http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...d-co-founder-gives-up-leaves-Republican-Party GOProud co-founder gives up, leaves Republican Party And the last horse crosses the finish line: GOProud co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia has announced that he will be leaving the Republican Party. I just came to the realization that the Republican Party doesnt represent my principles and values, LaSalvia told POLITICO. Im a small government conservative and theyre for big government. Theyre happy to have big government as long as theyre in charge. More importantly, I dont tolerate bigotry of any kind, whether its anti-gay bigotry, anti-Muslim bigotry. And they do and thats just not OK with me. That may be the slowest damn realization in the history of people having realizations. I don't mean to pick on the poor guy, but this is a man who has spent five years with his hand on an oven burner suddenly phoning up a reporter and saying "You know what? Fire hot." Surely there has to be more to it than that, and LaSalvia has a long list of recent well-known examples, though I think he still misdiagnoses the problem: I was astonished when Ken Cuccinelli was embraced as an acceptable candidate. To me, his views about gay Americans or Americans who are different from him are simply unacceptable in this day and age. I was astonished to see the party embrace him as their nominee. I likened it at the time to David Duke running in the early 90s. Thats not acceptable now. The fact that that doesnt register with them is disturbing to me. [...] The whole culture of the party is just not what I had always worked for, and I think though that the fact that they are so out of touch culturally is the biggest issue for me. Thats something that cant be dealt with with policy changes or messaging changes. Thats about who they are. To me, that is the biggest issue, that the leadership in the party is so out of touch culturally that I dont think theres any hope for them. True enough, but the worse interpretation is that the leadership in the party is in fact precisely "in touch" with the culture of the party; Ken Cuccinelli did not rise to fame in a vacuum, and Mitt Romney did not distance himself from GOProud because Mitt Romney does not like gay people, but because Mitt Romney felt he could not gain the support of the Republican base if they saw him treating gay Americans with respect. The party leaders are subservient to the base, and it's the base that demands bigotry. The business wing of the party doesn't give a damn whether the party is bigoted or not, so long as the tax breaks keep coming. Give LaSalvia credit, though, he's certainly blunt. I think theres a cultural problem within the Republican Party thats beyond fixing. [...] I dont think they can win a national election again. Pull the plug on the patient, the partys brain dead. The party of hate and bigotry loses a valuable ally because of its intolerance.
The Homophobes keep claiming there is just a "tiny percentage" of the country that is gay.... yet there seem to be enough in the Republican Party to form a caucus or two.
Fine....smaller percentages than that have cost Parties elections.....keep up the good work, Republicans. You too, sec.
What they refuse to understand is that we have friends and relatives. And they vote too. But yes, agreed- keep up the good work GOP.
The question then becomes, since Republicans claim to be Christian and tolerant (while accusing everyone else of intolerance) why don't more people use the same reasoning as the person above and quit the party? We have had many threads here on PF in which right wingers continually accuse libs/moderates of being intolerant and prejudiced against all else. But when their own hypocrisy in such matters is proven to them, the right wingers clam up. It is time for these right wingers to own up to their faults, to repent of their misdeeds, and to practice - not merely preach - tolerance and open mindedness.
You mean how leftwingers HOWLED that the Obama presidency would be transparent and truthful? Then when it turned out to be the exact opposite of either quality they hypocritically not only turned a blind eye to as much of that as possible but even went so far as to make excuses for Obama's massive LACK of transparency and all those countless lies that he deliberately told this nation? Niiiiiiiiice! Pot--kettle-sooty.
The GOP seems to be happily driving membership away, which I cannot see as a viable means of survival. The loss of this single member is of little importance (though the reasons have relevance), it would seem the republican party has taken the Bush Doctrine a bit to seriously and completely out of context. When Bush said "yer either with us or Agin us", he was speaking to nation states about terrorism. Todays GOP is speaking to the American people, and does not have a message that inspires them....particularly those of us who remember the "Grand 'ol Party", women, minorities, young folks, poor people, the middle class.....or anyone previously considered American.
It's not just a problem with gays. The GOP seems to have a message problem. "We are the ones who have greater support for Israel. Why do Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat?" "We have many prominent women in the GOP. Why do more women vote Democrat?" "We just want minorities to be self-reliant. Why do they overwhelmingly vote Democrat?" Instead of doing some soul-searching, and revising their message, the "party of personal responsibility" blames everybody but themselves.
