Maine GOP apologizes for convention anti-union incident in school classroom

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/143328.html

5/13/10 By Kevin Miller BDN Staff

Maine Republican officials apologized Wednesday for an incident last week in which party faithful attending the state convention removed a pro-labor poster from a Portland middle school classroom and left behind GOP materials.

The incident involved a group of Knox County Republicans who, like hundreds of others attending the Republican state convention at the Portland Expo, had gathered Friday at a nearby middle school for county caucuses.

That same Knox County contingent later would lead a surprise campaign to replace the generic Republican Party platform with a new — and much more controversial — platform embodying many of the positions espoused by Tea Party activists.

But some Knox Republicans who gathered at King Middle School that Friday apparently were less than enthusiastic about the political overtones of some posters — some created by eighth-graders — and other materials they saw in the social studies classroom.

When the teacher, Paul Clifford, returned to his classroom Monday morning, he discovered that a collage depicting the history of the labor movement was missing. In its place, someone had left a bumper sticker reading: “Working People Vote Republican.”

Caucus members also apparently looked inside a closed cardboard box near Clifford’s desk that contained copies of the U.S. Constitution donated by the American Civil Liberties Union. Clifford later discovered a note left behind reading, “A Republican was here. What gives you the right to propagandize impressionable kids?” according to an account in the Portland Press Herald.

On Wednesday, Maine Republican Party Executive Director Christie-Lee McNally apologized to faculty and students at the school.

FULL story @ link.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. They should file theft charges.

:grr: