Gop

Dear Editor, I send my warm thanks to Rebecca Patterson, president of the Mercer County Republican Women’s Club, for her letter in The Advocate-Messenger reminding us of the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution giving American women the vote. We take too much for granted in that hard fight by women in the 19th and early 20th centuries to gain equality as citizens. And she is right to remind us of the role of Republicans in that achievement.

Dear Editor, Isn't it amazing that he has been gone so long. It was quiet, yet not peaceful, since Mr. Bowman made his last comments. In his letter to the editor he wrote that the GOP should shut up and step aside. Where was he when President Bush was running the country? He had the freedom to share what he felt. So why should the GOP step aside and be silent while his president of choice runs the United States further in debt. In the past 100 days I have only seen one thing positive from the president.

Dear Editor, During the '70s and '80s, Sam Francis, a columnist for the Washington Times, wrote articles in which he referred to the Republican party as the "Stupid Party. " Tuesday, they proved him right. The Republican leadership, under President Bush, has forgotten why they were sent to Washington. Bush tried to reach out as a "compassionate" conservative to the Democrats in Congress. They knifed him in the back and will continue to go after his blood until he is removed from office by impeachment or term expiration.

By Lisa King lking@jessaminejournal.com Secretary of State There were no republican candidates in the race for secretary of state, so Bruce Hendrikson will face Republican incumbent Trey Greyson in the fall. Attorney General In the attorney general's race, Republican Stan Lee came out on top, earning him the right to face Democrat Jack Conway in the fall. In Jessamine County, Lee bested his opponents, with 68 percent of the vote, as Conway did as well, with 73 percent of the vote.

Tom McClain was like a tiny red state in a sea of blue. He was the lone Republican in an all-Democrat family in a suburb of heavily Democratic Pittsburgh. He was one a handful of Republicans in a county where the GOP was outnumbered nearly 4-to-1 by Democrats. He reached adulthood at a time when Democrats ran the White House and Congress. "It was pretty lonely for me," said McClain, a Danville businessman who is chairman of the Boyle County Republican Party. "I needed all the inspiration and motivation I could get. " He got that and more one night in 1978.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. " - Abraham Lincoln Republicans, are you listening to your first president? More so in Frankfort than in Washington, it seemed the second week of February. Both capitals had to deal with the deepening recession, Congress by printing money to stimulate the economy, the General Assembly by raising taxes and cutting spending to avoid a deficit in the budget year that ends June 30. The situation is nowhere near as dire as the one Lincoln faced, but a storm is surely present.

Dear Editor, There are some people, mostly ultra right-wingers, who will never be able to bring themselves to give President Obama any credit under any circumstance - not even if he found a cure for cancer. That's just the way it is. Those people have a political philosophy of labels; Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal. There are good and bad in both. In these most difficult of times in the history of our nation, labels should not play too large a role. I will support Obama on some issues.

Dear Editor, Well, the Stupid Party - uh, GOP - has succeeded in uniting the country to an extent that we now have the Democrats/liberals in control of the federal bureaucracy. Now we have to endure stories from McCain campaign staffers that the loss was Sarah Palin's fault. Where is John McCain? He lauded her so much after naming her as his running mate, and now they're trying to shift blame from themselves. The Republican Party must get rid of the RNC chair and all the members if it is to reconstruct itself.

Dear Editor, In his column published Sept. 14, in The Advocate-Messenger, Dr. Martin, among other things, accuses Democrats of exploiting the term "treason" and of questioning the patriotism of those who disagree with them. While reading his piece, thoughts like "fact checking" and "reality" kept popping up. While the GOP surely didn't invent the words "treason" or "patriotism," they certainly perfected the craft of using those words as weapons to wage war against political opponents.

Republican Mitt Romney carried Jessamine County in the GOP primary election as he captured 1,222 votes. Fellow Republican Ron Paul followed with 307 votes, followed by Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich with 254 and 104, respectively. In the U.S. House District 6 primary, Andy Barr garnered 1,005 votes, easily outdistancing his opponents Patrick Kelly (107 votes) and Curtis Kenimer (57). President Barack Obama was unopposed in the Democratic primary, but “uncommitted” finished with a higher vote count, 644-580.

