President’s Message Oct 2017
By Phil Orenstein
Some say the glass is half full, some say half empty. I choose the positive. I say it’s half full, we are on track to winning elections, and our actions, words and prayers to elect strong Republicans, are making a difference!
Republicans are a minority group in New York City. Outgunned, outnumbered, and hunkered down in our foxholes, we Republicans forgot what winning is all about. We are engaged in a battle for the soul of America, and winning the battle of ideas means winning elections.
This battle of ideas, which in our history took the form of the slave system versus a free market society, began when the founders of the Republican Party met in 1856, in Philadelphia. They met where the U.S. Constitution was written, in order to restore it, return to its foundational principles, and to abolish the deep-rooted slavery system of the South, championed by the Democrats, which was spreading North and to new territories in the West.
The city’s statues and monuments are being threatened with elimination, including the iconic Christopher Columbus statue at Columbus Circle, since Mayor de Blasio formed an advisory commission to “address monuments seen as oppressive.” Now a throng of vandals has appeared defacing our monuments, including the Christopher Columbus statue in Central Park which was vandalized, the destruction of the statue of Francis Scott Key, who wrote our beloved National Anthem, and many others. 
