Republican chairman asks activist to step down

Now that civic activist Jason Sager has declared his intention to run for Congress, the chairman of the Republican Party of Hernando County said it's time for him to step down as president of his nonprofit educational group and refrain from holding public rallies such as Saturday's "tea party."
Chairman Blaise Ingoglia calls it a conflict of interest for Sager to use his leadership in the Department of Constitutional Protection (DCP), as well as the Hernando 9/12 Project, as a platform for his Congressional run.
Sager said Thursday he will step down as president of the 9/12 project, which is more political than the DCP. But he stressed he is not doing it because of Ingoglia.
On Oct. 22, Republican Sager announced for the first time to Hernando Today he would run against U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, and try to capture her District 5 seat in the 2010 primary.
Ingoglia said his groups were to be nonpartisan and a tool to educate people about the original intentions of the Founding Fathers and a strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution.
"It was an effort that I believed in," Ingoglia said in a letter to Sager this week. "It was an effort that many of us believed in. Your organization grew, in part, because of the anxiety towards this socialist agenda advanced by the Democratic leadership in Washington D.C. Your 'efforts' were supposed to be altruistic.
Ingoglia said Sager's participation in tea parties and rallies will distract people away from the educational purpose and urges him to turn over leadership of his group to a third party not involved in or perceived as being involved in his Congressional campaign.
"Stepping down is both the moral and the ethical thing to do," Ingoglia said, "Show the electorate that your motive, in forming the Hernando 9/12 Project and the DCP and organizing tea parties, was not self-serving.
"You owe it to the process. You owe it to the people in your organization. You owe it to the people who believed that this endeavor was selfless, not self-serving."
Ingoglia said he wrote the letter on behalf of the Hernando County Republican Executive Committee.
Sager said he plans to step down as president of the Hernando 9/12 Project and turn operations over to a steering committee. He said he would still be a member but any future rallies would be decided by committee.
Sager said that decision was in the works for a few weeks.
The Hernando 9/12 project is a local chapter of Fox News host Glenn Beck's efforts to return Americans to 12 essential values, including hard work and personal responsibility.
Sager said he will remain president of the DCP because it is merely an educational group and nonpartisan.
He calls Ingoglia's idea that he has misled his membership "absurd."
"I am no more misleading the public in regards to informing the electorate about the original intent of the Constitution than James Madison was when he, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers before he was elected the fourth President of the United States of America," Sager said.
Meanwhile, Sager said he is going ahead with his tea party, which will take place from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7 on the downtown courthouse steps and lawn.
He said the event will steer clear of politics. Instead, the rally will be more celebratory and feature educational and patriotic speeches and Christian entertainment.
Sager, a Hernando High graduate, has consistently said the DCP is nonpartisan and is a mix of education, politics and religion.
He said it's time for Republicans to return to the core values of its party.