{"id":48051,"date":"2021-05-17T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=48051"},"modified":"2021-05-17T00:00:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T00:00:09","slug":"yes-welcome-them-but-no-need-to-embrace-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=48051","title":{"rendered":"Yes, welcome them, but no need to embrace them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image2033696_web1_AMA_Koski_GingerNelson_02.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-24859\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image2033696_web1_AMA_Koski_GingerNelson_02-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image2033696_web1_AMA_Koski_GingerNelson_02-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image2033696_web1_AMA_Koski_GingerNelson_02-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image2033696_web1_AMA_Koski_GingerNelson_02-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image2033696_web1_AMA_Koski_GingerNelson_02.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By John Kanelis<\/strong> \/ <a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>An earlier blog post compels me to make a declaration.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>no way at all<\/em> do I object to Amarillo (Texas) Mayor Ginger Nelson welcoming New Mexico Republicans to her city; the NM Republican Party took its annual conference across the state line because of objections to the state&#8217;s ongoing COVID pandemic protocols.<\/p>\n<p>Fine. Whatever they want to do is fine with me. That&#8217;s their call.<\/p>\n<p>Nor should it bother anyone in Amarillo, even if they disagree politically with the GOP, or the Democratic Party &#8230; any political organization on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Ginger Nelson&#8217;s welcoming of the New Mexico GOP conference crossed a couple of important lines.<\/p>\n<p>One line is that the mayor &#8212; by embracing the ideology expressed by the likes of Reps. Ronny Jackson (the former Navy admiral who moved to Amarillo to run for Congress) and Jim Jordan of Ohio &#8212; has thrown in with the nuttiest of the nut jobs of the current Republican Party. Nelson did not advertise herself as a 2020 election conspiracy theorist when she won re-election earlier this month. Now, though, she has aligned herself with those nut jobs. Jackson and Jordan stand among the few and the ridiculous in their view of Donald Trump&#8217;s Big Lie.<\/p>\n<p>The other line involves the non-partisan nature of her elected office. Her cuddling up to the GOP in this manner reminds of the time a 1990s candidate for Amarillo mayor, Mary Alice Brittain, sought to recruit &#8220;good Republicans&#8221; to vote for her over the incumbent mayor, Kel Seliger. I called Brittain out at the time for poisoning the non-partisan nature of the office she sought. The good news is that she <em>didn&#8217;t<\/em> win and has disappeared from the Texas Panhandle political grid.<\/p>\n<p>I shudder to think that Mayor Nelson, who I believe has done a stellar job as the city&#8217;s presiding elected official, is about to cross the line that separates her <em>non-partisan<\/em> duties from <em>partisan political hackery.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Please say it isn&#8217;t so, Mme. Mayor.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By John Kanelis \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com An earlier blog post compels me to make a declaration. In no way at all do I object to Amarillo (Texas) Mayor Ginger Nelson welcoming New Mexico Republicans to her city; the NM Republican Party took its annual conference across the state line because of objections to the state&#8217;s ongoing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=48051\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Yes, welcome them, but no need to embrace them<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7225,6754,1941],"class_list":["post-48051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-2020-election","tag-ginger-nelson","tag-gop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48051"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48053,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48051\/revisions\/48053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}