Hello, again, my fellow Republicans
The columnist had been a Democrat the past decade. Given his lifelong record, it was probably time for a change again. And along came Nikki Haley.
JEFFERSON, Iowa – I’m baaaaaaaaack!
You may have read my column a week ago in which I endorsed Nikki Haley, the former two-term South Carolina governor and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, for president this year.
I wrote that it’s high time we elect a woman president in this country, and that the 51-year-old Haley is the right woman, right time, and right generation.
I endorse her in the campaign for the Republican Party nomination, which starts Monday night with the Iowa Caucuses.
Nikki Haley, arriving at a campaign event in Indianola on Jan. 6.
I plan to stick with her all the way to victory in November’s general election. With one caveat: In the unlikely event that 81-year-old President Joe Biden, a Democrat, should decide not to seek re-election, I reserve the right to vote for the Democratic nominee if that person is someone I favor.
Meantime, I have rejoined the Republican Party. I made a visit Thursday to the Greene County auditor’s office here in Jefferson, and changed my voter registration – again.
Let’s see. I was a Democrat through my younger years. I was never actively involved in Democratic politics then, except to vote. That was primarily because in my 26 years with the Des Moines Register, the newspaper rightly had an ethics code forbidding news employees being active participants or advocates in campaigns.
By 1999, things were changing. I had resigned from the Register. I was very concerned with the number of abortions in Iowa. And I was very inspired by the presidential campaign of Lamar Alexander, the two-term Republican governor of Tennessee. Both of us are graduates of Vanderbilt University, where each of us served as editor-in-chief of the Vanderbilt Hustler student newspaper.
I traveled the state with Alexander, and with the campaign’s state chairperson former Gov. Terry Branstad. Despite our best efforts, we got rolled by the bandwagon of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who went on to the presidency.
I continued being actively involved in the Greene County Republican Party for more than a decade, including serving on the county Central Committee and as a delegate to county, district and state conventions.
But in 2012, I stirred up a hornet’s nest when I endorsed the Congressional campaign of former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, a Democrat who’d been a good friend of mine for 30 years. She was challenging the Republican incumbent Rep. Steve King in northwest Iowa. The Greene County Republican leaders said I couldn’t do that without resigning from the Central Committee. I at first refused to resign, but calmed down and did resign early on the evening when they were going to vote me off the committee.
I spent that summer and fall traveling the district as a volunteer and speaker with the Vilsack campaign.
For the next two years, I was mostly registered as a “No Party” voter, except for a brief registration as a Libertarian – in solidarity with Greene County newcomer Thomas Laehn. He’d become a friend, was running for County Attorney, and was elected as a Libertarian.
By 2016, I was a Democrat again, and remained one until Thursday.
My anti-abortion view has made it uncomfortable for me sometimes in the Democratic Party.
But there are a couple of ideas I’ve embraced in politics that have served me very well over my six decades of participation. One is that I’m not, and never have been, a single-issue voter. Another is that the people with whom I disagree on political issues are not my enemies, they’re just my opponents – and there’s no reason we can’t be friends. Or even married.
My wife Mary Riche is a lifelong feminist and active Democrat activist, one who is strongly pro-choice on the abortion issue and has been a leader with Planned Parenthood and now with the physicians who founded Iowans for Health Liberty. She has a resume that includes years of work on issues seeking equality and equity for women. I fully support her doing all she does.
We’ve both got deep roots in politics. In fact, we met for the first time 50 years ago when she was press secretary for a Democrat running for governor and I was a young reporter for the Register spending a couple days covering that campaign. We’d been friends ever since, although we never had a romantic thought about each other until 18 months ago.
So, what does she think of my latest political switcheroo?
You’ll have to ask her. She tells me she will speak publicly, with lots to say about our differences on the issue of a woman’s individual freedom to make reproductive decisions and on the presidential contest if I remain a Republican. Until then, she has refused to speak publicly about our differences on choice and my decision to change parties, other than to respond to her friends, tongue in cheek, that “she went to bed with a Democrat last Saturday and woke up with a Republican on Sunday morning.”
What I really hope is that all Iowans are putting as much time, research and consideration into making their choices for president as I have.
I also hope that despite the miserable weather, there is a huge turnout for the Iowa Caucuses on Monday night, especially for the Republican caucuses where all the action is right now.
And please consider a vote for Nikki Haley. In my view, she’s been the most “presidential” of all the candidates we’ve seen in Iowa this cycle. I believe she’s the future.
In fact, I’ve been named the Haley campaign’s chairperson for Jefferson Precinct One, which is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. at the Greene County Elementary School. I’ve volunteered to speak in support of her candidacy.
