| Until recently Lori Rea, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Del. John Doyle in the 57th District, was a Republican.
She switched to the Democratic Party in July 2009 when she decided to run against Doyle, a long-time Democratic incumbent.
I've nothing against Republicans switching to the Democratic Party. Richie Robb in South Charleston and blogger John Cole at Balloon Juice are two examples of former Republicans who are now fine Democrats.
But in her positions as stated in the Observer, Rea doesn't sound like she's strayed very far from the Republican Party since leaving it.
For instance, she wants tort reform because of "frivolous lawsuits," a frequently raised issue by Republicans in this state. I'd like anyone with a complaint that there are too many "frivolous lawsuits" filed in this state to name just 10 over the past 10 years. I'll spot you one: Don Blankenship's lawsuit against his maid for screwing up his McDonald's order was definitely a frivolous lawsuit. Now I'd like to hear of just nine others. If there's sooooo many, this should be an easy task. Lawsuits are public documents, easily accessible. 10 9 examples please.
But then there was this from Rea:
Collective Bargaining. I am opposed to collective bargaining (emphasis mine) for public employees because I believe it would lead to:
• Increased costs for state government to administer such a system resulting in significant tax increases.
• A decrease in the effectiveness of the associated agencies to carry out their mission effectively.
• Increased opportunity for service disruption to the citizens.
• The development of policy by professional arbitrators unfamiliar with our area.
Our state would be forced to develop a sophisticated labor relations bureaucracy.
The real question is: Would the taxpayers get anything more for their money?
Many successful companies have union workforces which benefits the workers and the employers by having stronger, more effective workers. What would be next? Would she oppose collective bargaining for the private sector too for the same reasons, arguing that collective bargaining hurts the state's economic viability?
The Democratic Party is a big tent. But there is more to changing party affiliation. It's embracing some of the basic ideas of the Democrats and shedding the old worn out Republican talking points.
But I have no clue what to make of this about her voting record showing she had not voted in any primary elections since moving to West Virginia in 2000:
In an e-mail to the Chronicle, Rea writes that "when I was a younger voter, in Maryland, I invested emotionally in candidates early on, [in the primary] only to have them lose that first race." Rea says that she discovered that she had a difficult time aligning herself with the remaining candidates because they were not her candidates.
"I felt disenfranchised from the remainder of the election. In reaction to that, I adopted a practice of avoiding that mistake by allowing the other voters to choose the two opponents and then investing in the one I was most aligned with Hence, my general non-participation in primary races," writes Rea.
She's asking people to vote for her in a primary even though her own personal policy in recent years was to not vote in primaries!
Granted, she said she did like President Obama in the 2008 race and would have voted for him in the primary if a clerical error had not prevented her from changing her party affiliation at the time. But she left the Democratic Party when she lived in Maryland because she was "disenchanted" by President Bill Clinton.
Rea would not say show she voted for in 2000 and 2004 citing privacy reasons though those same privacy issues did not stop her from saying she supported Obama in 2008.
I welcome any new Democrats in to the tent, but please leave the worst ideas of the GOP behind when you come in. |
