Rand Paul is lone real Republican

To the editor:

I was 19 in 1954 when I rode in a segregated bus across the Florida panhandle. The bus was filled with visiting people, about two-thirds black and one-third white. My one uncomfortable moment was when a very old, white-haired black person was picked up at an intersection. He stood and visited with the driver, holding onto a chrome pole with his left hand and his Bible in his right hand. I felt I should offer him my seat, but under the circumstances of that time, I didn't. That was my experience of riding in the front of a segregated bus.

My experience of riding in the rear of a segregated bus didn't come until 60 years later. In April of 2014, I was driving home from the 1st District Republican Convention. This was the day all the district conventions voted out all the gains the Ron Paul people had made as a result of staying to the end of the caucuses in January of 2012 and getting places in the convention process.

Before the district conventions, Gov. Terry Branstad had begun the purge by forcing the resignation of the state co-chairman and the fundraiser.

The Republican Party talks of the big tent of the party that includes all. Not so. The real Republicans, who believe in small government, liberty and following the constitution, can ride in the bus, but we are to keep still and when we get to the polls we are to pile out and go in and vote for whoever the left of the party has nominated.

Rand Paul is the lone real Republican in the present list of candidates. Any of the others would be a continuation of what we have experienced from both parties for many decades.

Jim Whitford Sr.

Volga