Haney On The RINO Plank

James Reuben Haney (whose blog I discovered via comments in Brothers Judd) has some good, firsthand info from the Texas State GOP Convention. It's especially noteworthy that conservative zealots were defeated in their efforts to "purify" the GOP:

As for the work of the convention, some conservative activists are upset about RINO Republicans. They want to require a loyalty oath to the platform for anyone running in a Republican primary. Luckily, that idea was defeated. They also want to close the Republican primary. I like open primaries myself. They helped the Texas GOP to grow.

I can't help feeling that Texas conservatives are starting to act the way Texas liberals acted in the 1930s to the 1970s. Texas liberals thought, "Since Texas is a one-party state, if we control the Democratic primaries, we control Texas." Well, what happened when the liberals succeeded in capturing the Democratic primaries? Texas started electing Republicans to statewide office. A few history books I've read, written from a liberal perspective, treat that like it's some kind of irony.

I don't think that conservatives are as out-of-step with Texas as liberals were then, but I also don't think that we should be giving the Democrats an opening by telling 85 percent Republicans that they're not welcome in our party. (I might be one of those Republicans that don't meet with their approval.)

The State Chairwoman and every single County Chairperson has spoken out against these proposals. At the Rules Committee meetings, the County Chairs each testified, "Please, PLEASE don't do do this to us. Please don't destroy our ability to recruit candidates with these rules changes." But the conservative activists won't quit.

Now, RINOs like James Jeffords are one thing; there has not been a conservative principle in him for years, and most Republicans understand that and don't miss him. But as James points out, the Texas GOP will find itself in trouble if it decides to chase off people who don't meet a strict conservative religious and economic litmus test (on the former, they would probably chase me off).

Charles Kuffner (another newly discovered blogger) comments also.

[Posted at 20:52 CST on 06/11/02] [Link]