to put up signs
the night before the election. Republicans tend to understand both
family and work concerns and if you told your Chairman you had to work
that next day, or you needed to stay with the kids and couldn't be out
late they would probably understand.

I think it is quite possible to not directly support McCain while doing
the best of for the congressional and down-ticket races.

You said "the local GOP business meetings will be combined with the
local McCain campaign meetings." That could be an opportunity to see how
a presidential campaign is run at the local level. It depends on how
long are you willing to sit silent and bite your tongue?

The key thing to remember is that you need to balance party loyalty with
ideological loyalty. You need to do that in a way that doesn't alienate
you from the rest of your local party yet doesn't turn you into an "any
republican is better than any democrat" party regular. Having a good RLC
chapter in your local area can help.

For the past year and a half I've been speaking out more and more
against the President within my local party and I'm getting a lot more
nods of agreement. But I think the key difference between my Bush-hating
and the Bush-hating from the left is that when the President is right
(rarely) I'll actually give him the credit he is due. If you can find
two or three positive things to say about McCain you'll up the
credibility of your criticisms of him.

Finally, the modern GOP was formed as an alliance between three major
ideological interest groups in the 80s under Reagan: The Christian
Conservatives, the Smaller Government movement and the National Defense
crowd. They allied to battle the Godless Communist Russians (for those
reasons respectively). Since the fall of the Soviet Union there hasn't
been a unifying theme to keep all those groups together. Gingrich tossed
a few bones to our wing of that triumvirate (Welfare reform, get rid of
the DOEd) but we haven't been as active in grass roots politics as the
other two wings. Getting involved in your county party, telling your
state representatives and senators how you feel will help to either
restore balance - or strengthen the core of the libertarian/small
government wing of the GOP in the struggle for control that is soon to
happen with us now in the minority.

Good luck, and please let us know how it all turns out.

Chris

PS. Thank you for starting this thread - its been the most on topic
discussion I've seen on this list since I joined 2 years ago.

David Johnson wrote:
>
>
> Many of us Ron Paul supporters are getting active in their local Republican
> parties. Four local Ron Paul supporters, including myself, have run for and
> have likely won, a spot on the county central committee. I think we can
> avoid
> bitter discussion over foreign policy, because this is at the county level.
>
> But there is still the problem of McCain. The local party will expect us to
> actively campaign for all Republican candidates, including McCain. We
> had an
> announcement that the local GOP business meetings will be combined with the
> local McCain campaign meetings. I can handle the local and state
> candidates,
> but I can't stomach campaigning for McCain. It's not just his stance on the
> war, it's his big government attitude on everything else.
>
> I don't know if I can hold my breath all the way until November. Surely
> other
> RLC members have been in the same situation before. How did you manage
> to not
> campaign for Bush in 2000 and 2004?
>
> --
> David Johnson
>
>

--
Chris Farris 		 chris at gopliberty dot org
Chairman 		 404 806 1403
Republican Liberty Caucus of Georgia http://www.gopliberty.org

On Saturday 14 June 2008 04:56:37 pm Steve Gresh wrote:
> Tell your local Republican Party members that God told you not to
> campaign for McCain and that you will burn in Hell if you do.

Actually, I was looking for a serious answer.

---

From: RLC-Action@yahoogroups.com [mailto:RLC-Action@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of R. Kenneth Lindell
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 6:33 AM
To: RLC-Action@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [RLC-Action] Virginia House Races

I won my Maine House primary:

-          Ken Lindell

	lindell	coolidge	southworth
orland	44	44	1
Frankfort	55	10	15
Prospect	16	8	7
Stockton Springs	67	29	51
Verona Island	22	18	0
Searsport	25	34	108
	229	143	182

From: RLC-Action@yahoogroups.com [mailto:RLC-Action@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of westmiller@aol.com
Sent: 06/11/2008 12:35 AM
To: rlc-action@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [RLC-Action] Virginia House Races

RLC endorsed candidates did well, but not good enough
in Virginia Primaries:
8th CD:
Mark Ellmore: 56% -- Amit K. Singh: 44%
10th CD:
Frank R. Wolf: 91% -- Vern McKinle: 9%


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rmiller451@... writes:
> I was the  only Ron Paul supporter elected ...
From: michael franks
> I made it as  a delegate ...
jap1@... writes:
> I'm an Alternate Delegate  ...

Super. Which one of you wants to take  charge
of making the RLC visible at the convention? The
booth seems out of  the question, but there must
be other opportunities (hospitality suite,  lapelpins).
Volunteers?

Bill




**************Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best
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