Well my Conservative friends I think it is time we had a talk. About the Reagan Revolution. About the leftward drift of the Party. About Reagan Democrats. That's right. Reagan brought a lot of Democrats into the party. Remember the years of the Big Tent? You know the years when RINOs were welcomed, reluctantly, into the party for the sake of a governing majority?
So let me ask a simple question. What is the function of a political party? Easy question. With an easy answer. Get elected. OK. So how does a candidate get elected in a particular district? In a particular State? In the nation. Another easy question. A candidate gets elected by getting a majority in a district, in a State, in the Nation. A candidate has to have views more acceptable than his opponent's to get the all important majority. If the electorate leans left the winning candidate will also lean left. If the electorate leans right so will the candidate.
So why has the party drifted left? Pretty simple. That is how you win elections.
Broad based Republican coalitions are libertarian in essence.
I would have thought the Alan Keyes debacle in Illinois would have been a learning experience. Real Conservatives™ are not popular everywhere. So how do you get a governing majority if Real Conservatives™ are not universally popular? You are going to have to support the election of Conservatives who are less than pure. Sometimes much less. In fact in some places they may actually be more like Democrats. (does the current Mayor of New York ring a bell? - a Republican for gun control? The very idea....) The important thing is the R after the name. If philosophy was critically important then Rick Santorum could get elected anywhere. He can't. In fact he couldn't even get re-elected in Pennsylvania. 'Nother clue.
So are there any principles that can unite Republicans? A minimum set that all Republicans can support at least 55% of the time? (you are expecting perfection? from politicians? you ask too much.) I think there are.
0. Smaller government
1. Lower spending
2. Lower taxes
3. Strong National defense
That is it. Period. Every thing else can depend on the district you come from.
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/6763
Comments
Why has there been drift in the Republican Party? The key to success of any party has been its candidates. That's Politics 101. Good men and women willing to run. Most writers, pundits, critics, thinkers, doodlers, bloggers and party hacks tend to view their role in politics as helping to define the Global Concept of Correct Political Thinking. Have you ever attended a county central committee meeting? A state central committee meeting? They are hilarious.
Each central committee meeting is a chance for the grass-roots--the guy who is willing to go door-to-door for the Cause!--to unite around the latest Universal Goal for Mankind. I have a contact in my local democrat central committee, and the tales that come from those are hilarious, too. I had one exception to this rule, in 1978, when the new central committee in Lane county, which was led by a man--was it Mike O'Bryan?--whose stated goal was to elect Republicans to office. He was elected upon a wave of new Evangelical precinct committeemen, and quickly assured me that I not need worry about being shackled by the evangelical right in my pursuit in getting Republicans elected.
We had a frank and open discussion. This guy pretty much wowwed me.
Skip forward four years to the state central committee meeting. What a disaster. The amount of time and effort wasted trying to make sure that each of the planks of the evangelical wing were ensconsed within the party platform were mis-directed and ultimately politically disabling.
Now move forward to today. What part of our time, as Republicans, is spent in mutual mast********, in an attempt to define the Pure and Holy definition of what a Republican is? Compare that time to the amount of time spent going door-to-door seeking to identify your Republican neighbors, and the folks who define themselves as Independents who would become Republicans if they were asked? And who is spending time talking to folks who self-identify as Democrats but who have built a wall of Blue Dog Democrat identity and patiently wait for a re-occurance of common sense on the Left?
In many cases we have violated the first principles of leadership: we fail to do what we ask others to do. We lead through edict and principle. And it isn't that we need to simply volunteer. The Left doesn't rely solely upon its volunteers to project its view of the world. The Left has huge budgets and somehow they've gotten governments, state, local and federal, to pay the bills for their proselytizing. Just take a look at the amount of money given the environmental Left by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Billions of dollars are allocated to the Left by your state, local and federal government to "educate". Every year! These education campaigns are supported by public school teachers, local governing councils and boards, colleges and universities, state boards, state and federal agencies. The money is budgeted to "educate" and must be spent.
In the face of Republican inaction, and the reality of the billions of dollars being spent to minimilize the values of the Right, it's amazing to me that the Republican brand remains as strong as it is. This against the tocsin of Bigger Government, greater spending, higher taxes and a smaller commitment to national defense, expressed in the credo "Change!"
