Welcome
Republicans, and Independents and Democrats
who have decided to check out their local
Republican party to see what it’s about.
Please take the time to read our platform;
it will have something you like and if
there’s something you think is missing,
write us. We do not walk in lockstep in the
Tompkins County Republican Party; we
welcome civil debate and welcome a diverse
range of opinions.
It’s a good
time to be a Republican. After two brutal
elections, I believe the Republican party
will experience a resurgence. After Nixon,
we also entered the wilderness. We used
that time well and emerged with Ronald
Reagan. There are those that say we need to
shed Reagan’s principles now to win new
members. As the chairman of the party, I
vigorously reject that idea. You don’t shed
you’re principles to be more popular; you
export those principles to gain respect.
The principles of fiscal discipline, strong
defense and a concentrated effort at
strengthening families have not gone out of
style and never will. It doesn’t mean we
are static either, and thankfully the
democrats have adopted a statis platform
under our current president. It helps to be
on the right side of issues and it’s been
proven time and gain this year that your
local Republicans have been.
This year in
the County Legislature, all four Republicans
sided with four Democrats to make sure a
valid election for the leadership of the
County Legislature was upheld. We won that
despite immense pressure from the liberal
members of the Democrat party, an ever
increasing group. Also, your Republican
representatives are committed to staying on
local issues, but if the “progressive”
Democrats introduce federal legislation for
support that we do not agree with, we will
put up a valid and competent opposition.
This recently happened with “card check”
legislation and I believed it proved the
Republicans are the progressives when it
comes to advancing legislation to improve
constituents lives. Every democrat on the
legislature voted to remove the secret
ballot, the standard in America for 130
years, from union organizing elections.
Essentially, the democrats voted to take us
back to a time before the automobile was
invented.
Nationally,
we’re already looking forward to 2010.
Richard Hanna ran to represent most of
Tompkins County in congress in 2008 and only
lost by about 6,000 votes and we had a
strong candidate in George Philips against
Maurice Hinchey. I believe 2010 will be a
better year for Republicans to run in.
Locally, we are always looking for
candidates for town boards, town supervisor
and county legislature positions.
The tea party
grassroots movement has taken off across the
county. This is not a Republican movement,
but certainly the Tompkins County Republican
party shares the lower tax and lower
spending advocated by this movement. Some
are trying to characterize this as a
revolutionary movement with aims of
overthrowing the current government.
Someone should tell these fear mongers that
there is a revolution in this country ever
November; we call them elections and if you
want to be a part of it, please consider
running for office and supporting
Republicans who do.
Thank you,
Mike Sigler
Tompkins County Republican Party