Last night, I walked to Staple’s to pick up some office supplies. Our urban planners went to great lengths to make Staple’s pedestrian-friendly by requiring a steep retaining wall to be built next to the sidewalk. Progressives refer to it as “The Great Wall of Merrimon.” Nobody likes it, but it “synergizes” a “New Urban Feel” for “our community.” It embraces the look the Progressives will probably succeed in forcing on all property owners up and down Merrimon Avenue with a new zoning overlay next month.

Anyway, as I was walking home, I heard a girl pulling out of a carniverous fast food drive-thru speaking disparagingly of Councilman Jan Davis on her phone. It was the third time I had heard somebody bad-mouth Davis recently. Most of you have probably never heard of Davis, because he has sort of a George Washington, laissez-faire style of leadership. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and he apologizes profusely anytime he takes a stance. The problem with Davis is the Progressives are on the campaign trail for his seat on city council.

During last year’s campaign season, supporters of Dr. Carl Mumpower who attended a Bryan Freeborn fundraiser said Freeborn was telling those in attendance that incumbent Dr. Carl Mumpower got drunk every night. Robin Cape told merchants on Lexington Avenue that mayoral candidate Mayor Worley was part of a conspiracy to pull them out of business, by blackmail if need be. After the election, many people said they supported Cape because she was their friend and Mumpower was a $^%@.

Libel and mudslinging aside, we have partisan problems here. The Republicans have a fabulous platform, if only they’d stick to it. The Libertarians had an even better one, demonstrating perspicacity into the shenanigans of power plays as well as espousing ideals. That was before local Libertarian leader Carl Milsted gutted the national platform in the “Portland Purge.” The Democrats have never had a principled leg to stand on, with a platform that espouses decadence, depravity, centralizing power in the hands of the faceless collective, and kissing up to special interests.

The Republican scene was dying when I re-entered local politics about four years ago. Some good souls with integrity who refused to fight dirty won over my support for their cause, but there were only about ten of us around, and only four with any energy for legwork. Many of the high-ranking Republicans in the local GOP, including some of their candidates, were Democrats a year or two ago.

Then, it was probably some Democrat operative who convinced the local GOPs to get all over the illegal immigration issue for the 2006 elections. Well-meaning members of the party went down in a blaze of fire as they publicly pronounced that the little brown people were coming here with diseases and habits and causing all kinds of traffic accidents.

I wish it could be the Democrats who were taking the hit for their love of communist tactics, but things human tend to resolve themselves via conflict avoidance rather than standing up for principles. It’s the little guy who won’t fight back that gets stepped on in the scramble to the top of the heap. And so it is that cowering from the disapproval of the tyranny of the Democrat majority, the reformers are after the handful of principled Republicans, who are all now down for the count. The Libertarians, of course, were decertified by the Republicans and Democrats who make the ballot access laws.

Recently, Milsted joined the Republican party with fanfare and the stated objective of siphoning Democrats who oppose the War on Terror and want to legalize drugs into the Republican Party. He also unveiled Operation Republican Takeover. By supporting Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, Milsted hopes to use the Republican Party to create what he could not get the Libertarian Party to be: a vehicle for reform. The local Libertarians, as a general rule, have started the bandwagon rolling, and lots of Democrats and Unaffiliateds are hopping aboard.

Now, I agree that both parties have failed in reversing the trend of transferring more power to tax-and-spend government, and something must be done. But I am gravely concerned about the ORT’s course of action.

Paul has always impressed me as a conspiracy buff, and I’m afraid of putting that mindset in charge of the country. I’ve said before, as much as I hate stiff-suit baby kissing, I would prefer to vote for hairspray and painted smiles than Paul.

I don’t think Paul is electable, and by pulling liberty-loving Democrats out of their party, ORT is going to leave a greater percentage of those seduced by tyrannical ambitions behind to vote for Hillary in the primary. Then, in the general election, the Paul supporters will have to decide between the pro-war, anti-drug Republican candidate and the socialist-pandering “tyrant extraordinaire” (at least that’s what people I know who know Hillary call her).

Milsted is one of the most intelligent people I have had the privilege of meeting. He knows how to pull off a coup of national proportions. I regret that my recent schedule has not afforded me a chance to talk to him more about where he is going with this, but as of today, the plan is not making one bit of sense to me.