Ms. Shay has shown herself to be a very strong and capable leader and quite fitting with the party as they have developed over the past few months. Recently she has shown her true nature on her social networking sites and her personality has really been shown fully true.
One example is this little gem which was posted recently on Facebook:
Specifically, a thread where one of her friends posts that “Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist… Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals,” and Shay responds eight minutes later with: “You tell em Eric! lol.”
“This is an outrage and I CAN NOT believe this nation has him as our leader! It makes me sick!” She posted a few minutes later: “My disdain for Obama is directly proportionate for his disdain of this country.”
From The Daily Beast: After this showed up several Young Republican colleagues urged Shay to remove herself from the election at the group’s convention in Indianapolis—a request Shay, the favorite going in to the vote, has pointedly refused. Instead, she said that she was responding to an earlier post from her friend, and labeled criticism against her “political attacks” which “proves that my opponents will stoop to the lowest levels to steal this election from the jaws of victory.”
But, this is not the first time she has posted such stuff, so her saying that this is just in response to a friend just doesn't wash.
Now, The Daily Beast has obtained more troubling details about her online musings—despite clear attempts by Shay to scrub her social-networking pages clean. Specifically:
* In October 2008, in the wake of news that an effigy of Sarah Palin was being hung outside an affluent Hollywood home as an offensive Halloween decoration, Shay replied, returning to the “LOL” style that she employed after the “coons” comment: “What no ‘Obama in a noose? Come on now, its just freedome [sic] of speech, no one in Atlanta would take that wrong! Lol.”
She picked up the thread again the next morning with a clarification and a new insight. “Apparently I could not spell last night. I am wondering if the guys with the Palin noose would care if we had a bunch of homosexuals in a noose.”
* Posting and endorsing a conspiracy-theory video that attempts to prove that Obama believes he can only “ensure his own salvation” and “fate” if he helps African Americans above whites, complete with Barnum-esque captions (“LISTEN AS HE ATTACKS WHITE PEOPLE”).
* Numerous posts in which Shay says that President Obama is “anti-American” and has “disdain of this country.”
But, this is not the worst part of this story really. Not only is she willing to smear the President with her racist talk, she is also not above smearing her opponents in order to win. Here are some of the things that she did to win the Leadership Role.
Here is one quote that I thought was very telling, “They just took a vote that may have set the party back 30 years,” said the co-founder of HipHopRepublican.com, Lenny McAllister, speaking from the floor of the Hyatt convention hall. “They just voted for a candidate who has a demonstrated tolerance for racial intolerance. She has joked about lynching and then claimed to be a victim. As a black man, I still don’t see what’s funny about that.”
Shades of Lee Atwater, remember him? This is what was put up against her main opponent who sounds like she might have had a head on her shoulders and may have been a reasonable person and someone that might have a future ahead of them. Her younger opponent, Rachel Hoff, became the reform alternative to Shay’s candidacy, but as Hoff got traction, an ugly online whisper campaign against her began. An anonymously-built temporary website mentions Hoff’s alleged involvement in improperly notarized absentee ballots for South Dakota Senator John Thune, but quickly stoops lower. Next comes the real scandal.. She, (Hoff) supports Civil Unions for same sex couples. Horror of horrors for the GOP.
Unfortunately, it doesn't end there with Hoff: As one of only a very few Young Republicans nationwide in favor of Civil Unions, Rachel Hoff attempted to convince the YRNF in 2007 to adopt a stance IN FAVOR OF CIVIL UNIONS. Although Rachel was not wearing a dress like her female counterparts, but her typical suite (sic), her attempt was met with ridicule and frustration. It was overwhelmingly shot down and left the idea in many delegates minds of: Why would Rachel Hoff support Civil Unions?
That's an actual quote from the web site.. with the Block letters and all caps and the suggested whisper of Why would she support civil unions. In other words, trying to suggest she might be "teh GAY" and we all know that would be the death knell for a Republican.
It sounds like a very contentious time was had for all. A lot of very scared people and some were afraid to vote the way they wanted because they couldn't vote privately. Yeah, no card check...lol
The process, it turned out, took about eight hours, and it was dominated by a parliamentary maneuver to cast ballots privately, rather a verbal roll call. (The irony that the “true conservative” slate was pulling a card check and fighting secret ballots, while they vociferously support mandatory secret ballots for unions, seemed lost on them.) Pandemonium ensued. Fistfights nearly broke out between the two camps, and a Hoff supporter from the Oklahoma delegation, who was handing out fliers protesting Shay’s Facebook comments, had to be physically removed. The high-stakes, high-tension vote reflected an awareness of its now-national implications, and the physical drama between the competing slates' supporters recalled the smoke-filled early-television convention of 1952, featuring skirmishes between Robert Taft's conservatives and Eisenhower's centrist supporters. “I believe that people were intimidated,” said North Carolina delegate John Ross. “Without a secret ballot, many people did not have the opportunity to vote their conscience.”
In the end, Shay, dressed in a sundress, trumped Hoff, who was dressed in a business suit. Calls for party unity were announced and ignored as many of Hoff’s slate then resigned their races rather than lose along factional lines or serve alongside Shay. Already there are talks of reformers, in protest, breaking off to form a new branch of the Young Republicans dedicated to restoring the GOP’s long-lost reputation as the Party of Lincoln. “I am not disappointed, I am not disgruntled–I am disheartened,” said Lenny McAllister. “As I look around the convention I see a room full of many honorable Republicans who want to move this party forward. But Audra Shay is not a leader, she is a divider. It’s a terrible message to send at a time when we have an African-American president and growing diversity across our country.”
So, ironically it seems they are just following the lead of the rest of the GOPers we saw at the Free Republic site just another bunch of racists and if she has her way that's going to continue. But, maybe the group there in the last will split off and start another party.
If they are smart they will. There is room for a group of people from the Republican party who are smarter, wiser and not racist. They are truly the party of Lincoln. That's who they should be following, not Reagan, not Bush and not this Audra Shay and the ones they have in D.C. now..
4 comments:
Well, with a record like that she sounds like a shoo-in as the leader of the Young Repulicans. I mean, if she were sane, tolerant and civil she wouldn't even be a Republican.
With all of Shay's racism on full display, I'm still trying to figure out why McAllister & Co. are still sticking with them. I am also an African American, and I find the republicans' attitudes toward LGBTs, blacks, hispanics, immigrabts, and others to be extremely repulsive. I couldn't sit in a room with them for 5 seconds to discuss anything. I'd want to punch them out, so I avoid them whenever possible. I guess some people just want to be called trailblazers.
Is this the best and brightest of youthful Republicans?? If so it is really scary. Apart from the infantile way of expressing herself and her racist comments, she can't even spell. I totally agree they should be following Lincoln. It's really sad what has happened to the Republican Party in our lifetimes. If you look back at Eisenhower, the man had honor and he had reasonable opinions on things. And he was apparently the last one.
"There is room for a group of people from the Republican party who are smarter, wiser and not racist."
They have any amount of room and precious few people meeting this description.
Why didn't they simply elect that woman from Pittsburgh who cut the backward "B" into her forehead?
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