After Decrying 'Ron Paul Libertarians' in GOP, Lynne Torgerson Ends Campaign for Congress
Her new Christians United group 'may make some peoples' heads explode'
A day after slamming Republican delegates in Minnesota's Fifth District as "Ron Paul Libertarians," GOP candidate Lynne Torgerson said she is leaving the race for the seat in Congress occupied by three-term DFL incumbent Keith Ellison.
"No, I am not going to continue running in this election cycle," Torgerson wrote in an email to Fridley Patch Tuesday. "The Party is free to fully support Chris Fields."
Fields is the rival Republican candidate who won the backing of Fifth District party delegates on the first ballot at their convention Saturday.
Not Done Yet
"By the way, I am not done yet . . . just going to have some fun for awhile," Torgerson said Tuesday. She is forming a new organization:
I recently founded Christian[s] United in Politics, although it is not yet fully operational. The purpose of this organization is toget people with the right values, conservative Christian values, to take leadership roles in political party(ies), run for and be electedto political offices of all levels, and back candidates who have the right values. Christians United in Politics stands for:
- Pro Life, and back Life with legislation
- Oppose gay rights legislation
- Pro Israel
- Take care of the earth
- Strong work ethic, yet take care of the poor
- Stop radical Islamism
We will probably meet 1 time per month in the 5th Congressional District. Candidates that we expect to support are those whovocally and obviously support these values. We are not going to support candidate who hide their positions, even if they support these values. No one can rally around a position that is not stated and no one can be rallied to support a non-stated position. Further, setting forth a position one, strengthens it just by stating it, and, will draw like minded people to support that position. There are many conservative Christians in this district and they need someone to draw them into politics. I wish to do that. If these people do not come forward, the right values will not be represented by those in political office. Conservative Christians must come forward. They cannot just stay home and pray. If people just stayed home and prayed for an income, and did notgo to work, they would have no income. The same principle applies in politics. People must be willing to attend political meetings a couple times per month, and take leadership positions in the political party(ies). We are Political Christians. I understand that that may make some peoples' heads explode. Lol.
Past Paul Problems
Torgerson has a history of running as a candidate within the Republican and Independence parties, as well as as an independent.
In 2008, the Minneapolis criminal-defense attorney unsuccessfully sought election as an independent to the Minnesota House of Representatives in District 59A. Republican delegates endorsed Felix Montez in that race; the Independence Party candidate, David DeGrio, told the Minnesota Independent he ran in part to keep her views out of the IP. (Incumbent DFLer Diane Loeffler won the election with 13,785 votes; Montez had 2,530, Torgerson 1,238 and DeGrio 723.
Torgerson's rivalry with supporters of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul goes back at least that far. Carlton Crawford, then chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota’s Fifth District committee, told the Minnesota Independent that Torgerson failed to get the Republican Party endorsement because delegates favored someone more in line with Paul’s 2008 presidential candidacy. By email, Crawford said:
Felix Montez associated his campaign with the Ron Paul movement. I don’t think Ms. Torgerson’s defeat had much to do with the strengths or weaknesses of her campaign (or for that matter of Mr. Montez). She simply was not part of the movement that happened to be steering local Republican politics at the time.
Religious Rhetoric
In the 2010 election cycle, Torgerson took on Ellison for the first time, running from the outset as an independent. She shook off criticism that her views on Islam's influence in America are extreme:
“I think we as Americans are very tolerant. I’m very tolerant,” Torgerson told the Minnesota Independent in 2009. “There’s a problem of a good number of Muslims being intolerant. … They need to become tolerant of us.”
Torgerson brought Ellison's religious faith—he was the first Muslim elected to Congress—into her campaign again when she announced last September:
It is important ... to support our U.S. Constitution. I think I still need to expose Keith Ellison for being a radical Islamist.
I do believe that he says he does eventually want to replace the U.S. Constitution with Sharia law. I recently had an opportunity to ask him in public what he believed to be supreme, the U.S. Constitution or Sharia law.
He evaded the question. He refuses to state that the U.S. Constitution should be supreme over sharia law, which is to me quite surprising.
He talked about how the Constitution has been amended and it appears that he would amend the Constitution to incorporate Sharia law.
The issue had already garnered Torgerson national television exposure in an interview last summer with Al Sharpton on MSNBC.
With Torgerson out of the race, another candidate remains who has offered heated rhetoric on Islam. DFLer Gary Boisclair's graphic online-only campaign videos have featured gruesome imagery along with an anti-Muslim message.
Theravaida Spookinator
2:11 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Good riddance.
Brian Ritters
2:20 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
She's a nut job.
Chet McAteer
9:57 am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Her Blog read like an issue of The Onion...
Mike Hoag
11:00 pm on Thursday, April 19, 2012
Right on the money, Brian.
Julian Alien
2:24 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Let the Neo cons form their own party,as long as they get out of the Republican party I am satisfied.Jesus would never vote for war.
Greg
2:56 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Lynne obviously doesn't resonate with people in our District or with the rest of the country because she lacks a clear ideology based on Constitutional principles. She segregates and lobby's for groups based on religion and completely misses a values based vision for the liberty philosophy. Her heart might be in the right place in trying to make a difference but her brain is in the mud in terms of limited government and Constitutional principles.
Dean Carlson
3:01 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
My God. Ms.Torgerson, Rep Ellison has been in office what 6 years? Tell me one thing, just one, that Ellison has done that would favor a radical islamic agenda. Are you for real or just hoping no one is paying attention?
PaulC
3:14 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Clearly the voters in her district aren't buying what she's peddling.
