Dear Republican presidential candidates & current Republican elected officials,
In light of recent events, I am writing to all of you today, as one who considers herself to be a moderate Republican with beliefs leaning toward those of the Republican Liberty Caucus, out of concern for the direction it would appear the vast majority of the Republican Party candidates are headed—a direction which causes me even greater concern for the United States of America as a whole.
It seems, for all intent & purposes that the Republican Party has morphed into a radical extremist fear & hate mongering party that no longer represents the views of moderate Republicans or even those of many average Americans at all, for that matter. I find myself rapidly becoming increasingly disgusted & disenfranchised by all the divisive hate speech, pledges, & rhetoric being tossed around. Maybe it’s simply that these members of the Republican party cannot hear the voice of the oft-silent moderate over their own boisterous bellowing & preaching or the frantic scribbling sounds of their pens busily signing the pledges of special interest & lobbyist groups, but it certainly appears that they have completely turned their backs on & lost touch with the more moderate-minded & lifelong backers of their party. In doing so, these extremist Republicans are not only committing political suicide for themselves, they are virtually ensuring another four years of Barack Hussein Obama which, in my opinion, is the equivalent of signing the death warrant for the America that most of us grew up in, take pride in, pledged allegiance to, & love. I would sincerely hope that is not what the Grand Old Party honestly wants & that they will begin hearing the voices of the concerned moderate Republican.
I implore each & every one of you not to continue to delude yourselves with the notion that, simply because I & most other moderate Republicans or Independent voters sincerely want Obama out of office for the good of this nation, we will vote for whomever the GOP ultimately endorses, regardless of any extremist actions of said candidate. There are a good many moderate Republicans or Independents who will not or cannot, in good conscience, vote for whomever the Republican Party chooses to run against Barack Obama in 2012 just to ensure that Obama does not get reelected. However, I don’t believe those individuals would vote for Obama, either. Essentially, considering the copious amounts of venomous hate speech, pledges based on personal religious beliefs, & divisive rhetoric the current GOP field of presidential hopefuls have been rabidly spewing, they are virtually revoking the right to vote at all from any conscientious moderate Republican or Independent who just cannot swallow enough antacid tablets in order to stomach casting a vote for one of these hateful, theocratic, far-right conservative Republicans who may run against Barack Obama.
I don’t think there are many American citizens who would wish to be ruled under Sharia Law here in the United States of America but, oddly enough, upon reading the full text of one particular pledge—“The Marriage Vow” by The Family Leader church group—after having watched the HBO documentary “Love Crimes of Kabul”, I found “The Marriage Vow” pledge to be frighteningly similar in many ways to the very Sharia Law it rallies against. Shame on those who have signed or plan on signing this document!
I believe I speak for most moderate Republican or Independent voters when I ask that the GOP please present us with a balanced candidate that we can truly believe in & cast our vote for with a clear conscience. One that has not already signed a theocratic pledge filled with racism, homophobia, & anti-female sentiment thinly veiled under the guise of ‘family values’. Present us with a candidate that tells us exactly how he or she intends to work with American citizens to fix the dismal economy, bring good jobs back to the United States, defend our borders, & stop illegal immigrants from leeching off of the American taxpayer’s dollars for education or welfare programs. Show us the candidate that will assist us in reforming the aforementioned welfare programs so that the average hard-working American taxpayer isn’t forced to stand in line at the grocery store behind people in designer clothes buying expensive name-brand foods with food stamps/bridge cards only to see them walk out & load those groceries into a luxury SUV said hard-working American taxpayer could ill-afford. Present us with the candidate that will ensure fair & equitable international trade while rekindling reasonable relationships with the decent allies we’ve unfortunately lost while being forced to endure the Obama administration. Give us a viable Republican candidate that isn’t patronizing lobbyists of various organizations by signing or saying things that promise us only what liberties they intend to revoke from the American citizens once they’re elected & start telling us what they’re going to do to defend our Constitutional freedoms—and that means liberty, the pursuit of happiness, & justice for all American citizens.
I praise former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman for his courage in repeatedly ‘pledging’ to his audiences to sign no pledges & for his clear statement regarding said pledges: “I don’t sign pledges–other than the Pledge of Allegiance & a pledge to my wife.”
I’ll be blunt here. Just because I happen to like steak in general doesn’t mean that you can just throw any rotting, toxic, ill-cooked cut of beef on my plate (the random GOP candidate) & expect me to eat it only because you know I definitely despise the only other entrée choice of liver & onions (Obama). I’ll more than likely starve first, as will the rest of America should Obama be reelected. The way many members of the Republican Party have been behaving lately, it looks like I may become a very skinny woman.
Sincerely,
Cari L. Pedstelak
Note: The following is a list of some of the pledges I’ve found that GOP candidates and/or current GOP officials have signed. Speaking for myself, I take strong issue with the first two, although I honestly believe that the only pledge any candidate or politician should ever make is to We, the People of the United States of America–their potential employers (lest you have forgotten that the taxpayer is, indeed, your employer as this is a government of the people, by the people, & for the people–not of the politicians, by the politicians, or for the politicians).
