By J.B. Williams
Thursday, March 15, 2007
After the Bush administration and short-lived Republican congress cut-n-run on their conservative base by spending like a drunken Kennedy, defending illegal immigration like Howard Dean counting new Latino voters at the border and fighting the war on terror like they need traitor John Murtha's approval, some conservatives are looking to cut-n-run from their not-so-conservative party.
While an understandable sentiment, real conservatives face their enemies, they don't run from them. According to third party supporters, when unwanted intruders break into my home and threaten my family, I should give them my house and go build a new one elsewhere.
But where I come from, shame on me for letting them set foot in my home to begin with and if I don't toss them out on their ear in short order, something is wrong with me, not my house.
Nobody wants to see conservatives run for third party alternatives more than leftist Democrats currently feeling their oats after their mid-term victory and licking their chops over the prospect of winning the White House in '08 by dividing the conservative vote. It worked for Bill in '92 and '96 and will work again for Hillary in '08, unless conservatives have gotten smarter since then.
The good news is that I see some evidence that many conservatives have learned the Bill Clinton lesson, seeing the need to unite their efforts in opposition to another Clinton administration. I also see plenty of evidence that many conservatives are much less willing to compromise their core principles than they were when they mistakenly elected a "compassionate conservative" in 2000, learning since, that compassionate conservatism means compromised conservative values.
The bad news is that I still see too many diehard cut-n-run conservatives who have not yet learned the following lessons.
The best news is that I see lots of evidence to support a notion that right now is the best time in years to force true conservative reform within the conservative party. But reform must be forced by reformers. Conservatives who cut-n-run instead, are not forcing reform upon anyone. They are just taking their football and going home like a spoiled child.
In fact, as I predicted prior to the '06 election, Washington DC has once again misinterpreted the message so many Americans tried to send by voting against incumbent Republicans who had let them down. Instead of coming away from the mid-term election sensing an urgent need to return to their conservative base, they are running three of the most liberal Presidential candidates in the history of the Republican Party. So much for those protest votes...
As predicted, the RNC came away from the mid-terms believing that they must run centrist Republicans (fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which has never worked as a policy and never will) capable of attracting votes from both sides of the aisle if they hope to win in '08. They are once again moving in exactly the wrong direction at the national committee level and people who still think they should send them yet another message with third party protest votes, like '92, '96 and '06, are kidding themselves into electing another Clinton administration.
In case you are thinking that I'm suggesting we should once again compromise conservative principles just for the sake of party unity, think again. I am suggesting quite the opposite and the details are all available in my recent column America Must Save Herself.
But cut-n-run conservatives can no longer pretend to be concerned about returning America to its moral majority conservative roots while dividing that effort by supporting the idea of minority rule under a multi-party system. They can no longer pretend to be at the forefront of the conservative movement by cutting-n-running from their responsibility to reform their own house before trying to reform the entire nation.
The simple truth is they are not as conservative as they would have us believe. No true conservative will run from a good principled fight or seek to avoid responsibility for correcting their own errors and they sure don't work to promote minority rule in a nation which promises self-governance by constitutional majority.
The BIG TENT Republican Party has indeed been allowed to drift left, by people who forgot they needed to fight to keep it right, people who today think there is no real difference between today's Republican Party and today's Democrat Party.
While it's true that both parties have engaged in the promotion of socialist anti-American policy making of late, there still remains a significant difference between the two.
Today's Democrat Party is wholly owned and operated by people who very much desire a socialist America melded into an international community on socialists principles. They depend entirely upon people trying to vote themselves favor from the federal treasury and they have worked for decades to develop this proletariat class of reliable voters who will never pass up an opportunity to play Robin Hood for the greater good at your expense.
But today's Republican Party has moved left only as a result of feeling voter pressure to pander to increasing public demand for socialist federal answers to even the most personal of individual challenges. The RNC has convinced itself that they must play the same game as the left in order to appeal to today's "what can the government do for me" voters.
Are they right? Can a true conservative candidate running on true conservative values and a dose of real truth get elected in America today?
The only way we will find out is to run such a candidate. The three frontrunners of the RNC do not meet the qualifications. But I assure you, the answer lies somewhere within the Republican Party, not in some under-powered under-funded unheard of Third Party pretender.
Conservatives will either unite to reform their party right now, or live with another Clinton administration in '08. Either way, they will have themselves to thank...
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement