Posted by Brian
Establishment Republicans Blur The Lines Between The GOP and Democrats
I was out and about today, running errands, getting the car worked on, checking out some new music at Rasputin's, and was finally on my way home. Making a final stop at Wal Mart to pick up the new Harry Potter DVD for my daughter, I headed to the parking lot. As I exited the store, two men asked me if I would like to sign a petition to move up the California Presidential primary to February. Knowing that the primaries here are held long after the candidates for President have already been decided, I signed on to the petition. After all, the state with the greatest population should get some say in who the nominees for President are.
I struck up a conversation with one of the two gentlemen about the 2010 election. The GOP lost every open seat, as well as the Governor's race to Jerry Brown, who was a disaster the first time around in the late 70's and early 80's. A total disaster. In a year that Conservative Republicans made huge gains across the country, the California GOP got shut out. Sure, we held on to our own seats, but seriously, not one net seat gain?
We began to talk about the 2012 Presidential election. He mentioned that he liked Romney and Chris Christie. Romney, along with Mike Huckabee, is the candidate that comes up a lot in Republican circles as being a front-runner. I mentioned that Rick Santorum looks like he may toss his hat in the ring, which I think would strengthen the current field. He said that we need to nominate a candidate who is "electable", which I take to mean - "too conservative".
This is the problem with the current GOP. We are constantly told by the media and the GOP establishment, who is electable and who isn't. We are told that this or that candidate is too conservative to be elected in the general election. We need to nominate candidates that are more moderate, and who reflect the middle of the road electorate. This has been, and will continue to be losing strategy for the GOP. California is living proof of this strategy. We run moderate Republicans who are "democrat-lite", and who provide no clear choice to voters.
The media machine here in California started pushing Meg Whitman for Governor about a year and a half prior to the last election. She was "the only one" who was electable from the GOP side. Same with Carly Fiorina, who ran against Barbara Boxer for the Senate. In the primary for that race there were two other candidates, Tom Campbell and Chuck Devore. We were told that to beat Boxer we needed a woman, and besides the two men in the race were too conservative, especially Devore, who is solidly conservative. In both of those races, the moderate, electable conservatives had their butts handed to them.
We've been told the same thing over the years about Bob Dole, John McCain and others. We then wonder what happened when they get creamed in the general election. Yet, when we run strong conservative candidates, with solid conservative messages, more often than not they win. And they win big. It happened in 1994, and it happened across the country in 2010. If you listen to the media, and the so-called experts,
a candidate like Allen West can never win. Yet, they not only win, they win by large margins. Why is this? It is because they give the voters a "clear" choice. Voters aren't asked to vote for the lesser of two evils, in which the main difference between to two is that one has a "D", and the other an "R" after their name.
The percentage of voters who identify themselves as conservative, versus those identifying themselves liberal, is a 20 point difference in favor of conservatives, yet we don't capitalize on that advantage. Assuming that the remaining "independent" voters split about 50/50 conservative-leaning, this gives conservative candidates a huge advantage. Yet, the so-called experts keep telling us that we have to nominate "electable" moderates.
They will even go so far as undermining conservatives to prove their point that conservatives can't win. A case in point is the 2010 Delaware Senate campaign. When Christine O'Donnell defeated the left-of-center GOP establishment candidate Mike Castle in the primary, Karl Rove went on Fox News and proceeded to publicly eviscerate the conservative Ms. O'Donnell, telling everybody that she couldn't win, and basically that the voters were naive and stupid. It may have been true that O'Donnell would have lost the election. But, we'll never know. The damage had been irreversibly done. Rove had taken the focus off of Christine O'Donnell's message. The media, which had now found its opening, gleefully played along in pointing out that even Karl Rove didn't take her as a serious candidate. Her campaign lost weeks of getting her message out as, they had to go on the defensive. Rove's rant was a self-fulfilling prophecy. He is typical of the Republican establishment. He would rather fill up the House and Senate with a bunch of "R's", even if they are a bunch of Olympia Snowe's, who vote with the Democrat's almost as much as with the Republicans. Rove is a bean-counter. He is interested in quantity, not quality. It is this type of thinking that has brought us to the point we are at.
This happens not only at the the national level, but also at the state and local levels.
We are not going to get the perfect candidates every time, or even most of the time. But why do we settle for who the media and the party apparatchiks say are the right candidates? Screw that! I would rather go down swinging than continue to nominate a bunch of mealy-mouthed, linguine-spined candidates who stick their finger in the politically correct winds every time they have to make a decision. This country needs conservative public servants who have the fortitude to know who they are, what they believe, and are able to articulate those values and beliefs without worrying what the political cost may be, or if it hurts their reelection chances.
Ronald Reagan once said to "Raise a banner of bold colors, not pale pastels". We have some of those public servants now in people like Marco Rubio, Allen West, and Jim Demint. We need more of them, but we will not get there if we keep nominating the Lindsay Graham's, Lamar Alexander's and John McCain's.
It is no longer enough to just go out and vote, or to register people to vote anymore, though that is also needed. Get involved at the local party level, run for local school boards, and city or county offices. Become a part of the your local Republican Party, attend meetings, speak out if they are just towing the establishment line, and replace them if necessary.
The time for settling for the establishment's "electable" candidate is over. Let's nominate the most solidly conservative candidates we can for a change. Maybe we can surprise the "experts". It certainly wouldn't be the first time. We were told Reagan was too conservative and couldn't win either.
