Tim Russert interviewing Ed Gillespie, "Meet the Press" TV Show, 9/7/03

Here’s the problem. Here’s the headline that greets people across the country. "Federal work force largest since 1990." Mr. Gillespie, you went up to New Hampshire and caused quite a stir. This is how the Manchester Union Leader, a conservative newspaper, described your visit:

Had there been any doubts about the direction the Republican Party is headed, they vanished last week when Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie visited New Hampshire. ...No longer does the Republican Party stand for shrinking the federal government, for scaling back its encroachment into the lives of Americans, or for carrying the banner of federalism into the political battles of the day.

You called the Union Leader; you sent them letters. They stand by your comments, and this is their second editorial:

We wanted to take this opportunity to assure Rush [Limbaugh] and everyone else that the editorial was and is 100 percent true. Over the course of an hour-long meeting with Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, we took great care to give him every opportunity to explain himself fully so that nothing could be misunderstood. The result was a surprisingly frank admission that the Republican Party defines "fiscal responsibility" as increasing the federal budget at "a slower rate of growth" than the Democrats (his words). We asked him three times to explain why President Bush and the Republican Congress have increased discretionary non-defense spending at such an alarming rate, and why the party has embraced the expansion of the federal government’s roles in education, agriculture and Great Society-era entitlement programs. "Those questions have been decided," he said. The public wants an expanded federal role in those areas, and the Republican Party at the highest levels has decided to give the public what it wants.