And yet Joe Lieberman remains in the Democratic caucus. I think this demonstrates one of the differences between the parties:
The man who was the Delaware Republican Party’s standard bearer in the race for U.S. Senate in 2006 has been expelled from his position in the state Republican Party.
His crime? Quietly supporting Democrat Barack Obama for president.
“Evidently someone went online and saw that I had been making contributions to Obama,” Jan Ting said today.
He also was spotted by a News Journal photographer in the crowd when Obama made his campaign visit to Wilmington in February, drawing record crowds to Rodney Square. The picture was later posted at www.delawareonline.com.
…
But that appearance, and about $250 in donations to the Illinois senator, who is now the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, was apparently enough for the state party to brand Ting a traitor, according to the former Republican candidate.
I feel somewhat responsible. For you see, initially, the News Journal did not identify Jan Ting in the photo they ran. And then a little blurb in the Dialogue Delaware column talked about someone looking awfully like Jan Ting potentially being at the historic Obama rally. Since I stood next to the man, saw him wearing an Obama button, and talked to him, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and posted a story on Daily Delaware. I posted two pictures I took myself:
See, there is Jan standing right under the N in Can. But this next paragraph is the kicker:
Ting said he was invited to an April meeting at a Brew Ha-Ha, where the state regional chair and a district chair informed Ting they were aware of his Obama activities and told him, “unless you are willing to recant that and swear allegiance to the party nominee John McCain, we are compelled to request your resignation from the Republican Committee.”
Ting said he had been a member of the committee for 25 years — and when he was asked to leave, he was a committeeman for the 7th election district of the 11th representative district.
First, Republican committee meetings at Brew Ha-Ha’s? I can’t decide if I should be amused at the sad state of the GOP or angry that my favorite local coffee shop allows such nefarious organizations, like the Republican party, to hold meetings on their premises. Second, we have been through eight years of President Bush requiring loyalty oaths be signed before anyone can listen to him speak. And now we have Republicans demanding a fellow Republican swear loyalty to John McCain. He is not McSame, how exactly?
As a Democrat, I welcome Jan Ting into our Party if he so chooses. As he says in the article, we won’t agree on everything, but ours is the true Big Tent Party.