Mark Small

Until the GOP State convention this summer adopts a platform, any issues to consider for the platform are subject to the free market of ideas. 9/22

2. Under the Party’s Rules (Rules 1-12, 1-24, and 1-25), I am a bona fide Republican. 10/22

3. Bales either misunderstands or is ignorant of GOP’s history. Simply because people of his and Reverend Beckwith’s ilk hijacked GOP after a century-and-a-half - with brief exceptions - as progressive does not mean they have a propriety claim to GOP 11/22

Their hostile takeover of a corporation, devoid of ideological restrictions - as I said before, Machiavelli would have loved it - did not change the GOP’s raison d’etre. 12/22

4. Perhaps Mr Bales is ignorant of the fact that, until relatively recently, both “major” political parties had conservative & liberal wings. Perhaps he simply wants to ignore this fact. History can be a bummer for those on the wrong side of history. 13/22

The populist sentiment redolent in my two opponents’ stands reared its head before; 2020 is the centennial of the arrival in Indiana of D.C. Stephenson. That is a matter of history chronicled quite well by Irving Leibowitz in “My Indiana,” 1964 ed. 14/22

KKK Imperial Wizard gave Stephenson job of organizing KKK in Indiana, specifically for 1922 elections Tho KKK principally backed Republicans (because they were generally in control), Stephenson crossed party lines 2 support some Democrats. Id., pp. 192-93. 15/22

If Mr Bales and Rev Beckwith find my allusion to KKK offensive, they are free to repudiate KKK, its followers and its beliefs. And let me be clear - I repudiate KKK, any who believe in its messages steeped in hatred and its cowardice. 16/22