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To the Editor:
As a member of the Republican Party of Virginia, a member of the Rappahannock County Republican Committee since 1978, past secretary and vice-unit chairman of the Rappahannock County Republican , Committee, past county coordinator of the campaigns of J. Kenneth Robinson, John D. Obenchain, and John W. Warner, I am writing to apologize to any readers who may have been offended by a portion of an insert placed in last week’s edition of the Rappahannock News that took a “below the belt” potshot at the lieutenant governor candidate of the Democratic party.
The offensive material consisted of a reprint of a letter to the editor apparently published in The Warren Sentinel in which select portions were circled. A number of vitriolic handwritten editorial comments suggested that the Democrat candidate is “anti-Christian” and supports narcotics abuse.
While I do not support, and shall not vote for, the Democratic candidate on election day, those innuendos were in extremely poor taste, unwarranted, and I do not think they are true.
Moreover, the publication of this material was not sanctioned or authorized by the Rappahannock County Republican Committee. On the contrary, the committee met in September and authorized certain advertising inserts, but only after assurances were given that published material w’ould be limited to reprints of offical campaign materials issued by various Republican candidates.
A single member of the committee took it upon himself to create and publish the offensive material in direct contravention of our county committee resolution. This material does not represent the official views of the candidates, the Republican Party of Virginia or the Rappahannock County Republican Committee.
There are many good and positive reasons to vote for the Republican candidates this year, most of whom I believe would join me in condemning the publication of such scurrilous material. The Republican Party, founded on the Jeffersonian principle that “the government governs best which governs least,” stands for the preservation of individual liberty, limiting the certralization of power in the hands of state and federal bureaucrats, and keeping taxes as low as possible.
Unfortunately, our party has in recent years become a haven for a number of misguided “whackos” whose zealotry tarnishes our principles and undermines its candidates’ chances of winning elections. It’s time for the good people that constitute the majority of the Republican Party to get their “sludge” together and send a clear message to the guttersnipes that their evangelical negativism has no place. “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein; and he that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him.” (Proverbs 26:27)
The best way to win elections is not by spreading mean-spirited lies and innuendos about the opposition, but by articulating a positive, uplifting message that limited constitu
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