Over the next thirty days, the RIGOP will select a new leader. We must all remain focused, energized, and be 100% supportive of the new leader whomever it may be. Ken’s moving on is but a bump in the road which the RIGOP will weather just fine.

I look forward to continue working with the RIGOP on issues of building an effective Party, an army of candidates, and addressing the issues that face us all in the State of Rhode Island, from taxes to illegal immigration to pension reform, to an out of control General Assembly, and as we all know, the list goes on.

Conservatively yours,

Raymond T. McKay
President, RIRA

Join us for a “family friendly” evening of fun, food and drink, live music, award presentations, and special guests, at the biggest and best local GOP party this holiday season! Hors d’ Oeuvres and Cocktails will be available from 6:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M.; with a great Buffet Dinner beginning at 7:00 P.M., with festivities continuing until at least 10:00 P.M. There will be Live Entertainment, as well as a Cash Bar throughout the evening.

An RSVP is required for dinner. Tickets are only $35.00 per Adult; and only $10.00 for Children 10 & Under! The buffet features Chicken Montello and Baked Stuffed Sole, along with salad, roasted potatoes, a vegetable medley, and chocolate cake. The children’s menu features Chicken Fingers and French Fries. Special dietary needs can be accommodated with advance notice.

To REGISTER BY MAIL, please send your ticket request along with your check (payable to “Rhode Island Republican Assembly”) to: RIRA, 19 BAKERS CREEK ROAD, WARWICK, RI 02886. You may also easily and securely REGISTER & PAY ONLINE by Credit Card or E-Check directly through the RIRA web site at http://ri-ra.org/christmasparty/ .

For more information, please contact RIRA President Ray McKay at president [at] ri-ra [dot] org or (401) 487-2514. As seating is limited, your timely RSVP and payment is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Two important reminders: As is our custom, due to the Christmas Party, there will not be a “second Thursday” RIRA general membership meeting in December. Additionally, we are asking that dinner guests bring at least one canned or other non-perishable food item to the Christmas Party, to benefit the RI Food Bank. A collection bin will be located at the door.

The party’s executive committee will consider the plan Jan. 5. If approved by a majority of the committee’s 50 members, it would then go to state party members for a vote, state GOP Chairman Giovanni Cicione said.

The Republican and Democratic parties currently allow unaffiliated voters to opt into either party on primary day to cast a ballot. Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly four-to-one in Rhode Island, with about 287,500 registered Democrats compared with 72,800 registered Republicans, according to the Secretary of State’s office. Those are both smaller than the roughly 335,300 unaffiliated voters.

The rule became an issue in 2006 when then-Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate, was embroiled in a primary with a more conservative challenger, former Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey. Chafee urged Democratic supporters to drop their party affiliation to vote for him. Chafee won the primary but went on to lose the general election to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.

The bitterly contested primary still is a sore spot for some conservative Republicans, who had dubbed Chafee a RINO – Republican in Name Only. Darrell West, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution and former professor at Brown University, said the primary drew a large turnout of unaffiliated voters who propelled Chafee to victory.

“If it hadn’t been for independents, Laffey would have won that primary,” he said.

The proposal comes as Laffey is being urged by many supporters to run for governor. The Republicans’ only declared candidate, Rory Smith, dropped out of the race this month, and the party has been casting about for another contender. Laffey supporter Raymond McKay, an executive committee member, is leading the push to close the primary.

McKay, president of the conservative Rhode Island Republican Assembly, said he has been pushing for the change since 2004, but what happened with Chafee’s campaign in 2006 helped fuel the drive.

“The reality of the issue is that people did cross over to weigh in on a Republican primary, and they weren’t Republicans,” he said. “It’s horrendous. It’s tampering.”

State Democratic Chairman Bill Lynch said he believes a change in state law is needed to close the primary, although Cicione and McKay said the issue had been researched and the primary could be closed through a change in the party’s bylaws. McKay said the party had closed primaries until the 1980s, when the party changed its rules.

Two former members of the state Board of Elections said it was unclear. Roger Begin, a former chairman of the board who left about three years ago, said election laws have changed in the past decades and the question would have to be researched. Retired board member Thomas Iannitti said he believes the General Assembly would have to change the law, a process that could take years.

McKay said he has commitments from 25 of the executive committee’s 50 members to support the proposal. If it passes, Cicione said the plan would then have to be read at a state party meeting and voted on by the party’s 250 members at a second meeting. The next party meeting is scheduled for February.

Cicione said he’s not sure yet if he supports the measure, but said he would not want it put into place until the 2012 race because it’s too soon before the September primary. McKay said there are ways to speed up the measure so that it could be decided by February.

Chafee has since left the Republican Party and plans to officially announce his run for governor as an independent on Monday.

Laffey did not immediately respond to a request from the AP for comment on whether he supports the idea.

But John Robitaille, a senior adviser to Republican Gov. Don Carcieri, who said Tuesday he also is considering a run for governor, thinks the idea is bad for the party. He said the current system allows candidates to reach out to a broader audience during the primary.

“If you only look at people who are registered Republicans having a say, your chances of having a good candidate who could actually win in the general election is skewed,” he said.

Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian said he also opposes the idea.

“I think the only way a party grows and continues to thrive and bring more people in is to have an open primary system,” he said. “We need an infusion of new ideas and new people, or nothing’s going to change.”

Among the 41 states that had primaries in the 2008 presidential election, they were about evenly divided between those that have open and closed primaries, according to a report by the Pew Center on the States.

(Copyright, Associated Press)

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_8545/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=eVTWiOvd

The party’s State Central Committee met Tuesday to vote on a platform that focuses on jobs, state spending, health insurance, education, the environment and government accountability, but some of the language — and some that was missing — convinced a majority that the statement was not ready for prime time.

Among the missing was any reference to issues such as abortion and immigration, said Raymond T. McKay, a member of the platform committee that drew up the election-year statement.

Most glaring to some was a final paragraph that says the party, in “the long-standing tradition of New England Republicans,” respects “the right of all of our candidates to hold and express their own considered views on social issues.”

“If you take a look at the Moderate Party’s platform and you take a look at our platform, they’re pretty much one and the same,” said McKay, who made the motion to send the statement back for further review. “If we’re going to be a party and we’re going to differentiate ourselves, we should stand apart from the others and not be a Democratic-light, or something like that.”

The disagreement over family-values issues — which mirrors an ongoing debate within the National GOP — left party leaders unsure of which areas the final statement will cover.

“You have more conservative forces in the party [That's us!], and you have forces in the party which perceive a large percentage of the voting population are registered as independents,” [That's also us ... we believe there are a lot of conservatives who are registered as unaffiliated voters, because the Republican Party doesn't stand for anything, not because it isn't liberal enough] said Robert Manning, the platform committee chairman. “The sense of the platform committee is that that’s where the votes are, and it’s a mistake to assume that you can move right to win votes.” [The platform committee sent the draft platform to the floor with an 8 to 8 vote, with Mr. Manning breaking the tie]…

Read More: The Providence Journal