Leo excited to watch Republican Party move beyond Bush administration

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Oregon delegate Greg Leo says he is seeing the Republican Party turn over a new leaf this week at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

“I haven’t been this excited about what Republicans have been doing since 1980. The effort to distance ourselves from the most unpopular president in history is turning over a new branch,” Leo said. “The neo-cons were interested in a different role in the world for us, where the U.S. would use its military and economic power to spread democracy.”

Leo, who is attending his first convention since he served as a Republican delegate in 1980, said the party is bringing different, more centrist ideas on foreign policy to the forefront. He said that John McCain was the candidate that could revamp America’s foreign policy.

“We need to pick our fights internationally, and use American power as a symbol that we support Democracy,” Leo said. “Carry the big stick, instead of swinging the big stick.”

Leo also said that McCain would be able to heal a divided country at home to unite behind a president.

“John McCain knows how to build bridges with people from the other point of view,” Leo said.

Part of that starts with McCain’s choice of running mate Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska), a decision that Leo says was a brilliant move.

“If you go to a small town in Oregon, there are always one or two women who are there working behind the scenes, on the city council, holding things together,” he said. “To see a woman in this kind of background, you don’t have to be in the Senate for 30 years to have that experience.”

But to grab Oregon’s seven electoral votes, McCain is going to have to overcome a massive Democratic voter registration drive that has added close to 125,000 additional Democrats to the rolls since the beginning of the year. Leo thinks it can be done.

“Oregon is a place that loves new ideas; I think that our innovation is going to be attractive to Oregon” he said. “I think of Obama’s support like I think of the Platte River: A mile wide and an inch deep.  I’m not sure how many of these people will vote when the time comes.”