State Republican officials appear to be fleeing their party in August.
After the co-chair of Iowa’s Polk County GOP resigned and registered Independent Tuesday citing a party “headed in the wrong direction,” seven local GOP members in Maine also stepped down lamenting the abandonment of conservative and libertarian principles.
The officials, including one of Maine’s three voting members of the Republican National Committee and six other members of the Maine State Republican Committee, joined a letter accusing House speaker John Boehner (R-OH) of “cowardly leadership” and criticized establishment for accepting tax increases, supporting National Security Agency surveillance programs and orchestrating a move at the Republican National Convention in Tampa last year that froze out delegates for then-Republican presidential contender and libertarian hero Ron Paul.
“(We) can no longer allow ourselves to be called nor enrolled as Republicans; we can no longer associate ourselves with a political party that goes out of its way to continually restrict our freedoms and liberties as well as reaching deeper and deeper into our wallets,” reads the letter, according to the Portland Press Herald. “We instead choose the path that focuses on ways to help our fellow Mainers outside of party politics.”
