she was a radical shift to the right compared to her opponents!

When she first ran for office I figured she had no chance whatsoever to win. Her first opponent for the senate seat was the opponent to whom she had lost the gubernatorial election, Joe Brennan. Governor Brennan was not a flaming liberal but he was decidedly to the left of her political philosophy. Her subsequent opponents can be described as flaming liberals!!

Our current District 1 Representative, Chellie Pingree (D-ME1), may not be as far left as The One™ but she can see it “up close and personal”. Her methods may not reflect “The Chicago Way” but her progressive/socialist views aren’t much different. Representative Pingree, is the former president and CEO of “Common Cause” so I don;t think I have to elaborate on her political philosophy.

Her other opponent, former District 1 Representative Tom Allen, is pretty much cut from the same cloth. Had Senator Collins not had the popularity/name recognition that she had Mr. Allen would now be, in all probability, our current Senator.

Mr. Allen’s political philosophy can be readily assessed by checking his voting record in the House of Representatives. There is no ‘reaching across the aisle’ there!

I encourage all to read the link to the party platform. It is a very good short document.

The immigration language should be spelled out more clearly. The language is both too strong and too weak on immigration. It is too strong in that it needs to make very clear that we welcome legal immigration and we will make legal immigration easier. It is too weak in that it should do away with birth right citizenship. For those who mistakenly believe that this is in the Constitution, read the following (from Wikipedia):

During discussion of whether to pass the 14th Amendment, there was great debate over granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States. The author of the 14th Amendment, Senator Jacob M. Howard, stated, in reference to the Amendment, “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the family of ambassadors, or foreign ministers accredited to the the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”[2]

In 1873, The United States Attorney General ruled the word “jurisdiction” under the 14th Amendment meant,

The word “jurisdiction” must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment..Aliens, among whom are persons born here and naturalized abroad, dwelling or being in this country, are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States only to a limited extent. Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to them.

the yawp and the Maine GOP?

I was involved in the Aroostook County Republican Committee last year. I was a town chair for the bustling metropolis of Haynesville. (My wife was the co-chair. I don’t think anyone else in Haynesville was even aware of this.)

I can tell you that this “new” platform didn’t spring up overnight. A lot of the stuff in it was introduced at the 2008 State Convention, but pretty much all of it was voted down.

When I first started attending committee meetings, The Aroostook County Republican Committee was dominated by political insiders who went along with whatever senators Collins and Snowe wanted. However, a small but growing group of conservative activists (The first I ever heard of a Tea Party was announced at one of these committee meetings) began to offer very conservative resolutions. We passed resolutions condemning Collins and Snowe for their votes on TARP and the Stimulus Package. We passed resolutions against gay marriage, school consolidation, and a bunch of other stuff. By the time I stopped going to those meetings, the Tea Party people had overtaken the moderates and were on the verge of running the show.

I think a lot of the discontent probably started at the county level. The State Committee passed a rule barring county committees from submitting resolutions to the state committee. It’s possible that a lot of the county reps felt that their concerns weren’t be addressed at the state level. I know there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the job that the State chairman, Charlie Webster was doing. A lot of people believed that he was too willing to compromise conservative principles in order to raise money.

Speaking for myself, I stopped attending the meetings because the two hour drive to Presque Isle wasn’t worth all the useless bickering that tended to eat up most of the meeting time.

There’s precious little in it about actual MAINE issues. It’s a PAUL!-tard laundry list for the national level only. To quote Matthew Gagnon of PinetreePolitics.com

“Where is MAINE in the Maine Republican Party’s new platform? If I am an independent voter in the state considering a registration change to the GOP or maybe just voting for the party’s slate of candidates, what in this document would inspire me to do so?

I find it ironic that a party and a movement that is so (rightly) obsessed with the power of the state and local authorities over the Federal, would so willfully write and approve a document that contains virtually nothing but Federally charged language.”

Once you moderate the GOP, then it becomes nearly the Democratic Party, except you get less stuff for yourself. In order to be a truly different option we need to be the party that elects people who are there to decrease their own influence, not increase it. This is something new to current politics, but completely in line with the Founders and the Constitution. This must be our approach in all states and counties, else we fall to the inevitable collapse of the nation due to the entitlement math.

Moderating a failed approach is no victory, except for those who are self-serving.