Me, Join the Republican Party?????
There is a valid strategy floating around suggesting that serious, uncompromising pro-lifers switch their voter affiliation to the Republican Party. As a Right to Life Party member who was recently transferred to the Independent ranks against my will, I have thought of doing this myself. As you might know, last summer in spite of a Herculean effort by Westchester pro-life workers, we failed to get enough signatures on a statewide basis in the Gubernatorial election (which occurs once every four years) to keep our party automatically on the ballot, hence we failed to keep our 40,000 people registered as members of The Right to Life Party of NYS. However, we did keep our Right to Life Party on the local ballot because of our own local petition efforts.
So County election officials in the 62 counties throughout the State have sent cards to our voters automatically changing their registration to Independent, which is a non-party affiliation status. This is not to be confused with the cynical Independence Party (the Galisano and Perot party, standing for nothing of substance).
Let’s get back to the title at hand. Many currently see State and local Republican parties as corrupt, leaderless, valueless, visionless, prone to nepotism and ripe for takeovers as their patronage and influence disappear into political oblivion with the selfish turncoat, pro-abortionist George Pataki. If not takeover, perhaps they can be steered in a pro-life direction if we guide them or work within them. First remember, as a member of a party or not, you have the power to influence the outcome of an election and get your message across. Think about it! You have the power to speak in public forums; you have the right to carry political petitions; and, you have the freedom to pamphleteer.
Well what about this Republican idea? Remember, this political party is founded on pro-life principles, churchgoers, and people who believe in the right to bear arms. Take these constituencies away from them and Republicans lose! That’s how we helped sink Nick Spano, the State’s third most powerful Republican legislator. We helped to take away his base, we encouraged the base to write in our candidate, and equally effective, we suggested that they stop voting (for candidates) in the middle of the ballot line.
Your transition to Republican need not be permanent and certainly does not mean you will be inactive. To the contrary, we are working as you read and we are working as hard as ever to give people a pro-lifer to vote for, and to show people how to always have a pro-lifer to vote for; it’s called a write-in and it can be organized or informal. Our second goal is to vigorously influence the political process in our area by any and every means at our disposal.
Is switching to the Republican Party a bad idea? No, it is a good idea for politically savvy, unsentimental, hardcore pro-life voters willing to switch out at any time; generous citizens who are not swayed by unimportant, or much less important, issues regardless of their cultural and social sympathies. Tough people who are more or less immune to the acknowledged attractiveness, practiced charm, cultured smoothness and saccharine lies of politicos can handle such a switch, and I recommend it to them.
But be fleet of foot and nimble of pen and keep your re-registration card handy. Just like politicians will always elbow their way to the head of someone else’s parade and then claim credit for organizing it, as soon as you create something good, the wrong people will start to show up and takeover. It seems to me a pro-lifer should be slow to give their word, be judicious with their political commitments and their political promises because, by definition, this is a bad neighborhood.
So, do it if you must and we wish you success and we will help you, but don’t do it just to vote in a Presidential political primary. That’s ridiculous! You can work for any candidate in any primary or any general election regardless of how you are personally registered, and you are savvy enough to figure out how to do that.
If you are going to be a pro-life Republican for awhile, CHANGE NOW or you’ll miss all the
election and registration deadlines. Any questions, call your County Board of Elections.
* Question: “How do you feel about the Democratic Party?”
I wish all pro-life Democrats “Godspeed”. They have an almost impossible task. The Democratic Party is the party associated with Slavery, the party of Abortion, the Party of Moral Decadence, and the party of big city Political Corruption. Everyone registered in any party has the moral obligation to work to change that party to good. If not, you have lent your name to a morally scandalous institution and its representatives, and have sinfully done nothing to change its course.
Edmund P. Riely Jr., Pro-Life Organizer 26 June 2007
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