Julian Alien
3:17 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Like Santorum in Pennsylvania.
Rob Hanbury
3:22 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
I don't see how Ron Pauls stances clash with the Republican Party. What's with all the decisiveness? If obeying the constitution is the priority, why is there any conflict?
Theravaida Spookinator
5:04 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Conflict is there because people like her & establishment GOP HATE the US Constitution. Obeying the constitution is NOT their priority. But are too scared to admit it in those words, so beat around the bush with crap language in their agenda. They're the biggest socialist, anti-American bunch you can find.
They HATE everything about principles under which our country was founded.
juliette
3:40 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
hilarious. and it just keeps coming and coming! she's like a living legend; like a yeti of awkwardness, like some bottomless fountain of lulz. ahhh, the thanks we owe 'this other lady' for all the laughs.
juliette
3:40 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
we all owe ya one, lynne
Daniel Barnes
3:55 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Don't let the door hit ya on the way yout.
Howard Franklin
4:55 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Anybody with her mentality should stay the hell out of politics. I'm happy the massive majority of voters seemed to agree. She needs to take an honest look in the mirror and realize that she represents the very extremism she accuses others (Muslims) of having.
David Croce
5:38 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Lynne if by chance you're reading this let me give you some advice. Search out the progressive movement during the Wilson administration and then do research into the foreign policy of our founding fathers and the Christian Just War Principles. My guess and my hope is that you like a lot of other conservative America lovers and freedom lovers and Christians all over this country will realize that the foreign policy of today among most so called conservatives who are really new style conservatives (neocons) fall more in line with progressives like Wilson than they do the old style conservatives and the founding fathers and then you too will join the liberty movement. God bless and I wish you all the best
Donn
5:42 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
If sounds like what she wants to start is the Republican Party all over again. We have had enough of the Republican Party in is present form, your ideas are not new.
phyy
7:03 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Ooooh, no votes for little miss neocon... that has GOT to hurt... well, more like the truth should hurt that the country needs someone who is willing to cut your neocon/progressive bureaucratic slavery on us! Republicans today are twisted by neoconservative logic. You, Miss Lynne, are one of them.
9/11 was because of our bad foreign policy and meddling in the middle east, stop decrying the rest of the peaceful Muslims because of a tiny handful of angry militants that were bound to retaliate. Blowback, sweetie, blowback.
Old Poor Richard
8:01 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The neo-cons have stayed so far from conservatism that they don't know a conservative when they see one. They throw the word 'libertarian' (as if some kind of slur) at any Republican who isn't a deficit-spending, war-mongering, gun-grabbing, phone-tapping thug.
Ron Paul is saving the GOP from becoming the reactionary wing of the Democratic Party. He is steering the party towards the true conservative ideals of the Founding Fathers.
Julian Alien
9:05 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Mitch McConnell Failed.Her new Republican's United group 'may make some peoples' heads explode'.How about a new group.Independents and Democrats so pissed off they will vote for a Republican if they recognize the Constitution of the United States of America under penalty of treason.
Chet McAteer
9:58 am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Neo-Cons were never, ever conservative, they are nothing more than the Right side of the Leftist agenda, Trotskytes that infiltrated the Party back in the 70s, their agenda is Un-American, Un-Constitutional and Treasonous!
Savannah
11:34 pm on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
We don't need "extremists" like Torgerson in Congress! We are trying to remove them, not increase their numbers!
Why is Torgerson so bent on Keith Ellison's religion? Who cares? As long as he respects and follows the law of the land, the US Constitution, what does it matter?
Unlike all those so-called "Christian" Congress critters who are defiling our Constitution every time they vote yes on all those THOUSANDS of Unconstitutional laws!
George
6:03 am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
I was raised a Christian but the last thing we need is a bible thumper trying to legislate morality from Congress. It just doesn't work. There is supposed to be EQUAL justice in America, not pandering to and giving special rights to groups, I don't care if they are Christian groups. That just isn't right. America is great because of individual rights.
Chet McAteer
8:01 am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Torgerson made the egregious claim that the is a "Constitutional Expert", she is as much of an expert on the Constitution as Barack Obama is a "Constitutional Scholar". Her Neo-Con Trotskyte policies are no better than the Neo-Leftist Alinsky policies of Obama, they both stem from the view that the Government is ALL, they are both Statists in their ideologies.
It is high-time the American People lay claim on this government, restore the principles of actual Constitutional Order, limiting the role of the federal government to its proper place as a mere deputized agent of the States which created it through the Compact between them called the Constitution! This now illegitimate federal regime must be bridled once again with the weighted chains of the restrictive enumerated powers that it is authorized to exert and no more!
Patrick Tweezerman
9:07 am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Ms. Togerson needs to create her own party. She is disillusioned into thinking a fascist government is what Jesus would want. She doesn't realize it, but its a good thing Jesus gave himself for our sins because her entire platform is one right out of Hitler's playbook. She is blasphemous and a disgusting person. One should ask why someone with such an agenda that she wants to enforce on every person follow her way of life got into politics. Scary. She despise free choice, freedom of religion, and the desire to be responsible for one's self. Don't go away mad Ms. Togerson, just go away.
Johannes58
11:06 am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Ron Paul because he wants freedom for all for us! Real freedom! Not that Schtuff that most politicians have been peddling...
David Haines
8:41 am on Thursday, April 19, 2012
I love the comments on here! My community makes me proud!
Dave P
11:03 am on Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Check out her Facebook page - all of 6 likes in 5 months:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christians-United-in-Politics/338669209490064
I second David Haines above - you commenters make me proud!
DaveP
PGH PA