Why We Don’t Deserve to Be The Majority Party
Missouri State Treasurer Sarah Steelman is running for governor. Who is attacking her at every opportunity? People like House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).
Why? Steelman appears to be a Republican more in the mold of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). Steelman is a fiscal conservative.
The Bush wing of the party still believes that spending is irrelevant. Hawking lower taxes, pimping for the U.S. Chamber (by supplying corporate welfare) and pandering to our socially conservative brethren (rather than offering real solutions which are governed by Federalism) seem to be the magic elixir for staying in office - as far as these guys are concerned.
Having abandoned the ideals of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan - while claiming to be in their image - just isn’t good enough anymore. Too many swing voters just don’t buy their deception any longer. Consequently we are, rightly, no longer in control of both houses of Congress.
Aren’t the Democrats worse? Of course they are! That is hardly the point. Have we moved from “Does it maximize freedom?” and “…raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand…” to “The Democrats are disgraceful, and we’re just a little bit better”? We lost the majority by becoming “Democrat Light”!
We are at a crossroads. Do we take back the GOP or form a third party? This question was asked of Ronald Reagan in 1975. His answer was clear then, and it holds today. Like our older friends in 1960 and 1964 and those of us in 1976 and 1980, we need to fight to regain a truly conservative GOP. We may lose seats in the near term, but that is of little importance.
It is unlikely that we will ever have another Ronald Reagan in mine, or even my children’s, lifetime. We don’t need one. Goldwater and Reagan showed us the way. The only difference between now and then is that the very people that have wrecked the modern GOP are the ones claiming to be the next Reagan, or walking in his footsteps.
Rather than claim false allegiance, our modern examples - like Coburn, Palin, DeMint, Jindal and Steelman are winning the minds of voters with principle rather than attempting to use thinly veiled bribes at the taxpayers’ expense.
The Congressional GOP Caucus will once again be worthy of our support when they have replaced the Boehners and Blunts with people like Pence or Shaddeg. When the members of the appropriating class are moved to the back benches and are substituted with Representatives and Senators who look at spending taxpayer money as if it were their own, then we may again be worthy of claiming that we are the majority party.
Until then …
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Comments
Sorry, that link to my Newt.org blog is in this post:
http://mikenetherland.blogspot.com/2008/06/getting-under-their-skin.html
Stop by and leave a comment. Let Newt know how ticked off you are!
This is so very true…especially after the ‘referendum on the republican party” yesterday. Conservbatives nee to take th reigns again!!!
Cato,
Amen. I read Kim Strassel’s column in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. It was the first time I had heard of Steelman. But you are exactly right and I have been writing the same thing for years now. My latest installment:
http://mikenetherland.blogspot.com/2008/06/saving-party-part-i_24.html
In that post is a link to my Newt.Org blog which is dedicated to ensuring that Newt and his groupies are reminded every chance I get of how Wayne Gilchrest is voting to sabotage his initiatives; how, no thanks to him, we may now have another vote and voice to add to the other true conservatives in the Republican Party.
I urge your readers to join the Club for Growth and give generously. This is the only group I know who will spend your money to support reall Republicans and real conservatives.