ARTICLES

Republican Redemption

TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC ASSUMES
CHAIRMANSHIP OF CALIFORNIA GOP

by George Neumayr

Dan Lungren's passionless gubernatorial campaign frustrated orthodox Catholics. Many now wonder if the ideologically adrift California GOP is still worth supporting. Such Catholics can take heart. Self-described "Irish Catholic" John McGraw, the new chairman of the California GOP, understands their disappointment and, in a recent interview with the San Francisco Faith, pledged to promote social conservatism with renewed vigor.

"The most important political issue by far is the abortion issue," says McGraw. "I don't care what anybody says... What the Republican party has failed to do in the last couple of years -- and this is quite obvious to most voters -- is really articulate a clear vision for this country. When we did that we were successful."

McGraw assumes the chairmanship formally in March. The new assignment makes him one of the three most prominent Republicans in the state, along with State Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush and Secretary of State Bill Jones.

A native of the Bay Area, the 36-year-old McGraw will perform his part-time duties without pay. He frankly admits that much of the job is unglamorous, consisting of "blocking and tackling" and worrying about mundane matters like "how many people the GOP got registered in Butte County." Still, with so many interview requests coming his way, the "media-averse" McGraw feels these days like the "spokesmodel" for the GOP.

McGraw, who lives in Menlo Park with his wife and four daughters, is a successful Silicon Valley businessman. After graduating from Creighton University in 1984, he returned to the Bay Area to found and run a succession of companies: Pacific Specialty Insurance Company, Western Service Corporation, Insweb, and Pacific Loan Administrators. He is presently the president of a computer software company in Santa Clara, Portola Dimensional Systems, named after Blessed Junipero Serra's military attache.

McGraw says without ambiguity that the "social issues, those nasty issues no one wants to talk about" motivated him to enter the rough-and-tumble world of GOP politics. At the age of 30, in fact, he first ran for GOP office, coming within 74 votes of defeating pro-choice Reagan Cabinet official John Herrington in a race for California GOP vice chairman.

McGraw's immediate plans as chairman include supporting a Defense of Marriage Act on the March California ballot. "I will be outspoken on that." Mcgraw calls San Francisco Archbishop William Levada's compromise with Willie Brown over domestic partners legislation a "huge mistake" and is appalled that Catholic institutions like the Jesuit University of San Francisco openly champion the homosexual agenda.

Catholic participation in politics is a subject of great interest to McGraw. He acknowledges with dismay that pro-abortion Catholic Gray Davis won an easy majority of the Catholic vote. "The vast majority of Catholics, empricially, are Democrats," thanks in part to vacillating bishops who permit their chanceries to operate like an "extension of the Democratic party."

"Quite frankly I never ever had any assistance from any Catholic bishops on any issue. I have worked extensively with a number of evangelical ministers on things, but I have never worked with any Catholic bishops."

"More than one time in my life... I have gone to Catholic churches and distributed the material about people's voting record on abortion. I have had numerous priests ask me what I was doing and after I told them they said, 'Well, you can't do this.' My personal view is that they should have joined in helping me pass it out."

McGraw stresses that "I don't want priests to be little Republican politicians," but believes that priests have a solemn duty to tell Catholics that "given the choice to vote for somebody who is pro-life or pro-choice, it is a serious moral issue if you vote for somebody who is pro-choice." The Seamless Garment theory of Catholic political participation, so prevalent at local chanceries, is "unadulterated garbage" and benefits pro-abortion Democrats at the expense of pro-life Republicans.

Bishops should withhold communion from Catholic politicians who facilitate the wicked and excommunicable offense of abortion, says McGraw. "Of course...How can they [be permitted] to go out an actively lobby for something that is fundamentally opposed to one of the the basic teachings of our Church?"

McGraw sees a comparison between the feckless post-Vatican II Church and the confused Republican party. "I can see a lot a parallels between the Church and my political life. When we don't stand for things in politics, we don't succeed. When we don't stand for things in the Church, we don't succeed."

"People like leadership and knowing that somebody is in charge and trying to do what is right." Nobody follows an uncertain trumpet, he says, noting that just as voters flee from a mushy Republican party, so vocations disappear in a mushy Church.

"I think the biggest problem with vocations today is that the Church [is] not standing for anything... That is not appealing... This namby-pamby stuff just doesn't work... Where do we see vocations? In the more orthodox and traditional dioceses. Bishop Bruskewitz has a ton of vocations. He is not namby-pamby about the Church's teachings."

As a GOP delegate, McGraw a year or so ago voted to withhold party funds from Republicans who support partial-birth abortion. Internal defectors in the Catholic Church, a "huge problem" says McGraw, deserve similar treatment. "I have run companies and you can't have every employee doing whatever they want because that is not good for anybody. We would never be able to get from point A to point B if everybody had their own agenda...There has to be a clearly articulated vision."

It is time for clarity and courage, says McGraw. And Christ is our greatest example: "Christ came down to this earth and he spent his whole life imposing his views on people." "Killing our babies" is the "issue of the century." "Compared to that, cutting taxes or any other issue pales in comparison."

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