The last time I looked, the ORP platform was over 20 pages long, with huge amounts of redundancy...especially when it comes to opposing abortion and equal rights for gays.

It's especially disturbing when you compare it to the platforms of every other party in the state. Everyone else seems to be able to sum it up in two pages, just not the ORP.

But it's also been my experience that, especially now, the ORP is extremely useless in every way. That, and the platform, won't change without new leadership. But it's still run by cronies of Kevin Mannix, who is about the worst thing to ever happen to the ORP...not to mention being a total slimeball...

True story:

During the 2004 election, the Republicans had an office in Prineville/Crook County at the downtown intersection of Third (Hwy 26) and Main. They sold/gave away signs and bumper stickers from this location.

One day in October, one of our local Democrats was shopping in a clothing store two doors south on Main Street. A woman came rushing into the store asking to use the phone to call the police. What was the problem? Someone was parked in front of the Republican office with a DEMOCRATIC bumper sticker. They should be arrested! The store owner declined to allow his phone to be used.

So, word spread fast through the Democratic Central Committee in Crook Co. that we were being seen as criminals. Next to the clothing store is a little restaurant that serves lunch. We decided to all eat lunch there one day, and put full size Kerry signs in our vehicle windows where we parked - in every available parking spot near the corner of Third and Main.

About 8 of us gathered for lunch, not bad for a quick little demonstration. As we headed into the door of the restaurant, a woman came rushing out to us complaining that we were taking the parking places of "real customers". We replied that we were "real", and were on our way to lunch. She then launched into a verbal tirade about how people supporting Kerry, and in fact Kerry, were mentally deranged.

We ate lunch, and no other incidents took place.

So - am I surprised that such language is/was in the Republican Platform? NO. Do I believe that at least some elements of the Republican Party see us as being criminal? YES.

Actually, in Crook Co. we played this as "funny" - but it really isn't. People are literally afraid here to openly proclaim themselves to be Democrats. I would not be surprised to learn that in some jurisdictions, people were investigated in part because they were Democrats. During that same 2004 campaign, an incident of physical harrassment was not prosecuted in Umatilla County as it was a Republican physically harrassing a Democrat (Ben Talley).

Really, this stuff isn't funny - its real.

I was a delegate from a rural county to the Oregon GOP Convention in 2006, and remember emphatically being against the renewal of that ridiculously insulting piece of the platform. If I recall correctly, that garbage was reported from the Caucus (which handled the meat of the plank), but that specific part was struck from the final platform by a vote of the entire convention. I have to go on what I best can recall, since the ORP refuses to issue an official account (even to delegates and state central committee members) of what happened at the convention.

That was just one of several areas where the Oregon Republican Platform could use some revision, and maybe a little brevity.

-Strictly Anonymous

Platforms are important, right now, to Third Parties only.

The major parties platforms should say:

1. Win
2. Stay in power.

Bob Tiernan

We've been having a great time with this item over at The General's for some time now: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2007/11/ein-volk-ein-reich-ein-partei.html

On Monday I received an email with a link to the GOP website that pointed me toward that little nugget. Monday morning, it was still up on their site. Further, it did not include the words "We propose". I cut/pasted the platform plank to a Repubiclan friend of mine. Here's the unedited plank as it appeared Monday:

7.5 Inter-jurisdictional agency cooperation shall be improved for more effective joint action against organized crime, drug cartels, terrorist networks and the Oregon Democratic Party.

It's interesting that the Republicans scrubbed it between Monday and today. I also wonder whether their by-laws allow them to change the platform without a platform meeting or convention.

Strictly Anonymous, thank you for sharing your personal experience with this language. It's important for us all to remember that just because some Republicans (and Democrats too) find it appropriate to dehumanize people they disagree with, they are not representative of the entire party. Sometimes I think troublesome little facts like that slip under the rug.

<h2>"So your core beliefs are that Democrats are akin to terrorists and drug pushers, or is that sarcasm?"</h2>

If you have to ask, you probably wouldn't get it anyway.

<h2>"Sometimes I think troublesome little facts like that slip under the rug."</h2>

Not all that's published are 'facts'. Maybe some staffer wanted to be snarky/sarcastic and forgot that he put that in the draft.

Or maybe it was StricklyAnon, a Democrat plant inside the Republican machine. A Demo Karl Rove?

What chills me isn't just the fact that they don't like us... it's the part about "agency cooperation."

In other states, I have seen my canvassers arrested on no charges ("interrogated" and then released), had local police sitting outside our campaign office passing out tickets with impunity, been personally harassed by the deputies (again, no specific charges were mentioned... just agressive questioning). On election day, police officers sat out at all our key polling places and questioned voters. The message was that if they had made a mistake on their registration card and tried to vote anyway, they'd be arrested. (I still have the actual letter they sent out!) All this was in Ohio '04.

Crazy ladies yelling about a bumper sticker is one thing. The police doing it is another thing altogether.

So Steve is right... this stuff isn't funny. And I thank my lucky stars that I work in Oregon.

Oops. My bad. I thought the brackets were part of the original.

lestatdelc:

From the keyboard of Bob "Former GOP State Representative" Tiernan...

Kari Chisholm:

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Bob Tiernan who is a former GOP state rep from Lake Oswego has never commented at BlueOregon (to my knowledge, over his own name.)

The Bob Tiernan who regularly comments here is the libertarian activist from Gresham.

Bob T:

Kari, I know you'll always be here to set this straight when I fail to follow up on a message. Anyway, for the record I live in NE Portland now, a stone's throw from Gresham.

Interesting what Lestadelc snipped out of my brief message -- the part that made the two major parties look bad -- so that it looked like I was making a snide remark about third parties.

Right now being a small "L" libertarian while registered non-affiliated sounds better all the time.

Bob Tiernan

Bob Tiernan:

Interesting what Lestadelc snipped out of my brief message -- the part that made the two major parties look bad -- so that it looked like I was making a snide remark about third parties.

Lestadelc:

Well given that I incorrectly believed you were the Bob Tiernan who was the GOP Rep. from Lake Oswego, in that context it would have been a snide (if not hypocritical) statement from the GOP Rep. Bob Tiernan. But seeing as you are apparently not said partisan person, the point is moot.

Bob Tiernan:

Even considering your opinion of the other Bob Tiernan, it would have been revealing had he made such a statement about his own power (winning, and staying in power are what matters) yet you snipped it anyway.

That still says a lot about you.

Bob Tiernan