Republicans--Only the Pure need to apply!

After writing this and reading it over, I want to make this disclaimer: In no way do I expect voters who have chosen to register as Independents will now run out to reject the Republican Party and become Democrats. My message to Independents, register as Republicans and screw them over from their own ranks. To my fellow Democrats, read, laugh, enjoy, remember over 2/3's of the voters in Arizona reject you!

Sour Grapes!!
Oh how politicans hate to lose. A.J. LaFaro, chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, said he wants the party’s lawyers to find ways around the 1998 voter-approved measure which allows Independents to participate in choosing the nominees of any recognized party. He said Independents who may not believe in the party’s “conservative values” are affecting who ultimately runs under the GOP banner.

Carolyn Cox, his Pima County counterpart, agrees Independents may be having an unwanted influence on GOP politics. “I just think it’s kind of unfortunate when people who are not in the party are selecting who the party is going to have as a candidate,” she said. So what's wrong? Up until this Primary Election the Republicans busted their buttons courting the Independent voters. All of a sudden are the Independents getting in the way of some of their Tea Party-Right-Wing extremists?

Diverse view points are not welcome. Last month with 16 percent of all Republican ballots cast by non-Republicans and the remaining 84 percent can't find candidates with pure enough views for a few Republican County Chairmen? Maricopa Republican County Chairman LaFaro said it might require actually going to the ballot in 2016 to rescind or alter the 1998 voter-approved Constitutional Amendment which empowered Independents to affect primaries.

Oh, but wait a pretty moment. That runs contrary to certain GOP money interests backing a proposal that is being pushed by a separate group going in the exact opposite direction: totally eliminating partisan politics from the primary and allowing all voters to choose among all contenders, regardless of party. Wow! Let the Dark Money in politics rule, top two special interest funded candidates face-off in the General Election.

In both Pima and Maricopa County, 15.8 percent of the Republican primary votes came from Independents. Out of nearly 550,000 Republican ballots statewide, 16 percent were from Independents. LaFaro said initial analysis suggests those Independent voters might have helped save the seats of some Republicans who his organization tried to defeat. Again, my Democrat friends, Wow! The Republican County Chairman's organization tried to defeat some of the elected Republicans in the Primary. "Eat your own" get angry and cry fowl if you lose. That's where the sour grapes come in.

“Independents, in my opinion, may not support the Republican platform, conservative values,” LaFaro said, meaning they may instead be supporting candidates that are “more to their liking” but less reflective of GOP positions. “If you want to vote in a Republican primary I firmly believe that you should be a registered Republican.”

The scene in the Republican run-off election in Mississippi is a case in point on the other side. The establishment incumbent US Senator was forced into a second ballot when the Tea Party candidate won the most votes in the Primary but not enough to win the nomination. In the second election the Republican Party leaders openly courted Democrats to come to the aid of the GOP and vote for the (maybe-really questionable) more moderate regular Republican long-time serving United States Senator.....Republican County Chairs where are you now? By invitation "Non-Republicans" pulled the GOP fat out of the fire!

Then we have the at one time darling of the Republican Party, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal telling the GOP stop being the party of STUPID!

America needs a leader to bridge the widening gulf between faith and science, and Louisiana Republican Govenor Bobby Jindal, thinks he can be that person. After initially supporting the Common Core attempt to write national education standards, the governor now opposes the project. Governor Jindal said, in a statement. “What started out as an innovative idea to create a set of base-line standards that could be ‘voluntarily’ used by the states has turned into a scheme by the federal government to nationalize curriculum.”

He of course joins the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, Jindal takes the latter stance in the name of greater "local control" of education -- which would presumably allow Louisiana schools to teach his version of acceptable "science." This is the guy that said, "the Republican Party has to stop being the stupid party", we'll see if he get on the stage with the other GOP candidates in the 2016 Presidential debates and still thinks the Republican Party is the stupid party.

Jindal you remember was chosen to delver the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union Address a couple years back and truly blew it. His newly found opposition to Common Core is widely viewed as a strategy to fuel Jindal’s presidential aspirations by currying favor with Tea Party conservatives. A onetime Common Core supporter, Jindal now claims that the federal government has overstepped its role in a whole host of areas, especially in education. Don't want to single out Governor Jindal but when he was picked to go before a nationwide total TV audience he was a bright and shining light of the "new Southern Republican Party".

When you look at the Republican leadership in the Arizona Legislature, you see it all over. Use education as a whipping boy, kiss the backsides of the Tea Party with a little sweetener for corporate and financial sponsors and otherwise pretend the reason jobs don't come to Arizona is because of all those awful regulations from the FEDs in Washington, D. C. that only Arizona has to comply.

You know comparing the Republican leadership in the last session of the Legislature with the "no-nothings", we can put them in the same box as Gov. Jindal on the issue of taking advantage of expanding Medicaid using the money available under the Affordable Care Act. (Obamacare, you know the one that has given health insurance coverage to 8 million Americans.) The miracle is some how Arizona was wise enough to join and Gov. Jindal was strong enough in Louisiana to make sure their citizens lost out.

No where here am I suggesting Republicans are guilty of flip-flops, being stupid, owned by special interests bound and determined to destroy Federal Regulations for clean air, clean water, keeping our food safe and forcing safe working conditions, not at all. Like grandpa said, if the shoe fits wear it. Democrats have their own problems with Independents, on the issues and values held most dear in the Democrat's platform and while the Independents agree time and time again, some how they end up voting for those Republicans who no longer want them around.

Go figure! Beat them up, they like it.

Quotes and information are being used from the news article as reported in news media across the state by: September 16, 2014 12:00 am • Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services