Don't let them know what we think!

This is just too freaking funny.

[H]undreds of Harris County Republican Party precinct chairmen [last night] decided that the answers the party elicited from its candidates about their loyalty to the state party platform will not see the light of day, at least for now.

The decision came with some drama in the auditorium of the Houston Community College West Loop campus. Perhaps lulled by the mundane nature of some official party business, precinct chairs appeared to have voted to adopt a committee report that might have led to the publication of candidates' responses to the 100 or so questions on the quiz.

Then Paul Bettencourt, a de facto party leader as well as the county tax assessor-collector, delivered a stemwinder of a speech as he paced with the microphone in his hand like a cross between Dr. Phil and a sales motivation speaker.

Bettencourt's message: If we let the answers out, we'll be giving the Democrats and the press ammunition with which to define the Republican candidates right down to which house of worship they attend (which was one of the questions).

So they want to know where their candidates stand on the issues that matter to them, but they'd rather not let the rest of us know, because it might make them look like a bunch of kooks. Never mind that they've done this before, and have especially used those questionnaire answers in the past to alert Republican voters about gay candidates so they won't accidentally vote for them. This year, they're (rightfully) worried about losing countywide races, and they know that their positions on issues won't help them in that regard. And so they obfuscate. I don't think I could define them any better than their own actions just did.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on February 13, 2008 to Election 2008