By Eric Parker
When delegates at the 2022 Idaho Republican Convention overwhelmingly selected Dorothy Moon to be the next State Chair, they chose her partially due to her stance on party platform adherence. Moon was quickly labeled a “gatekeeper,” “tyrant,” and “dictator” by long-time party insiders who supported the outgoing State Chair, Tom Luna.
Over the last two years, Moon’s opponents went several steps further with their criticism and accused her of allowing “Nazis” into the Idaho Republican Party. Hired guns even traveled around the state working with groups like the Farm Bureau to hold secret meetings where they gave presentations to rooms full of carefully selected Republicans, making the argument that “white supremacists” were taking over the party. These political operatives and establishment Republicans presented their solution, the only solution, a final solution, if you will: Ranked Choice Voting and Open Primaries.
Proponents of this radical approach to conducting elections are attempting to scare regular Idahoans with exaggerated claims because they can’t sell their risky and confusing proposition based on its merits.
Mary Souza, the ‘sour grapes’ vote splitter who is a representative of the neo-progressive wing of the Republican Party, is one of the leading establishment voices who regularly accuse Moon and conservative Idahoans across the state of being extremists. Now Souza is running for State Chair at this week’s Idaho Republican Convention.
Souza has spent the last two years gaslighting Idahoans into thinking supremacists are successfully taking over the party and Dorothy Moon is allowing it. The reality is that her State Chair candidacy is actually about feeding her ego and avenging her distant third place finish during the Republican Secretary of State primary contest in 2022. Souza has no interest in party unity or civility or promoting conservative Republican values; she wants to purge anyone from the party who questions her progressive beliefs or who has gotten in the way of her ambitions over the years.
I agree with Moon on the importance of party platform adherence. The Republican Party is a private club built around free association. For free association to work, there must be ideological congruency. The litmus test for that congruency is the party platform. You can associate with the club if you agree with the platform. Do you believe in equal rights, equal justice, and equal opportunity? What about our traditional culture and safeguarding our identity as a free people? Do you believe in American exceptionalism? Does life begin at conception? These are simple questions that most Republicans can agree on how to answer.
I’m expecting to witness a lot of dirty tricks at this week’s Idaho Republican Convention in Coeur d’Alene, with the old guard using misinformation and slander in their attempt to retake control of the party. What we need to remember is that Dorothy Moon doesn’t get to say who is a Republican, and neither does Mary Souza. The grassroots of the Republican Party – the delegates who attend the convention – vote on the party platform. When Souza and her allies accuse principled Republicans of being extremists or supremacists, she’s directly insulting the grassroots of the party and the delegates who will choose the next State Chair.
Convention delegates shouldn’t allow Souza and her allies to manipulate their way into a position of power so that they can weaken the party through dangerous ideas like Ranked Choice Voting and Open Primaries. Voters sent a strong message during the May 2024 Primary Election about the kind of Republican Party that they want, and that’s a party committed to conservative principles.
Eric Parker is the State Committeeman for the Blaine County Republican Central Committee.
