I read in today’s Helena IR a brilliant plan by Republican Rep. Roger Koopman

to purge the Republican Party of what he calls 14 “socialist incumbent Republicans.”… He [said he] wants to help oust those Republicans “who have consistently sold out the cause of liberty in the Montana Legislature.” He wants to return the GOP to “its low tax, limited government, free market roots.”

On the top of his list is one Rep. Llew Jones, of Conrad. In case any of you are new to this party, I recently moved from Conrad, and while our reasons for doing so varied (yes, I’ll get to that post one of these days), Mr. Jones wasn’t one of them. I can’t call him an acquaintance, but I do know him and have spent some time around him. He headed up the Golden Triangle Pachyderm Club that I occasionally attended and he owns several businesses in Conrad which I did my best to patronize. He’s also one of the most intelligent individuals I’ve ever met; and for a small town like Conrad, that’s saying a lot. He survives and thrives in Conrad because of this intelligence combined with a laid back, independent style that fits in quite well in the area of the Golden Triangle. No, he isn’t a pure partisan, and I have disagreed with some of his positions on some issues (not many), but in my opinion Montana is fortunate to have a man like this in the legislature.

The Koop’s position here is representative of a lot of what is wrong with the Montana GOP. Throwing up hyper partisan candidates against men such as Jones will not work, because the market of voters most assuredly won’t want it. It looks to me like the state GOP Koopman thinks that their problem is with soft candidates, when the “problem,” to the extent that any exists, is with the political opinions of their constituents, we Montanans. Mr. Jones takes the positions that he does because he is reflecting the opinions of those who elected him. If the Montana GOP Koopman doesn’t like those positions, some of which I dislike as well, then the solution is to argue convincingly for their point of view. You must move the electorate; you must lead. In the absence of that, Koop’s plan will only serve to rightly purge himself, and the Montana GOP, from the process of rational governing.

UPDATE:

It was brought to my attention that I left out an important part of this story, and I agree to the point that an update to this post is required. In my last paragraph I project Koop’s position onto the state GOP, while the article I link to clearly quotes State Republican Chairman Erik Iverson separating himself and the party from Koop’s ideas:

“As party chairman, I make it a policy that I do not recruit candidates to run against our Republican incumbents,” he said. “As a party, we will not get involved in primary races.”

This is an important quote that I failed to include, and it is a good sign that the state GOP is not interested in this kind of politics.  That being stated, I’m still not convinced we conservatives are getting from the state GOP the leadership required to move the electorate, even if my using Koopman as an example is a poor one.  I’ve changed the post to reflect the inaccuracy by crossing out my original statements.  This way, we can all look back and see that the quality of my authorship can indeed be spotty at times (as if we didn’t need another example).  A hearty thanks goes out to the individual who caught my screw-up.