There may be some of my fellow Republicans there who’ll look on me as the bastard showing up at the family reunion. But I’ll like ’em anyway.
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You can comment on this column below or write the columnist directly by email at chuck@offenburger.com.
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Chuck,
I was tempted to write a blog entitled “Contra Chuck Redux.” But I'll refrain (and who likes to read Latin anyway?). I'll make a few points here instead:
1. As a tactic to derail Trump, I'd be happy to see all Iowans--even Dems--go caucus for Haley. The first priority is to defend American democracy, the rule of law, avoid war; and to promote virtue (more on this last item in a bit). We support all of these aspirations and values by opposing Trump.
2. There is a Republican Party in name only; there's been an invasion of body snatchers that are best labeled MAGA. By registering as a Republican now, you're identifying with a cult, a new ersatz religion. Religion and politics don't mix. (Faith and politics can & should mix, but that's for another time.)
3. The viral infection that has snatched the body of the Republican Party won't disappear even if its primary vector--Defendant Trump--loses or is barred from the upcoming elections. The whole edifice--the current Republican Party--needs to be torched (metaphorically speaking). That will only occur if enough folks simply refuse to support or vote for candidates who don't reject Trump & all his works.
4. Haley has refused the call to reject Trump and all his evil works.
5. As Chris Christie said on his way out the door, she's not up to it. She wants to gain the nomination and then claim she's different from Trump (and imply that she can tame his voters and acolytes). If you intend to take down the king, you have to slay him (metaphorically speaking). She refuses to pick up the sword. How will she then rule?
7. On virtue: as you know, I've been reading my way through THE FEDERALIST PAPERS and some related secondary literature. The Founders built this republic with the understanding that virtue, public virtue, must serve as a cornerstone. Their confidence in virtue--including opposition to “faction” & “party”--quickly proved untenable. Most people, even the best among us, can not always act purely out of public-spirited virtue. But that being acknowledged, we can't survive as a representative democracy (republic) without some modicum of public virtue in our political leaders and citizens. Trump is the antithesis of virtue. He has no character (or is it a “bad character,” I'm not sure which way to go with that, but you get the idea). And because of the prevalence of so much lack of character or bad character abroad within the MAGA movement, to clean house we need a truly virtuous person to stand up and stand out. Of course, courage entails risk--ask Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney and the other Republicans who refused to kiss the ring. We've every reason to believe that Haley will not speak truth to power. We require a new profile in courage.
6. I commend to you this insightful article by Mark Leibovich in THE ATLANTIC (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/01/nikki-haley-2024-campaign-primary-trump/677084/) that takes a close look at Haley.
So, I hope that Haley wins in Iowa, gains the nomination, and then loses the election. American politics more usually presents us with a series of binary choices, about which we sometimes feel too constrained, abut in this election, I see easy choices.
All the best,
Steve
Hi Chuck. I think you missed the target on this one my friend!
Numerous points could be made. I'll limit them to two:
1. I'm just finishing reading Liz Cheney's book "Oath and Honor." It is an eye-opener about the state of the current Republican party, its blind obedience to Donald Trump and its total buy-in to the lies of Trump and the beliefs of his millions of supporters about the 2020 election results, the lead-up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the events that followed -- including the Senate and House Republican "leaders" monumental flip-flopping on Trump's responsibility and his future role in the party. The RNC is nothing more than an echo-chamber for Trump's views and policies; the leadership of the House and Senate remain under his spell.
2. A recent CBS News poll showed that 82% of Republicans agree with the statement that immigrants who enter the country illegally are "poisoning the blood" of America; that they are ruining this nation. I cannot believe, with the important and visible work you are helping to lead in Greene County, that you would endorse the statement, or the party that believes it.
I can understand why a vote for Haley might seem reasonable when simply put in the light of Haley vs. Trump or DeSantis. But a "vote" in support of today's Republican party seems very far off base.
Today's Republican party is not the party of Bob Ray, Art Neu, Joy Corning, Jim Leach, Ronald Reagan or George Bush. It is a party that believes women can't be trusted to make wise decisions about their health, bodies and lives; that the answer to gun violence is more guns, that climate change is not a big deal, that parents shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about what books their child should read, that teachers and administrators don't possess the expertise to develop curriculum, that state government knows better than city councils and school boards about what's good for communities, that the rights of LGBTQ individuals must be limited, that journalist's access to statehouse deliberations should be restricted, that tax dollars should be used to support students in private schools, that separation of church and state is a concept to be seriously questioned, and the list goes on and on.
Chuck, I too have reservations about the Democratic party. But as Joe Biden says about his candidacy, "Don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative." When I compare what Republicans stand for and what Democrats stand for, the choice is obvious. I stand with Democrats; I hope that you will once again do so.