Goodbye Gary Bray. We only sort of knew ye.
Carla Axtman
The ax has apparently fallen on Gary Bray, the new Washington County GOP Chair. Following yesterday's missive about Democrats all being "communists" and something about "utopian enslavement", Mr. Bray has succumbed to pressure to step down from his post.
Bray said in an early Wednesday morning email resigning his post that it quickly became evident to him that the political position "has not been a good fit" for him and that he would instead focus on his wholesale lumber business.
Greg Leo, the chief of staff of the Oregon Republican Party, said Bray came under pressure to resign from local Republican legislators.
Bray's email, much like Rep. Shawn Lindsay's (R-Hillsboro) complaints that it's everyone else's fault that he lost, casts blame and makes no effort to look inward for a possible problem with what went down. Apparently, personal responsibility is only for the little people--or the non Rs. Or something. An excerpt:
So whoever forwarded that to Mapes you ended up getting zero since that is how much I have invested in this job. If it was a year from now and had invested a ton of time or people from the county had it would have been a much harder decision, this one is simple. I really don’t want a job where people fight and claw to hold onto whatever they have and will stab you in the back if they don’t like what you are doing. That is not the job I applied for and not the one I care to take. So I am turning everything over to Lea Williams to handle and the Executive Committee can move forward. I am resigning my Chairmanship and Area Chair and going to go back to the best job in the world.
So there you have it. It has nothing to do with Bray writing crazy BS that's completely out-of-touch with anything resembling reality. It's that someone forwarded it to Mapes. And that others wanted to claw and scratch him out of the way.
I wonder how far these guys think this lack of introspection will take them. Have the GOP become so entrenched in their own paranoid martyrdom fantasies that they really believe this has nothing to do with their own behavior?
We're missing you Senator Hatfield. Wish you were here, Tom McCall. We might not have agreed on everything, but at least you guys weren't all about the crazy.
 |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
1:21 p.m.
Dec 5, '12
Well I thought this would happen. It just was a lot faster than I thought.
3:42 p.m.
Dec 5, '12
As Mr Bray points out, we missed a rare chance to follow a deep-sea creature for a year, or until he sank on his own. These Rush geezers live at the bottom of cold, dark trenches and feed on sinking detritus. "The stoplight loosejaw emits red light invisible to both its prey and its predators, and probably acts like a torch to communicate with other stoplight loosejaws." Shucks.
4:48 p.m.
Dec 5, '12
For whatever it's worth, a previous Washington County chair banned their 2008 nominee for US Congress from attending Washington County Republican events during that general election because he was "too liberal".
8:45 a.m.
Dec 6, '12
What might be more telling is the departure of Republican state chair Allen Alley. Some hoped he had the stuff to moderate the post-Tea Party GOP but, as with McCain and others, the opposite occurred. To paraphrase Gail Collins' closing line yesterday, the threat to Republican viability in Oregon is entirely internal.
9:07 a.m.
Dec 6, '12
I suspect that Allen Alley resigned because he will run for Governor.
11:36 a.m.
Dec 6, '12
Allen Alley is "too librul" for this party. The Christian Taliban/John Birchers have firm control of the Republican Party for the duration. If the rational wing want to have a shot they need to form another party.
12:39 p.m.
Dec 6, '12
Have the GOP become so entrenched in their own paranoid martyrdom fantasies that they really believe this has nothing to do with their own behavior?
Yes. The GOP is fantasy-based at all levels on all issues.