Rob Gleason, PA GOP, Oblivious to their own Hypocrisy

A mass email from PA GOP chairman Rob Gleason dated Jan. 24 reads:

Let's make sure no parent is forced to send their child to a poor quality school without other choices. Let's give parents options--public, private, parochial, charter, distance learning, homeschool, and other choices... Today’s children don't have years or decades to wait for more of the same.

Yet, Gleason displayed a totally different outlook on choice in elections, when he served as a rubber stamp for the PA GOP's illogical endorsement-before-the-primary in 2010 and took measures to undermine Rohrer's campaign, while serving as a cheerleader for "endorsed" candidate Tom Corbett.

Choice in education is good, but it seems to me that it should go hand in hand with choice at the ballot box. After all, one's education often influences his choices at the ballot box. One might even say that the ballot box is a flowering of one's civic education.

Let's "give" PA voters options--real options: a chance to choose for themselves which candidate they want without being manipulated by the Party about which one they should choose.

Let's not groom and push through the political system "anointed" candidates like Tom Corbett who represent lawyers and all the usual political suspects, because there are many in politics who don't want more of the same.

Gleason was also hostile to choice in politics when he presided over the PA GOP as it used legal and financial intimidation tactics to get state-level Libertarian and other third party candidates thrown off the ballot. If Gleason advocates seemingly unlimited educational choices, shouldn't he be more friendly to choice in politics?

How is it possible that Gleason's political actions should so conflict with his political stances? In reality, Gleason is not an oblivious hypocrite since he is likely an intelligent man with political shrewdness. Gleason is a steely Machiavellian whose ends apparently justify his means, and whose ends of furthering the GOP's power seem to undermine what the GOP should stand for: freedom of choice. Clearly, the end of gaining power has become more important than values. Maybe, for Gleason, the values espoused by the GOP are only a means to the end of gaining power.

Finally, Gleason's language is very authoritarian, as he purports to "give" us our rights. On the contrary, the founding fathers, Sam Rohrer, and Peg Luksik all believe that men are born with certain inalienable rights, and we need no Rob Gleason to give them to us.