After viewing a copy of the latest mailing sent out comparing Tom Corbett and Sam Rohrer, I must say that I am more embarassed than ever to be a member of the Republican Party in this state. You claim that this flier’s purpose is to “set the record straight” about the two candidates, when you have actually done the exact opposite, and in doing so done a great disservice to every member of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania. Let’s take a truthful approach to “setting the record straight”, shall we? We’ll start with the statements made about Sam Rohrer:

“Voted for the midnight pay raise”: How appropriate that you bring this vote up, as it was actually the REPUBLICAN PARTY that backed Representative Rohrer into a corner, saying if he didn’t vote for the pay raise that his legislation for property tax elimination would never see the House floor for a vote. So in voting for the pay raise, he actually did exactly what you wanted him to do. And now you dare feign repulsiveness at that same vote. In fact, your real problem with the pay raise and Sam Rohrer is that he came out the very next day publicly against it and helped spearhead the effort to have it repealed, and hasn’t accepted a dime of the pay increase. But you failed to mention that part in your mailer, didn’t you?

“Voted to raise his taxpayer-funded pension by 50%”: Again, Representative Rohrer voted for this based on information he was given that the state could afford the increase in the benefits. And one can only assume that this information was given to him by his own party, otherwise I don’t believe that he would have accepted it.

“In 18 years as a legislator, Rohrer has received over a million dollars in salary and benefits, yet has never written a single bill passed into law.”: This is probably one of my favorite “criticisms” of Sam Rohrer that you make on this flier, and demonstrates just how far out of touch with reality the Republican Party in this state is. I’m not sure if you realize this, but a state representative isn’t elected by his district to go to Harrisburg and write and get passed as much legislation as possible to earn his pay. He is sent to Harrisburg by his district to REPRESENT the interests of his constituents, and if need be PROTECT those same interests. That’s why they’re called “representatives”. Using the proper definition of his job title, Representative Rohrer has done an admirable job in his tenure in the House, putting his constituents before party politics. Otherwise they would not have elected him for 9 terms. It’s not your place to determine if he earned his salary or did his job, the voters decided that. Your obvious ignorance about this point is statement enough that the Republican Party leadership in this state has lost grasp of the concept of “Constitutionally-limited government”, a term Mr. Corbett has tried to use as much as possible during this campaign after Representative Rohrer has made it a centerpiece of his campaign.

“Has billed taxpayers over $100,000 for his car, including gas and maintenance”: Wow. That seems like an excessive amount of money when put that way. But, when broken down over 18 years, that comes to a little over $5555 a year, a modest amount of money given how much he used it to travel back and forth to the capitol for his job. Tom Corbett drives one of the state-owned “fleet” that he has so ardently promised to prune. How much has his vehicle cost the taxpayers on a yearly basis? Funny, I don’t see that figure on your mailer….

As far as your points about Tom Corbett on your flier, they’re not much of a “comparison”. His quoted experience going after money from various criminal enterprises isn’t any sort of honest assesment of his qualifications to be governor, it means he’s a good prosecutor. Show me any experience Mr. Corbett has in an executive capacity that demonstrates his ability to govern our state: a business he’s owned and operated, for example. And please, don’t use his tenure as Attorney General as an example, because given the multitudes of improprieties that have occurred in that office while he’s been in charge I think speak volumes of his inability to monitor those he is responsible for and run the department he’s in charge of in any sort of fiscally responsible way.

The rest of your talking points about Tom Corbett are nothing more than promises he has made during this campaign. He has no track record of conservative values at all. In fact, he has no legislative history at all to look at to see whether he’s conservative or not. What he DOES have that we can look at is the history of the cases he’s pursued for prosecution, including many examples of seeking to deny citizens their gun ownership rights. Not very conservative, Mr. Corbett.

The point of this letter is this: the members of the Republican Party in this state are sick and tired of the party elite “coronating” our candidates for us, deciding for us who is worth representing the party in elections and providing them with all of the party’s financial backing. It is our RIGHT to decide for ourselves who is worthy to represent us, not yours. Your job is in an organizational capacity only, taking the information from the lower levels of precinct committeemen all the way up to the state level in order to determine whom the people want for potential candidates, coordinating funds and dispensing them to candidates as needed, and letting us have fair and open primaries so that every qualified candidate gets an equal chance to get his message out to every member of the party so that “We The People” can make OUR decision who represents us, NOT YOU.

You’re seeing a groundswell happen this year that you don’t understand and cannot measure. You don’t understand why your choice for Governor isn’t already the defacto winner of the primary. You’re obviously nervous about Sam Rohrer, otherwise why bother with the smear campaign of a fellow Republican so close to the election? Which, by the way, is a repugnant act to treat a member of your own party with such disdain. And don’t think it will go unnoticed.

Well let me fill you in on what’s going on. We the people of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania are putting you, the party machine, on notice: your time has come. The machinery is about to be dismantled. And we’re taking our party back. Precinct by precinct, county by county, your reign over us will fall. And this party will once again function the way the Founding Fathers intended our government to work, as a REPRESENTATIVE Republic.

So consider this your wake-up call: start representing us and our interests again, or find yourselves another line of work.

Sincerely,

David A. Groot

Republican

Venango County