The GOP: A Criminal Organization

[Jim Sagle]

Republican Party leaders fear being losers more than they fear being crooks, but regardless of how the election turns out, many of them are already both.
By William Marvel

Not without justification have many citizens come to regard their political representatives as crooks. Having won the comfortable emoluments of national office, professional politicians breed cynicism by dedicating themselves primarily to retaining that office, which requires them to serve masters whose interests collide with those of their constituents. Then there are the outright felons like “Buddy” Cianci of Providence and lesser miscreants like Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago, whose personal transgressions erode the public’s confidence.

In addition to such individual examples, we now have the spectacle of a national party organization that betrays the symptoms of syndicates defined under federal racketeering statutes. From the top down, the Republican Party reveals an increasingly systemic inclination to criminal conduct that first surfaced during the Nixon administration. Thirty years after Nixon’s resignation, his political heirs have fully revived that unethical spirit.

The theft of Democratic yard signs and the vandalizing of local Democratic offices reflect only the most absurd and petty manifestations of growing Republican disregard for the law. One step up from that is Gene Chandler’s periodic protestation of ignorance at the serial discovery of dubious conduct within his jurisdiction. For a quarter of a century or more he has been reelected as a Bartlett selectman and legislator on the assumption that he knows the ropes, but when FEMA chastised Bartlett for violating federal floodplain restrictions, Chandler pleaded ignorance. When, after years of complaints and accusations, corruption was detected within the Bartlett Police Department, Chandler again fell back on plausible deniability. Now, as a committee investigates his failure to report the prodigious proceeds of the annual bribe-a-thon renowned as Gene Chandler’s corn roast, Chandler--the Speaker of the New Hampshire House--asserts that he did not know the money should have been reported.

The conviction of two Republican henchmen for interference with the 2002 U.S. Senate race in this state takes us one more link up the chain of corruption. Charles McGee, former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, has pleaded guilty to jamming Democratic Party phone lines on election day in 2002, preventing the party from prodding its voters to the polls. With co-conspirator Allen Raymond, a GOP consultant, McGee’s felony manipulation probably robbed Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of victory and helped keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands. McGee has said that “a visiting official from a national political organization” assisted him in recruiting for this criminal activity, and that a “high-ranking official in the New Hampshire Republican State Committee” authorized the phone jamming.

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William Marvel is a freelance writer in New Hampshire and served in the U.S. Army from 1968-1971. His many books include the award-winning Andersonville: The Last Depot/ and Lee’s Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox. You can send your comments to [e-mail]

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