To the Editor:

Like many others, my wife Marlene and I are concerned our national Republican Party has been purging its ranks of anyone who could be called “moderate” and leaving itself in the hands of extremists. So as lifelong Democrats, we were heartened to receive in September not one but two letters from Mitt Romney and the “Romney-Ryan team” asking for our support. Surely these letters, if serious, were a long-awaited sign of a rebirth of Republican moderation, bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle.

Well, we were wrong. The letters assumed we were Republicans, addressing Marlene as “one of our party’s most prominent members” and calling me “one of America’s most notable Republicans.” And the letters showed no retreat from the distinctly partisan Republican efforts at (1) causing the president to fail and (2) blaming the president for failing. Further, they asked for a “maximum personal contribution” of $2,500 (from Marlene) and $75,800 (from me), toward the election of Republican senators and congressmen as well as Romney and Ryan.