As a preface, I must declare that I am a Reagan Republican, I am the recipient of a 2004 NRCC Ronald Reagan Republican Gold Medal for my support of the Republican Party during that election year, and that means that I am probably more big- R Republican than most "republicans" in this state. Thus are established my credentials on this issue. (So to all you Democrats out there, don't delude yourselves that I now a Democrat. I am not on your side, I loathe the Democrats' platform, and you will never find a convert in me. So stay the hell off my porch unless you want to speak to Mssrs. Smith and Wesson.)

That said, here goes: I am one angry big-R Republican.

I got a big flyer in the mail today from the Washington State Republican Party. The front cover reads, "THE DEMOCRATS HOPE YOU DON"T HAVE TIME TO VOTE."

I thought to myself, "...And this is news because...?"

Page two declares that "You can't stop the Democrats' liberal agenda unless you vote."

I then thought to myself, "Well, the WA GOP is a couple of steps behind the dance here. Our votes already mean diddly squat in this state, and the weenies that pass for Republicans in this state are easily as much to blame for that as Democrats."

The flyer then raised the point that Democrats want to raise taxes and increase spending- which is disingenuous of the current GOP leadership to point out. Last I looked, the "electable" Republicans have been enjoying their own little shopping spree and they squealed like pigs with dismay when we lowly taxpayers demonstrated the unmitigated gall to hold them accountable.

The flyer then raised the point that Democrats want to give illegal immigrants Social Security benefits. Then again, so did many of our valiant Republi-weenie torch-bearers. Oh, and let us not forget that these are the same "electable" Republicans who wanted to give illegal immigrants amnesty- and would have done so had not the conservative base threatened their immediate and permanent unemployment as soon as we got wind of it. (Funny, they seem to have forgotten about that little kerfuffle.)

The GOP finally warns the reader of this waste of postage that the Dems want to let felons vote. Well, stop the friggin' presses! How the hell do you think Democrats have been winning elections around here in the first place, Dumbo? But I digress.

Anyway, once I read past the fear-mongering, disingenuous horsedookie, I found the real point of the GOP's missive. And let me tell you, the irony is truly and exquisitely painful. The Washington State Republican Party wants me to defeat the corruption of the Democrats by voting by mail.

Read that again. I had to read it a few times to convince myself that what I was reading was, in fact, what I was reading.

The leadership of the Washington State Republican Party has just declared, for all and sundry to see, its own hopeless stupidity. Have they not been reading the news lately? Voting by mail has turned our elections into a breeding ground for voter fraud and made elections in Democrat-controlled metropolitan areas a virtual gimmie for liberal Democrats- especially in King County, where Ron "the Banker" Sims has set up his personal little corner of socialist pig heaven.

And the leadership of the Washington State Republican Party wants me to perpetuate the very practice that has made this state's elections a complete sloppy abortion. The leadership of the Washington State Republican Party wants me to help them more firmly entrench a system that is responsible for robbing thousands of legal state citizens of that most cherished commodity in a free society, their vote. The leadership of the Washington State Republican Party expects me to trust that my vote will be appropriately handled and counted in Ron Sims Country, even after the repeated demonstrations by Sims and Logan that they are the last SOBs I would trust with anything, especially my vote.

Let the reader be reminded that I held the leadership of the Washington State Republican Party in fairly low esteem before this latest travesty polluted my mailbox. Now, I am totally convinced that the state GOP leadership has got to be the most slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, spineless, hopelessly triple-O stupid (as in, STOOO-PID ) people to have slipped out from under the fence.

If any moral courage existed among the leaders of the Washington State Republican Party, this pamphlet would never have been printed. Instead, the party leaders would be encouraging voters to make the effort to get out to ballot drop-off sites and watch them record their votes. They would be encouraging voters to demand fair and clean elections in this craphole of a county and not shut up or sit down until it was realized. But instead, the leadership of the Washington State Republican Party chooses to tacitly admit their collusion. The GOP would rather trust the fate of their candidates to a corrupt system- and be defeated every time on the major positions, legally or not- than to stand up for one of the founding principles of their party: freedom from disenfranchisement. The Washington State Republican Party has officially turned into the party of the Jellyfish for the sake of electability.

As a twist of the knife in the back of their constituency, the footnote to the WS GOP's declaration of surrender repeated the pungent irony: "Your vote DOES make a difference. Sign up for absentee ballot today."

Washingtonians, here is YOUR Republican Party. You can have it.