Vetting.
It’s a word that many people do not understand and do not feel the need to think about. Most of us Osage Countians had not spent much time thinking about vetting until a couple of years ago.
That’s about the same time Linda and Craig Rantz moved here from Seattle, Washington, and the Osage County Republican Central Committee, which they joined, started requiring that Republican candidates be vetted before the committee would give the person permission to run for county office on the Republican ballot.
Most of the Republican candidates that have filed to run for office in the August 31 primary have refused to vet.
In return the Republican committee says they are not allowed to run for office and should not be allowed to be on the Republican ballot. The Osage County Republican County Clerk Brooke Dudenhoeffer has taken a tremendous amount of grief from the committee but says the candidates that filed in her office WILL be on the ballot. GOOD FOR HER!!
In the case of Presiding Commissioner Darryl Griffin, his $100 bill for a filing fee has been returned to him from the Republican committee, as has his check for the same amount. The committee says Griffin has not properly filed for office. What Griffin has done is follow essentially the same procedure candidates have used since Missouri became a state 205 years ago.
Questions on the 9-page vetting survey include subjects such as Obamacare, abortion, practices of the EPA and the IRS, eminent domain, the United Nations and NATO. Also questions about illegal aliens, the Missouri Plan for the Selection of Judges, education and much, much more.
One questions asks: “Should mail-in voting be expanded to six weeks to ensure that all who want to vote get the right to vote?”
Another agree or disagree question asks “Vaccine mandates are a necessary evil to minimize and lessen the chance of pandemics, but should the mandate also include exemptions for religious reasons?” Is this a trick question or what? And why in the world do I have to know that to run for the county Republican committee?
Something is very wrong here. In an article in last week’s Unterrified Democrat, Linda Rantz said that not vetting candidates would soon cause our democracy to crumble. My thought is, if they continue with the vetting crap, there won’t be any candidates willing to run.
Then what, Linda?
Jerry Voss
Candidate for the Osage County Republican Central Committee, Crawford Township