Perhaps all I am saying is that it's time for our own Surge. Showing a presence on the streets of your neighborhood or town. Asking people if they care that the goal of "Change!" is ill-defined and potentially disastrous?
Or do we remain, as writers, pundits, critics, thinkers, doodlers, bloggers and party hacks "leadership" which sees the task of physically doing something to grow the party distasteful? Are we unwilling to engage the rabble? Is that "not where my interests lie"? Are we Thomas Paine or Nathan Hale?
Many Republicans reject this. For example, those over at Ace's like Gabriel Malor. He was honest enough to state why. Government is how you force others to comport to your morality. It's that simple. Those who hold the reins of power make the rules. And get to enforce them on the rest of us.
That summed it up in a nut shell. Republicans are no different than Democrats in their lust for power. They may squabble over minutia but in the end they stand together in their belief in the saving grace of the state. The state is mother, the state is father. All hail the master state.
At this point the only hope left is another civil war. And that won't exactly be pretty.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Why has there been drift in the Republican Party? The key to success of any party has been its candidates. That's Politics 101. Good men and women willing to run. Most writers, pundits, critics, thinkers, doodlers, bloggers and party hacks tend to view their role in politics as helping to define the Global Concept of Correct Political Thinking. Have you ever attended a county central committee meeting? A state central committee meeting? They are hilarious.
Each central committee meeting is a chance for the grass-roots--the guy who is willing to go door-to-door for the Cause!--to unite around the latest Universal Goal for Mankind. I have a contact in my local democrat central committee, and the tales that come from those are hilarious, too. I had one exception to this rule, in 1978, when the new central committee in Lane county, which was led by a man--was it Mike O'Bryan?--whose stated goal was to elect Republicans to office. He was elected upon a wave of new Evangelical precinct committeemen, and quickly assured me that I not need worry about being shackled by the evangelical right in my pursuit in getting Republicans elected.
We had a frank and open discussion. This guy pretty much wowwed me.
Skip forward four years to the state central committee meeting. What a disaster. The amount of time and effort wasted trying to make sure that each of the planks of the evangelical wing were ensconsed within the party platform were mis-directed and ultimately politically disabling.
Now move forward to today. What part of our time, as Republicans, is spent in mutual mast********, in an attempt to define the Pure and Holy definition of what a Republican is? Compare that time to the amount of time spent going door-to-door seeking to identify your Republican neighbors, and the folks who define themselves as Independents who would become Republicans if they were asked? And who is spending time talking to folks who self-identify as Democrats but who have built a wall of Blue Dog Democrat identity and patiently wait for a re-occurance of common sense on the Left?
In many cases we have violated the first principles of leadership: we fail to do what we ask others to do. We lead through edict and principle. And it isn't that we need to simply volunteer. The Left doesn't rely solely upon its volunteers to project its view of the world. The Left has huge budgets and somehow they've gotten governments, state, local and federal, to pay the bills for their proselytizing. Just take a look at the amount of money given the environmental Left by the Environmental Protection Agency.
http://tinyurl.com/6kjt4a (Scroll down to "Each year..." pdf file attached.)
Billions of dollars are allocated to the Left by your state, local and federal government to "educate". Every year! These education campaigns are supported by public school teachers, local governing councils and boards, colleges and universities, state boards, state and federal agencies. The money is budgeted to "educate" and must be spent.
In the face of Republican inaction, and the reality of the billions of dollars being spent to minimilize the values of the Right, it's amazing to me that the Republican brand remains as strong as it is. This against the tocsin of Bigger Government, greater spending, higher taxes and a smaller commitment to national defense, expressed in the credo "Change!"
Perhaps all I am saying is that it's time for our own Surge. Showing a presence on the streets of your neighborhood or town. Asking people if they care that the goal of "Change!" is ill-defined and potentially disastrous?
Or do we remain, as writers, pundits, critics, thinkers, doodlers, bloggers and party hacks "leadership" which sees the task of physically doing something to grow the party distasteful? Are we unwilling to engage the rabble? Is that "not where my interests lie"? Are we Thomas Paine or Nathan Hale?
Just a thought.