Are grassroots conservative Republicans really willing to abandon everything they ever believed in and every conservative principle they ever supported for the illusory hope of a soulless victory?
Following the GOP’s electoral debacle in the November 2006 mid-term elections, conservatives remain in complete disarray. Perhaps in belated realization that they have been supporting a President for the past six years who does not now and never has shared their conservative principles, many have become disillusioned with the GOP. They have been discouraged due to repeated betrayals of conservative principles by Bush and other GOP leaders and are ambivalent as to whether they will vote for the GOP in the next election without major policy changes that address their concerns, including either a plan for winning the war in Iraq or getting out entirely. Others have lost their way and no longer seem to know what they believe or who they should support, causing conservative commentator Robert Novak to write a recent article entitled “The Conservative Void.”
The problem, of course, is not that there are no conservatives running. In fact, there are at least a few good conservative presidential candidates worth supporting, most notably Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who is probably the greatest champion of conservative principles we have seen in Congress in the past quarter century. Rep. Tom Tancredo, (R-CO) and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) are also good conservatives worth considering. Rather, the problem is that so many self-described “conservatives” are lining up to support the RINO candidates like Giuliani, McCain and Romney, and not surprisingly are fairly unenthusiastic in their support. For the first time in decades, it has become a legitimate question not only whether the GOP leadership is conservative, which has always been in doubt, but whether the GOP itself as measured by its grassroots members is in fact a conservative party anymore. As a lifelong conservative Republican who has never voted Democrat in his life, many of my friends may ask how and why I have come to this conclusion. The answer can to be found in the way the GOP presidential primary contest is shaping up.
Perhaps it is a measure of how liberal the Republican Party has become since the party was hijacked from conservatives by George W. Bush, that three of the top four GOP candidates in early primary polls –Giuliani, McCain, and Romney — have been either lifelong moderates or liberals and have been longtime opponents of conservatives on a host of issues. Another disturbing fact is that Republican base voters are lining up to support the four candidates who have been the most vocal in their support for President Bush’s Iraq war policy, support for which now stands at 23%, according to the latest Zogby poll.
But what is most shocking and distressing for traditional conservatives like me is that the top three — Giuliani, McCain and Gingrich — are all known to have committed adultery in their recent past. It is surprising, to say the least, that the one who had the most recent sex scandal (following which he moved into the home of a gay couple) — Giuliani – is presently running away with the GOP nomination with virtually no effort on his part and without even an attempt to apologize for his continued unholy embrace of cultural Marxism. Giuliani is so liberal that during his campaigns for Mayor of New York, he spurned the Conservative Party endorsement and sought and received the endorsement of the Liberal Party (which is even more liberal than the New York Democratic Party) instead. As Mayor, nearly 90% of the municipal judges that he appointed were liberal Democrats, which should cause social conservatives who support the appointment of conservative federal judges to think twice before supporting him for President. What is it about this liberal, pro-partial birth abortion, pro-gay, pro-amnesty, anti-gun rights, philandering Mayor that seems to attract conservatives and other GOP base voters to support him over other more conservative, more moral and better qualified opponents?
What has happened to the scarlet “A”, which used to be a disqualifier for presidential candidates even on the Democratic Party side as recently as 1987, when Gary Hart withdrew from the presidential contest in the wake of the disclosure of his affair with Donna Rice. When John McCain ran for President in 2000 as a former adulterer it was something of a novelty. This election season, however, it is appearing increasingly to be the norm as GOP voters completely ignore or forgive such major past personal “indiscretions” in search of finding a candidate who they believe can win. In so doing, they ignore the fact that the candidates they are supporting may not actually be able to win, precisely because of their past personal discretions, as well as for their left-of-center positions on social and fiscal issues of importance to conservatives. How is it possible that anyone claiming to be remotely conservative can trust these men not to betray them and to honor the presidential oath of office when they have betrayed their own wives and violated their marriage oaths? If one of these three men were to receive the GOP nomination for President, Democrat-supporting 527 groups would be able to tar and feather them as total hypocrites on moral and social issues, while the Democrat presidential nominee distances himself/herself from these negative attack ads while ensuring their own electoral victory.
Until last month, I discounted Giuliani’s chances for winning the GOP presidential nomination as non-existent because he is to the left of many liberal Democrats on the social issues which have traditionally been of greatest importance to conservatives. In every one of the past GOP presidential primary contests, it was taken for granted that a pro-abortion candidate could not be nominated. The last time pro-abortion candidates ran in 1996, both former Gov. Pete Wilson (R-CA) and Sen. Arlen Specter received so little support that they felt compelled to drop out of the race before the Iowa Caucus, despite the fact that Wilson was a real pioneer on the cutting edge issue of immigration.
