We’re somehow not surprised that the local Republican Party continues to be unable to field a slate of candidates to seek political office in the District of Columbia.

It is clear, after listening to D.C.’s GOP national committeewoman (and immediate past local party chairman) Julie Finley explain on WAMU’s "D.C. Politics Hour" Aug. 4 that she "forgot" to push for inclusion of D.C. citizenship issues in her party’s national platform, that the District’s Republican leaders just don’t get it. Finley, when pressed by political commentator Mark Plotkin to explain her lapse, demurred that doing something about D.C. residents’ second-class status simply isn’t a hot-button item at the top of her party’s national agenda.

What Finley and others who accompanied her to represent the nation’s capital at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia apparently fail to understand is that it is up to THEM to help move these D.C. issues to the fore.

Defending democratic freedoms is the reason presidents and members of Congress give for sending American soldiers, including thousands from the District of Columbia who have fought and died, off to war in foreign lands.

It is a despicable abomination that the GOP — which is quick to wave Old Glory, quote the Constitution and tout American values — is not willing to fight for the democratic rights of American citizens who live in the nation’s capital. It is a distinctly un-American attitude.

Copyright 2000, The Common Denominator