My Point of View, By Ebenezer Howe

Politics is not an event, it is a long process. The process starts, or re-starts, or gets new life, with precinct caucuses held every two years in either gubernatorial or presidential election years. Precinct officers, delegates and alternates elected at caucus in the even years go on to elect the officers of the local party and delegates and alternates to State Central Committee at the next odd year convention. It is then these people who control the direction of the party through the middle of the following two-year caucus cycle. If you were able to follow that, it means that for a party to be taken over it would take two caucus cycles. The design of this was on purpose, to prevent a takeover in any one cycle.

In the past few weeks, I have received several requests to be removed from the GOP contact lists. The reasons vary. From “I wish not to be affiliated with the GOP; they do not do enough to back the president; in fact, most of the time they are against him” to “200 percent anti-Trump, aghast at what he is doing to the GOP Party.” These people need to re-think their wishes to be removed. Instead, they need to attend the caucus on Feb. 6. Registration will begin at 5:30 p.m. Starting at 6 p.m. there will be a general assembly presentation in the gym where you will hear from candidates and representatives of candidates who are running for the many offices up for election this year. All 40 precincts in Freeborn County caucus at the same location, Southwest Middle School, in Albert Lea. We do this because Albert Lea is smack in the middle of the county — almost.

I don’t know how many people remember that in the 2016 caucus presidential preference poll, Freeborn County voted Carson 6.84 percent, Cruz 37.26 percent, Kasich 4.96 percent, Rubio 26.6 percent and Trump 24.27 percent. I was a Cruz guy. He did not go on to win the nomination; Trump did. I converted to being a Trump supporter and by the time of his inauguration was solidly behind him. He is not ideological, just does what he thinks is the right thing to do, and I don’t always agree, but he is getting things done. I believe he has accomplished more good things than I think Ted Cruz could have done had he won the nomination and then the general election. It was far easier for me to pull the trigger for Trump than it was pulling the trigger for Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. I also had some trouble pulling the trigger for George W. and his dad. Not that it would have been pulled for the Democrat, but a third-party guy.

Back to the caucus. If you think Trump is not getting the proper level of support from the party, you need to attend caucus. You need to get elected a delegate to the Freeborn County conventions and campaign for the folks who will get behind your man, Trump. If you think Trump is damaging the GOP, you need to attend the caucus. You need to get yourself elected a delegate to the county conventions and support those who have your same feelings. I started attending caucuses in 1998. That was after learning in 1997 that if you want to change things in Minnesota you start by attending a caucus, becoming a precinct officer and getting elected a delegate to the conventions.

Now onto another topic that is hot these days in the arena of politics: sexual harassment and/or sexual misconduct.

Judge Roy Moore of Alabama fame — the guy who lost the election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions — in 1992 he was appointed a circuit judge and then elected to that position. In 2001, Moore was elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He was removed from his position for refusing to remove a marble monument of the Ten Commandments. Moore was again elected chief justice in 2013. My point — why after at least three other elections did these 40-year-old sexual misconduct allegations miraculously come to light? With the ages of the girls in these allegations, I am surprised he was not beaten close to death by a dad.

Regarding the charges of sexual misconduct against Franken, I just feel cheated that Freeborn County does not get the chance to help vote him out of office. The picture on the plane looked like a Franken SNL skit. The others all seemed to occur in campaign booths. They are always full of folks — who squeezed who when? Why didn’t someone get slapped real hard? I just do not believe all of these are true.

Alden resident Ebenezer Howe is chairman of the Freeborn County Republican Party. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the local party members.