By Scott Tibbs, March 2, 2013
The Herald-Times wrote the following in an editorial yesterday regarding today's contested caucus for Monroe County Republican party chairman:
| As Monroe Republicans head into a leadership caucus this weekend, his own vice chairperson maintains there is a moderate/conservative schism among local party members |
I think Ms. Jeffries makes a bigger deal of the "split" than needs to be. And frankly, she increased the divisions in the local party by magnifying it to the paper. It was a very unwise thing to do.
Here's the political reality: You can have party unity or you can have a big tent. You cannot have both. You will never have both. Having a big tent means that you have people in the tent who disagree. And sometimes they will vigorously disagree.
There isn't a lot of daylight between Mr. Hogan and Mr. Hall ideologically, so the conservative/moderate split is not as severe as Ms. Jeffries believes.
The Herald-Times was just stirring the pot asking Mr. Hall about his views on social issues. The MCGOP chairman has virtually nothing to do with the two big social issues of the day, abortion and homosexual "marriage." Neither does local government, and the chairman will spend most of his time helping local candidates. You might as well as him his views on foreign policy.
No, the focus here is organization. Mr. Hall helped organize the most active group of volunteers I have seen in ten years. He focused on getting people to call their precincts, go door to door, etc. Thanks in part to his efforts, straight-ticket GOP voting increased dramatically over 2008.
Local Republicans supporting Mr. Hall believe he has the organizational skills to continue building the party's grassroots and activist base, and that's why they support him.