However, the latest USA Today/Gallup poll taken this past weekend shows that Giuliani is as much the frontrunner as was George W. Bush in 1999. With the support of 44% of Republicans polled, he has more than twice the support of McCain, who had the support of 20%, with Gingrich and Romney polling in single digits and competing for a distant third place. It seems self-described “conservatives” have jettisoned their social and fiscal principles in their desire to nominate someone “who can beat Hillary,” even if it means nominating a Democrat in all but name for President like Giuliani. This despite the fact that true conservatives like myself would sit out the race were he to receive the GOP presidential nomination. Are grassroots conservative Republicans really willing to abandon everything they ever believed in and every conservative principle they ever supported for the illusory hope of a soulless victory? At this point the answer to this question appears to be yes.
One of the reasons that Giuliani seems to be doing so well is because none of the other candidates have taken him seriously until very recently. The conventional wisdom to which I myself subscribed has been that since Giuliani is far too liberal to have a chance to win the Republican presidential nomination, McCain, even though he is trailing Giuliani badly in the polls, is the true GOP frontrunner. As a result, the other candidates have been focusing their fire on McCain, not without some success. However, this has allowed Giuliani an opportunity to sail ahead of his GOP competitors even further in recent weeks.
The other conventional wisdom has been that the race will boil down to a RINO candidate, either Giuliani or McCain but probably McCain, and a self-described conservative candidate who will be whichever “conservative” gets the most votes in the early contests, which conventional political analysts assume will most likely be either Romney or Gingrich. But given Giuliani’s success in winning not only virtually all of the Rockefeller Republican vote, but much of the conservative vote as well, the possibility that he may be able to blow away his competition while the other candidates fight amongst each other for a distant second place showing cannot be entirely discounted. The other GOP presidential candidates need to realize that Giuliani is the real target they need to focus on. They need to bombard the conservative GOP voter base with the disturbing facts about his long-held unapologetic far-left positions on social issues to knock him out of serious consideration this year to eliminate this greatest of threats to conservatism in decades.
Back in 2000 when George W. Bush was nominated as the GOP presidential nominee, amid promises to remake the Republican Party in his image and into a New Republican Party based on a moderate compassionate conservatism (Rockefeller Republicanism) in which red-meat traditional conservatives would not necessarily be welcome, he essentially hijacked control of the GOP for the moderate to liberal Republican Establishment. In 2002, he succeeded in hijacking control of the GOP for the neoconservatives (who have never agreed with conservatives on the issues of greatest importance to us) as Republican base voters lined up en masse to support his war against Iraq on very shaky grounds.
Until very recently, a significant majority of Republicans supported Bush’s subsequent Clintonian nation-building endeavor in Iraq to use US troops to defend an Iranian-proxy Islamic fundamentalist Shiite regime in power at a rising cost in American blood and treasure solely because it was “democratically” elected. In a poll taken early last month, only 52% of Republicans polled now support Bush’s failed no-win war in Iraq. The GOP has never been more of a house divided. If President Bush signs amnesty for twenty million illegal aliens, a GOP civil war may well erupt, which will decrease GOP prospects for winning the all-important 2008 election and preventing Senator Hillary Clinton and her disgraced husband from returning to the White House.
If Mayor Giuliani were to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, he would move the GOP even further to the Left than Bush has done and conservatives might decide the time has come to leave the party en masse. The result would be the transformation of what remains of the Republican Party into a “me too” Democratic Party/Democratic-Lite party which agrees with the Democrats on nearly all domestic and most foreign policy issues. Obviously, a hostile liberal Giuliani takeover of the GOP would provide the greatest chance for the formation of a conservative third party, but the downside is that the GOP would be forced into permanent minority status and the Democrats would be able to greatly increase their majorities in both houses of Congress while most likely taking back the White House in 2008. This would be a disaster of colossal proportions that must not be allowed to happen.
Keep in mind that we still have nearly 2 full years left until the 2008 presidential election. Let's give it a minute or two before we declare that the sky is falling. Polls at this point in time probably aren't reflective of the entire Republican voting base, because most people haven't made a decision yet. The primaries are barely under way, and there hasn't even been a public debate among the candidates yet. In fact, candidates are still emerging. The media is latching on to Guilliani and McCain because they are high profile, they're the early-bird candidates, and because the media want nothing more than a liberal vs. liberal showdown for the white house.