I spent most of Martin Luther King Jr. Day watching the inauguration ceremonies. When I look at our president, I see a superbly educated, intelligent and capable man who inherited an economy that was in ruins, an auto industry that was near bankruptcy, and two wars being fought on a credit card. On the night of his inauguration in 2009, the leaders of the Republican Party met in secret to plot their strategy, which was not to cooperate with the president in any way on any issue.

A new political star was born during Tuesday's elections in central Kentucky. His name is Heath Lovell. Heath Lovell wasn't on any ballot but he played a big role in Republican Andy Barr's defeat of Democratic 6th District U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler. Heath Lovell is Kentucky's version of Joe the Plumber, but Heath provided a lot more help to Barr, who won his race, than Joe was able to give 2008 Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain, who lost his. You know Heath.

Ralph Alvarado was watching election coverage in January when he started thinking about the possibility of attending the Republican National Convention. As a former candidate for state Senate and an active member of the local Republican party, Alvarado thought he might have a chance at being selected as a delegate, so he contacted the state party chairman and received more information about the selection process. “I was hesitant (to apply) at first,” Alvarado said, because of the time involved in the application process, and attending the convention.

Now that Mitt Romney has made Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan his running mate voters and politicos finally have something to sink their teeth into in the lead up to the Oct. 11 vice presidential debate at Centre College.  Local and state Republican leaders seemed well pleased by Romney's Saturday morning surprise. Kentucky Republican Chairman Steve Robertson said Ryan was a fiscal hawk who would appeal to Kentucky voters tired of out-of-control spending at every level of government.

Republican Mitt Romney carried Jessamine County in the GOP primary election as he captured 1,222 votes. Fellow Republican Ron Paul followed with 307 votes, followed by Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich with 254 and 104, respectively. In the U.S. House District 6 primary, Andy Barr garnered 1,005 votes, easily outdistancing his opponents Patrick Kelly (107 votes) and Curtis Kenimer (57). President Barack Obama was unopposed in the Democratic primary, but “uncommitted” finished with a higher vote count, 644-580.

Monday evening, the Lincoln County Republicans elected a new slate of county officers and chose Stanford resident and long-time party activist CandIce Franklin as the county chairwoman. Franklin, replaces Crab Orchard's Jerry Shelton who contested the seat. Franklin, who has worked on the campaigns of Ag Secretary James Comer, US Senator Rand Paul, State Rep. Jared Carpenter and US Congress hopeful Andy Barr, said that she had a lot of encouragement from her fellow party members to take the helm  in Lincoln County.

Bob Mayfield, the Clark County Republican party chairman and a state GOP executive committee member, had some strong words about the state's newly-created legislative districts: “It's a good practice gone bad.” “Everyone is at a disadvantage here,” Mayfield said. Thursday, state Reps. Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown; Kim King, R-Harrodsburg; and Joseph Fischer, R-Fort Thomas; and citizens Frey Todd and Anthony Gaydos filed suit in Franklin Circuit Court to seek an injunction that would postpone Tuesday's House filing deadline and declare the current district map unconstitutional.

One can be excused wondering if the national Republican Party is deliberately attempting to commit political seppuku by fielding the slate of potential presidential candidates currently making the rounds prior to the (ridiculously) early primary elections. Even with the departure of Herman Cain, who apparently felt that the accumulating accusations of sexual harassment would cease with his leaving the political brouhaha, the remaining contenders for the Republican nomination constitute a remarkable list of individuals who carry a huge amount of “baggage” into the public arena.

In a brief and final campaign speech in Winchester Wednesday, Republican gubernatorial candidate David Williams focused mostly on questioning Gov. Steve Beshear's commitment to Christianity. Speaking to about two dozen people at the Dairy Queen on Main Street, Williams touted his campaign's pro-life stance, and he defended his recent and controversial criticisms of Beshear for participating in a Hindu ceremony. Last week, the incumbent governor participated in a Hindu ground blessing with officials of Flex Films, a company from India that Beshear recruited last fall.

According to various political polls over several months, Republicans were uniting behind one presidential candidate: “Anybody But Obama!” One by one, the various frontrunner aspirants to the GOP nomination at the top of the polls were quickly bashed by pundits and the other candidates - like a piñata at a Mexican birthday party - and they consequently fell in the polls. Take, for example, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. Early on, she was the darling of the Tea Party and a shoo-in for at least a place on the ticket as successor to Sarah Palin.