CAN’T BRING THESE FOLKS ANYWHERE…. The Maine Republican Party raised a few eyebrows this week when it endorsed a right-wing party platform combining “fringe policies, libertarian buzzwords and outright conspiracy theories.” Almost as interesting was the Maine GOP’s behavior at the meeting where the platform was adopted.
Republican activists held their annual gathering at the Portland Exposition Building, near a local middle school. GOP members used an eighth-grade classroom for a caucus meeting, and took it upon themselves to start making some changes. (thanks to several alert readers for the tip)
“We allowed them to use the space and I’m appalled that they would go through a teacher’s things, let alone remove something from a classroom,” [School Committee member Sarah Thompson] said Wednesday. “We want the public to use school spaces, but they need to respect that it’s a school and understand that they should leave it the way they find it.” […]
When [studies teacher Paul Clifford] returned to school on Monday, he found that a favorite poster about the U.S. labor movement had been taken and replaced with a bumper sticker that read, “Working People Vote Republican.”
Later, Clifford learned that his classroom had been searched. Republicans who had attended the convention called Principal Mike McCarthy to complain about “anti-American” things they saw there, including a closed box containing copies of the U.S. Constitution that were published by the American Civil Liberties Union.
There’s just something oddly spectacular about Republican activists describing a copy of the U.S. Constitution as “anti-American” because they didn’t approve of the group that distributed the copy.
Party officials later apologized for the members’ misconduct.
