GOP needs to step up to plate

Carol Marin wrote this column to discuss the issues within the Illinois GOP. Many have compared their disarray to the Democrats. Although I can point to a few minor differences. First off the Democrats seemed to be dominated by the far left right now and if there is a battle it's between the far left and the more moderate Democrats. So that is the same straight that the Illinois GOP is in. The conservative want to be more active in the party but there are the more moderate (or that could be interpreted as liberal) who wants to maintain their own control of the party.

Let me explain this further. The more moderate or liberal wing of the IL GOP have been dominant since James Thompson. This wing of the party withdrew its support for it's nominee, Jack Ryan and selected Alan Keyes as it's standard bearer and they quickly backed away from him. This wing of the party also includes George Ryan to a degree and he is currently on trial for corruption during his time as Illinois' secretary of state. There's also Judy Barr Topinka who was state party chair during the Jack Ryan fiasco who has marched twice in gay pride parades in Chicago (who would be a frontrunner for governor if she chose to run).

The issue here is that, there doesn't appear to be much difference between the Illinois GOP and the Democrats. I think by comparison the Democrats may prove to be more conservative than the Republicans. I've heard once that Chicago Democrats are some of the most fiscally conservative Democrats in the nation and I would believe that. I think that despite Mayor Daley current troubles which seemed to have died down a little, that he actually has a clue about what he is doing as a public offical and I may not like his views at all.

Well the main issue in Marin's column is the IL GOP inability to become a cohesive unit. She makes the analogy to baseball. In fact the Republican IL House leader Tom Cross says that the IL GOP, ''We are struggling to find the right candidate. One of the things we have not done a good job of as a party, that the Democrats have done a good job of, is building a farm team.''

So to close this post, here is another quote from Marin's colum about the state of the IL GOP and I take this from the Illinois Leader's quote of the day...

I probably shouldn't have dropped by the Cell to watch White Sox batting practice before sitting down to write this column on the Republican Party in Illinois.

The White Sox, after all, are a big-league team. The Illinois GOP is not even Class AA...

...Who speaks for the Republican Party in Illinois? Who is its leading voice? Moral force? Who's the coach of this team?