The Battle for the Republican Party

For lack of a transcript I must paraphrase, but Bill O’Reilly started a recent radio show by stating that 34% of the country’s populace is conservative, thus a candidate running on conservative ideology can’t possibly win an election and therefore should not run as such. Ousted congressman Chris Shays was interviewed days later by one of the A-B-C networks. The congressman who had just lost was brought in to give his insight into what the Republican Party needs to do to win. Shays’s answer was, of course, that Republicans should resist pressure to move to the right. According to Shays, the only way for the G.O.P. candidates to win elections is to moderate their positions and increase the size of the proverbial tent. Maybe we’ll see the Detroit Lions head coach interviewed after the Lions are decimated this week on how to win games!

These are two of a growing horde of pundits, politicians, and members of the intelligentsia who are either ignorantly or maliciously advocating the destruction of the very backbone of America. The myriad of impediments to third party viability in our political process makes the battle for the Republican Party paramount in the fate of the United States.

Wherever O’Reilly may have gotten his 34% statistic, a couple of points regarding that number are important.

First, the 34% would be a number of people who understand conservatism and readily identify with it as a political ideology. That is to say it would not count those who don’t have any particular interest in politics but if asked specific policy questions would find that they are conservative. Beyond this common sense observation, the election gave us some more objective statistics to work with. In Florida and Arizona, bans on gay marriage were passed in landslides by voters. Even in California, voters rejected “judicial legislation,” voting 52 to 48 for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage. 48% of voters there also voted for parental notification of abortion. 45% of South Dakotans voted to outlaw abortion in all but the most extreme cases. Nebraska voters overwhelmingly chose to ban affirmative action; the decision on the same issue was split down the middle in Colorado. Where ballot initiatives are made available, conservative values garner significant support.

Second, suppose it is true that only 34% of the country is conservative. The defections of millions of democrats who voted for Ronald Reagan is proof of the power of solid leadership and the ability to inspire and educate people. Leaders inspire. Leaders change minds. This battle is not a new one, just consider a portion of Reagan’s 1975 speech to C-PAC:

I don ‘t know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party”—when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people’s earnings government can take without their consent.

Let our banner proclaim a genuine tax reform that will begin by simplifying the income tax so that workers can compute their obligation without having to employ legal help.

And let it provide indexing—adjusting the brackets to the cost of living—so that an increase in salary merely to keep pace with inflation does not move the taxpayer into a surtax bracket. Failure to provide this means an increase in government’s share and would make the worker worse off than he was before he got the raise.

Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people.

Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

And we must make it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of “peace at any price.”

We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.

Even more important than the fact that conservatism works is the fact that true conservatism is moral and just. Either the lives, liberties, and properties of every individual will be fought for and protected or they will not. Either the rule of law as dictated by the Constitution will be observed or it will not. While this is not the place to digress into a discussion of liberty, it is liberty that is at stake here and it is a revitalized Republican party that has the greatest chance of defending it.

From the so called Republican Revolution of 1994 to the Democrat takeover of the Presidency and Congress in 2008, what have been the concurrent trends within the Republican party? Immediately following the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, neoconservatives like Bill Kristol began cautioning against moving forward too quickly with a conservative agenda. Since that time the Republicans have failed so miserably to promote the values of their base that they have now been rendered impotent by voters. Principle aside for the moment, it is a tough argument to swallow that a 12 year leftward shift, a “broadening of the tent,” a “modernization” of the Republican party just wasn’t enough to keep winning. It is undeniable that this shift occurred, so if moderation is the key to winning elections then why have Republicans been backhanded out of office nationwide?

However this battle is to be defined, the most difficult obstacle to be overcome is that of convincing people to think. Conservatism, libertarianism and the like are ideologies that are products of a constant, active mental pursuit. Platitudes uttered by the left are easy on the emotions and require little thought. Who doesn’t want life to be fair? Who doesn’t want affordable housing and health insurance? Who doesn’t want a pristine environment? To advocate such ends is painless, to analyze the means required to realize them is not. It is perhaps easier to achieve political victory by relieving the voting public of its responsibility to think and catering to the polls. Nonetheless, it is certainly more beneficial to the country in the long term to exhibit leadership and explain to voters why freedom works.