St. Thomas Republicans Form a Coalition

Thanks Herb,
With your leadership from the chair we are hoping to grow and sustain membership on St. Thomas.

This group of individuals has been closely tied to the Tea Party. Why is there no reference to the Tea Party on any of their materials? It’s disingenuous, at best, for them to claim to represent mainstream Party values.

Let me make a reference and correct your false assumption. First of all I do not know of any association between this St. Thomas Republican Coalition and the so called “Tea Party”. In the group, April Newland, was a leading vote getter in the VI GOP Caucus. April is a dedicated supporter of Mitt Romney and on the 2012 GOP Convention Platform Committee. Max Schanfarber is also a Convention delegate and is on the Ron Paul team. Vince Danet, an Alternate Delegate was a supporter of Senator Rick Santorum. None of those candidates were Tea Party candidates. None of this group had or has any direct association with the “Tea Party” which in reality isn’t even a party. Admittedly the Tea Party movement was crucial to the House majority now switching to the GOP. Recently the pro-Democrat dominant liberal media culture has been rattling a stick in the cage of what many informed observers considered to be a dormant movement. Then all of a sudden they have emerged as a factor in the 2012 election. Some major Republican leaders such as Senator Marc Rubio, Nikki Halley (Gov.-SC) and Congressman Allen West (R-Fl) have given praise to the Tea Party Movement for making there victory against entrenched Democrats a possibility.

As State Chairman of the VI Republican Party I am convinced that without victories in the battleground states, and without a good share of Latinos and other minority voters, defeating an incumbent President will not be easy. I am certain that the media left will try to drive wedges and demonize GOPcandidates as your post suggests, but the Tea party has been mobilized once again because of this. So be it.

Herb Schoenbohm, VI GOP State Chairman

tclendenin posted: “It’s disingenuous, at best, for them to claim to represent mainstream Party values.” Certainly it is disingenuous to make such aspersions when you do not know where these candidates truly stand on “Party values>” If they believe in the U.S. Constitution, the GOP National Platform (which one of the group will help write) and the election of Mitt Romney in November, certainly that should be sufficient to meet our idea of “mainstream party values”. The Republican party has always embraced the big tent concept but some of its members are on the fringe, like those who always vote with Democrats rather than their own party positions. If you could describe to me your version of what the “main stream party values” you feel are extant, perhaps we can have a litmus test for all who wish to be heard. In the mean time perhaps you would care to browse over the National Platform and the Territorial Platform on this site and point out how any of these candidates, by what they have expressed so far, fail to meet this meet this criteria. http://vigop.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?p=844