By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: My New Year’s resolution is to no longer feel sorry for my many moderate Republican business friends. They deserve Trump, the Tea Baggers, mega corps running roughshod and government intrusion in their wives’ vaginas.
The former president of a small, private college, in a sleepy town where I was Mayor for a term, literally accosted me seven or eight years ago. A self-pronounced moderate Republican, speaking of the right wingers, he complained “these people are stealing my Party!”
Another moderate, Republican friend, a Lebanese second-generation who built a baking business into an American icon, invited me to lunch a few weeks ago to ask just one question. “How much longer will I have to put up with this Trump stuff before we can get things back to normal?” He had refused to vote for John McCain in 2008 because the GOP nominee had picked Sarah Palin to be one heartbeat away from being the most powerful job on the planet.
I could not assure either friend better days of a distinctly more moderate Republican Party were in the near future. Donald Trump is not the cause of turmoil within the Republican Party but rather the result of years ignoring betterment of the country in deference to 24/7 attacking Barack Obama.
My friends allowed their Republican Party to be recast by Tea Baggers into a religious leeway, plundered by multi-national businesses. A large segment of the Republican Party is fed up with mega corps moving jobs offshore, tax breaks for the very rich and a government that continues to coddle other nations at the detriment of its own citizens.
These voters believe the shotgun marriage between multi-national businesses and Bible-thumpers has only benefited one side. Trump assures them he can changed that.
The moderate wing of the GOP, currently too quiet for its size, finds comfort in the likes of Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Chris Christie or even Scott Walker because each has government administrative experience. Trump, of course, is in a class by himself. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio will remind too many voters of the last time we elected a freshman senator with no administration experience.
We practice what we preach.
My primary purpose is to keep my Party from getting too comfortable on the left. Centrists are more likely to make compromises than wingnuts of either extreme.
Currently, I wage war against the national Democratic campaign committees. I not only reject solicitations, but I encourage others to withhold their donations.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer uses the power of purse and influence of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to promote Katie McGinty as the Dem nominee for U.S. Senator in PA this year. He and others like him refuse to wait to see which candidate PA voters will select in our primary April 16. Apparently Schumer thinks we are dumber than NY Dems.
Democrats both nationally and statewide hope to unseat Sen. Pat Toomey who is completing his first six-year term. For some in Western PA, McGinty is too liberal. Retired Admiral Joe Sestak lost a close election in 2010 and has been campaigning for a second shot in 2016 ever since. Top National Dems claim he is not a “team” player. Translation: he not only refuses to kiss rears, he is not far enough left.
Bottom Line: All PA Democrats should exercise their free choice. Those of us who support centrist Democrat candidates willing to work with the other side and get this country moving again should be counted.
My Republican friends should be doing the same to minimize extremists in their Party.
