(We'll have more on Roper soon, but in the meantime I'm glad someone brought this front and center. In a nutshell, Roper is the hard right idealogue director of Vermont's branch of former GOP US House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Freedom Works organization. As John points out below, Roper is a regular on WDEV's True North program - a program that wallows regularly in many unfortunate extremes, including outright anti-gay bigotry. It's discouraging from the perspective that we'd like to move beyond such crap in Vermont, but on the other hand, having a self-parodying reactionary at the helm of the GOP will be helpful come election time... - promoted by odum)
If you want to learn about Roper's opinions, check him out Thursdays from 11-noon on WDEV.
State GOP picks education activist as chairman
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- The state Republican Party has chosen education activist Robert Roper as its new chairman. |
| Roper, of Stowe, said he used a forum before the Republican State Committee earlier this month to rally the Republican Party, praising the governor's call for a cap on general fund spending, and Republican lawmakers' efforts to repeal the statewide property tax that pays for education, pass a property taxpayer's bill of rights and bring Jessica's Law, which would restrict where paroled sex offenders could live, to the state.
"There's a lot of great stuff going on in the Statehouse and coming out of the governor's office," Roper said Saturday.
Roper, who competed against former state Rep. Alan Parent of St. Albans for the post, replaces former Chairman James Barnett, who resigned last month to join the budding presidential campaign of Arizona Sen. John McCain. Barnett held the post as a full-time job and fulfilled many of the responsibilities of the executive director.
Roper said he envisioned making both the chairman and executive director full-time jobs. An executive director has not yet been named.
Roper has served as Vermont director of Freedom Works, a national group dedicated to lower taxes and smaller government. He also helped run Republican Jack McMullen's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign against Democrat Patrick Leahy in 2004. |
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