Deep-six state GOP's deadwood, LTE, October 1, 2006 by Spiegler

==Letters to the Editor @ Robert Gleason==
In what I fear shall be a little-noticed piece from
Robert Novak's column "Murtha's GOP foe snubbed"
(Sept. 24 and PghTrib.com), it is noted that
Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Robert Gleason
has snubbed and is talking down the November election
chances of Congressman John Murtha's opponent,
Republican House candidate Diana Irey, currently a
Washington County commissioner.
This information comes as no surprise to me, as Mr.
Gleason comes from the liberal Democrat wing of the
Republican Party, having been handpicked by a party
leadership that has chosen to set aside the most
cherished tenet of our party -- that which espouses a
limited government that is responsive to the people.
In the 2006 primary election, the state GOP eschewed
reform by funding and endorsing two big losers, state
senators and party leaders Robert Jubelirer and David
Brightbill, both of whom played key roles in
formulating and passing the July 2005 legislative pay
grab and who have voted with liberal Gov. Ed Rendell
and other big-government types to expand the vast
breadth of government and to increase our tax burdens.
The state GOP also has failed to condemn House
Majority "Leader" John Perzel as he has stood as a
symbol of a corrupt General Assembly, obstructing and
blocking every path to open, honest, responsive
government.
Novak quotes Gleason as saying regarding the Irey
campaign that it did not understand "the way we
operate up here." Some of us Republicans understand
all too well the way this state party operates. We are
repulsed by it and we want our party to return to its
laudable roots.
That is why the state GOP must be rebuilt from the
bottom up, all of its deadwood cast away. That is the
only way to negate its hijacking by tax-and-spend
liberals, to return it to being a viable party in more
than name only.
Oren M. Spiegler, Upper St. Clair