GOProud to Shut Down

Having once been a Republican activist and a precinct seat holder on the City Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach I have always thought that the Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud were delusional if they seriously thought the GOP could be "changed from within."   To me, their entire relationship is akin to that of an abused spouse who continues to go back to the abusive spouse out of lack of self-esteem or some other psychological need that is detached from objective reality.  I have long maintained that the only way the GOP will change is through successive electoral defeats that force it into a permanent minority status.  A post at The Bilerico Project looks at GOProud's final succumbing to reality and disbanding.   Here are excerpts:

In 2004, GOProud was born when Jimmy LaSalvia and Chris Barron split from the Log Cabin Republicans. Fast forward to today: both have stepped down from the organization and it is shutting down for good.

GOProud has been mired by several controversies since the departure of their founders. The group has bled donors since the widely reported departure of Jimmy LaSalvia from the Republican Party earlier this year. His departure was so loud, but it focused primarily on his shift of ideology and thus projected a new image onto the organization that he helped found. 

Finding it difficult to continue without securing more funding, GOProud will be shutting down immediately - an homage to an era gone by. The shuttering is undoubtedly necessary as the organization's full effectiveness has been tarnished. 

The organization may rebrand and regroup later, but for now, the organization will no longer be functioning. Co-director Matthew Bechstein stated in an interview that the "brand is broken" and a rebrand is necessary. 

It will be interesting to see if this potential organization will be solely focused on the Republican Party or if it will start to appeal to a broader range of conservative ideologies, such as the Libertarian Party.