At its heart, RTB has a conservative mission

Gayle Gerson

Letter to the Editor

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

June 6, 2024

In response to Ms. Skalla’s letter to the editor in recent days about the Restore the Balance (RTB) organization, I would quote a famous movie line: “What we have here is a failure to communicate”.

Ms. Skalla accuses RTB of being unfair to “conservative” candidates. If you read the RTB pledge that she congratulates many “conservative” candidates for ignoring, you will find that it is based on the conservative principles of productive civil discourse, decision-making based on facts and putting the common good above partisan concerns, to name a few. There is nothing at all controversial about the RTB pledge if you believe in the democratic principles that have kept our country great until now. Please read it for yourself at restorethebalance. org. The website also publishes the unedited responses of all candidates who have replied to RTB questionnaires.

However, many self-titled “conservatives” are not conservative at all because they believe or purport to believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. This bears repeating over and over: The 2020 presidential election WAS NOT STOLEN. There are no FACTS anywhere, across multiple jurisdictions, adjudicated in many courtrooms throughout our country that support this faulty conclusion. To believe that it was stolen is not a conservative position; it is an extremist position.

RTB is a grassroots organization formed in response to that extremism. This extremism almost brought the peaceful transfer of power in our country to its knees. RTB members (currently numbering 2,906 concerned individuals) are merely trying to help our nation recover from that by calling out extremist positions of our local candidates. And for that effort, we are deeply conservative.

GAYLE GERSON

RTB member and volunteer

Grand Junction