Sometimes I hate these types of political stories

While I have blogged over time I have covered the more often than not triumphant Democrats and the long-suffered local Republicans. Depending on who I am reading, there's always someone holding down the Republican party locally. Usually it's the Republicans themselves although there doesn't seem to be agreement as to who exactly are holding down Republicans.

Ever heard of this term "RINOs", Republicans in Name Only. I suppose this only suggest that these Republicans are not beholden to the basic party doctrine whatever that is. I tend to think this is misleading primarily because that name could be smeared on anyone who dared crossed the party line.

In general most people accept the Republican party as the Conservative party. Although historically both the Democrats and the Republicans have had coalitions of sorts of different political ideologies. There is such a thing as a liberal Republican and they might have views along the lines of most Democrats. There is certainly such a thing as a conservative Democrat, actually there always has been conservative Democrats and at times they may hold views in line with most Republicans.

Sometimes I wonder if both parties just stopped playing the "pure" card and worry about the issues Americans truly care about. I should have said Illinoisans instead of Americans but the gist is about the same. Tom Cross, the House minority leader for the Republicans is right this infighting has to stop.

Of course Republicans in order to build credibility shouldn't tolerate bad candidate recruitment which certainly according to this article include a man who has schizophrenia. Perhaps going slating a convicted felon for a run at the state house isn't the best idea either. It doesn't matter if you're in the most ghetto neighborhoods to the more affluent there are certainly better choices to be made than a mentally ill person or a convicted felon who found himself on the ballot for alderman only to be knock off because of his conviction.

I read the other day about a committeeman wouldn't sign off on a candidate because he didn't want any heat from Republicans. What I've learned about local Republican leadership this past few years is that most of them are out of site, most of us in Chicago knows nothing about them. Another thing is the laziness and incompetence I could point to the 49th Ward for example. As a matter of fact a couple of years or so back I blogged about how a Republican committeeman just gave up when he realized that Republican leadership just wasn't trustworthy. At least he made the correct decision and got out, however, most aren't ready to give it up.

I read in a Russ Stewart column that the Democrats in Illinois doesn't play these ideologically pure games. They try to run people who are a good fit for these districts where they want to win. If nothing else that's what Republicans must do. Yeah they should differ somewhat from the opposition but these candidates have to be a good fit for a particular constituency. Of course there are some other intangibles involved there as well, such as charisma. Well Sen. Obama is proving that.

Oh yeah another important thing is we have to know who these people are. I know at times its can be difficult if you know that the opposition to who you represent is often overwhelming, however, I hate if the only way I know a Republican or anyone else is running is when I pull a ballet in an election. That's not a way of introducing a potential constituency into your fold.

Some of these intra-party conflicts have to come to the point where you have to keep it in the "family". Airing it out with a megaphone will only exasperate the problem. In addition anyone who wants to improve the situation should run and seek to make a changes and if they're not happing with the direction of their party, get out and fast.