{"id":4331,"date":"2016-05-15T08:01:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T15:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/my-turn-the-pied-piers-of-party-loyalty\/"},"modified":"2016-05-15T08:01:46","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T15:01:46","slug":"my-turn-the-pied-piers-of-party-loyalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/my-turn-the-pied-piers-of-party-loyalty\/","title":{"rendered":"My Turn: The Pied Piers of party loyalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have always supported the Republican nominee for president.\u201d That\u2019s the best Sen. Lisa Murkowski can do in terms of an endorsement for Donald Trump, her party\u2019s presumptive nominee. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a cautious statement that may mean nothing when she steps behind the polling curtain to cast her vote in November. Until then, while she ponders her real choices, I hope she\u2019ll recall a time when party disloyalty on both sides helped secure her re-election.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not news that Trump has the nomination locked up. Now that his last two opponents have dropped out of the race, the discussion has become about unifying the party behind him. That won\u2019t be easy. And it shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

Like Murkowski, Rep. Don Young has never shown any enthusiasm for Trump. After Jeb Bush went limping back to Florida, the 22-term Congressman unofficially endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich as \u201cthe smartest one of the bunch.\u201d But now that it\u2019s just Trump left, Young is only willing to express his support in the \u201canything but Hillary Clinton\u201d context. Here\u2019s how he addressed the prospect of her following Barack Obama into the White House: \u201cI believe this nation is being led down a terrible path by those focused on top down policies and \u2018Washington, D.C. knows best\u2019 solutions, all of which take away individual freedom and liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, in a flattering analysis of Trump\u2019s business dealings, a national sales and marketing group known as IPA Family described his management style as centralized and autocratic. And conservative columnist Roland Poirier Martinsson claims that the business successes Trump brags about \u201creveals a demonstrably left-wing view of the nature of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

If they\u2019re right, then a Trump presidency will be exactly what Young claims he opposes.<\/p>\n

Besides, party loyalty also comes loaded with demands from the same distant corner of the country. And it undermines the freedom to vote with our conscience.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker isn\u2019t giving up that freedom. Despite being the highest elected Republican in his state, he\u2019s gone on the record stating he\u2019ll vote for neither Trump nor Clinton.<\/p>\n

The past chairwoman of the Massachusetts GOP won\u2019t support Trump either. \u201cI think that he\u2019s going to be dangerous\u201d said Jennifer Nassour, who is also the founder of Conservative Women for a Better Future. \u201cI think that the best case scenario is that he just damages the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both are definitely bucking the so-called \u201cwill of the people\u201d in Massachusetts, where Trump won a decisive primary victory. While racking up just under 50 percent of the vote, he finished 32 points ahead of his nearest competitor.<\/p>\n

But no one can be sure what Alaskans want. More than 80 percent of the state\u2019s registered Republicans didn\u2019t cast ballots in the party\u2019s Presidential Preference Poll held on the same day as the Massachusetts primary. And against the same slate of candidates, Trump came in a very close second in Alaska with just a third of the vote.<\/p>\n

The \u201cwill of the people\u201d is an especially lousy justification for Murkowski. Back in 2010, she ignored the voters\u2019 choice in the GOP primary. After losing to Joe Miller by a small margin, and in defiance of state and national party leaders, she mounted a write-in campaign as an Independent.<\/p>\n

Her decision to oppose the party\u2019s nominee was influenced, in part, by Republicans who believed Miller\u2019s views were to the extreme right. But she needed more than their support to beat him in the general election. Polls indicate she received the votes from as much as 30 percent of the state\u2019s registered Democrats.<\/p>\n

She also had help from Lt. Gov. Byron Malott. Although he ran for governor as a Democrat two years ago before teaming up with Bill Walker, he was unaffiliated with any party when he served as a co-chairman for her write-in campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been nominally a Democrat,\u201d he told Murkowski supporters at a rally that September, \u201cbut I\u2019ve always voted for whom I consider the best person for office.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was then. This week New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote, \u201cto acquiesce to Donald Trump as the Republican nominee is to gamble recklessly with the party\u2019s responsibilities to the republic.\u201d Acquiescing and gambling is exactly what Murkowski is doing by reducing herself to a party loyalist.<\/p>\n

And Young is even worse. He complained voters were \u201cfollowing Pied Piper over the edge of the cliff\u201d by watching the news media turn the GOP debates into a joke. \u201cThey ought to know better than that\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, nobody wants to read anymore.\u201d But by saying he\u2019d vote for Trump just to keep Clinton from winning, he\u2019s telling everyone else there\u2019s nothing to read besides the lips of the GOP.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have always supported the Republican nominee for president.\u201d That\u2019s the best Sen. Lisa Murkowski can do in terms of an endorsement for Donald Trump, her party\u2019s presumptive nominee. It\u2019s a cautious statement that may mean nothing when she steps behind the polling curtain to cast her vote in November. Until then, while she ponders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}