George Rebane
Last Wednesday (18aug10) I stood next to my pal Russ Steele when he lit into Meg’s second string field representatives for her refusal to support Proposition 23. I thought that Russ was appropriately steamed by the ‘pre-natal RINO’ behavior Whitman was communicating across California. I had taken her to task on this in my 14aug10 Union column (here).
But then, like a dummy, I put my hand up to ask the team what information about California jobs and AB32’s effect on same did Whitman still need in order to throw her weight behind Prop23 to suspend AB32. I didn’t have a chance, Russ’s incisive indictment had loosened whatever inhibitions might have been in place at that celebratory opening of the Republican campaign headquarters.
The follow-on questions and criticisms from the audience came unprompted, hot, and heavy. After about a minute I quietly lowered my hand, hoping nobody had noticed such a silly attempt at wanting to be heard in that crowd. More on the occasion was reported here and here.
The takeaway from the gathering left me pondering about Meg Whitman, the launch of her new career in politics, and what should be my response as a conservative voter with libertarian leanings. The message to all of her conservative voters is clear – we are in the bag, and now it’s time to go scoop as many people as possible from the ‘decline to state’ and the left. After all, what rightwinger in their right mind would abstain or vote for Governor Moonbeam? Get serious.
Well, I am serious. To me and many others, she has chosen to walk the well-worn path of political expediency – ‘just get me elected, and then trust me to do the right thing for you.’ The problem with that is that that’s the problem. The halls of the electeds are full of yokels who were put there by us through exactly that kind of argument. And now we are where we are.
Like so many across the land, I joined the Tea Party Patriots because I believe in a different approach to politics that starts and ends with principle. And like so many, I admit to having trampled my beliefs by voting for candidates I knew to belong only to the ‘me first’ party. How long must we; no, how long must I continue doing this? Is this behavior not a form of insanity, doing the same thing and expecting different results?
Perhaps California needs to crash, and crash hard before we and the rest of the country wake up to the siren song of socialism. And Governor Moonbeam is just the man at the helm to drive us into the mud about as quickly as anyone. It may now be the time.
Having said all this, I invite Meg Whitman to bring her considerable talents back into the same circle of principle from which she launched her campaign. I want her to show the world that she understands the condition of polity in today’s America, and will again stand loud and strong for the prescriptions that we believe will make the country better, the prescriptions that we all thought she believed in.
To put a bow on it, I don’t like being in the bag any more.
rebanesruminations.com 
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