Time for adult leadership at county GOP

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus just released a 100-page report on how the Republican Party can attempt to win back the large swaths of the electorate that has abandoned it over the last few election cycles.

The report contains discussion of the party’s posture towards women and minority voters, how young voters view the party and where the party has been deficient in its use of technology and social media.

But no matter what the party does on Twitter and Facebook, it will continue to be viewed as a bastion of angry cranks if outbursts like the one that occurred in yesterday’s state House Appropriations Committee are tolerated.

Apparently Maricopa GOP Chairman A.J. LaFaro didn’t get the Priebus memo. He needs to be consigned to the kiddie table.

For a county party chairman to use his platform for what was supposed to be a discussion on policy to instead blast a Republican governor is offensive enough. But to use such outrageous, unhinged rhetoric is an embarrassment to the entire party structure.

I commend House Speaker Andy Tobin for swiftly condemning LaFaro and calling for his resignation. Gov. Brewer is a good and decent person. No one deserves that sort of treatment, especially her.

Aside from LaFaro’s rhetoric, the hearing was five hours of substantive, thoughtful discussion.

I know the GOP (I am a Republican for those keeping score at home) is better than what was displayed yesterday by one barely-relevant party poo-bah. But that will become an increasingly more difficult case to be made if scenes like the one yesterday are not forcefully condemned.