Also, let's not blame one person for the demise of an entire political party. George W. Bush is a middle-of-the-road at best conservative, but he isn't the GOP. He didn't decide to spend millions of dollars ensuring that RINO republicans got into office in place of real conservatives last November, and he doesn't vote for every Republican senator and congressman. His father 12 years earlier was no better, and in fact, probably less conservative than he is. The GOP has gone soft. George W. Bush is a symptom of that, not the cause.
Giuliani is not a RHINO. He is the only one of the bunch that cares about fixing the economy, lowering taxes, and decreasing federal spending. All the other candidates pay lip service to the economy, but like GWB, they won't act. Rudy is the Reagan candidate of 2008.
One of the reasons why I hate left wing liberals is because they simply flat out refuse to accept anything which is not carbon copy verbatim of what they are.
Another reason why I hate left wing liberals is that they also refuse to accept responsibility for their actions and have to blame somebody else.
A quick look at the Archives reveals almost unanimous support for the Iraq War and support for George W Bush. Yet, now he's become a "President for the past six years who does not now and never has shared their conservative principles, many have become disillusioned with the GOP".
McCain's disagreement with the hardcore right on a few issues does not make him a RINO, his support for Israel is as unwavering as any Paleo-conservative you care to name for one.
Guiliani is Pro-Life, but that doesnt make him a RINO either. Guiliani's tough-on-crime stance, his immense leadership post September 11, and his support of the Republican Party regardless are hardly left wing values.
Name calling and a rigid style of inflexibility dont make a party one with principles, they just make it inflexible. I also dont buy the argument that making compromise to stave off a far worse alternative is the same as losing. Not for one second.
As far as things go I'm pretty much a conservative and I have a problem with liberals. But I have an even bigger problem with conservatives who are so blinkered that to them compromise is a loss, and Mr Pyne, you are displaying the two characteristics in the opening two sentences.
I have to agree with Mr. Pyne and respectfully disagree with the above comments.
I will make this short and so will leave out many details of which I am, suffice to say, personally familiar.
The GOP has long been hijacked by politicians who have little scruples. They mouth the proper rhetoric to get elected but once in office it's a different game. What they are is short on ideology other than a quest for personal gain. Most Democrats on the other hand have a leftist ideology along with their own personal quest for gain. So at least, politically, you know where they stand.
George Bush is duplicitous and that was apparent early in his first term. I suspect he won reelection only because many GOP voters found him to be the lesser of evils. It is a sorry commentary that too many elections are being decided on the "lesser of evils" theory. The saying, "hold your nose and vote for…" has happened too many times and the nation as a whole is suffering because of it. Unfortunately, when we look at both Democrats and Republicans what we see is a cabal of criminals and nothing more. The true situation doesn't bode well.
A radio commentator describes our two major parties as Democans and Republicrats, meaning that they are becoming indistinguishable. Unfortunately there is more truth in that than I care to admit. I suspect if the major presidential candidates of both parties were listed on a ballot with "none of the above" as a choice, "None of the Above" would garner the most votes.
From my perspective the GOP is probably finished, and rightfully so. It has no ideology that justifies its existence. I would like to see a real conservative 3rd party in the game. But I have no doubt that were one to come along and show any potential of becoming a major party both Democrats and Republicans would band together — like Siamese Twins — to destroy it. Criminals don't like competition!
Assuming the next presidential election pits a leftist GOP candidate against a leftist Democrat I would hope that conservatives don't vote for the GOP party candidate but either write in a conservative GOP member or vote for a minor party candidate who they like. This may put a Democrat in the Oval Office, but so what! If conservatives don't take a stand, nothing changes and the nation is doomed.
Thankyou for your response NHGrouch.
I dont agree with Michael Savage's ideas that the Republicans and the Democrats are so similar that they should change to the Republicrats and Democans.
Its the attitude of splitting to form third parties and other infighting which is exactly what is going to cost the GOP the 2008 presidency. I was quite smug when the fighting between Beazley, Latham and Rudd cost the Labor Party here the last election, I never thought that the same sort of infighting would tear the fabric of our conservative allies in America to pieces.
You can cut off your nose to spite your face and if the hardcore uncompromising conservatives in the GOP want to do that then I dont want to hear any crying about how the Democrats are screwing up the country.
Oh for the record, these "RINOs" Guiliani especially, present a clear alternative to the destructive agenda of Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.
To Australian Young Lib:
Thank you for your response to my comments. However, I would remind you that minor 3rd parties become major political players because the two major parties have failed to live up to the wishes of the majority of people.
A third party becomes a political force to be reckoned with only when it is popularly seen as the only viable answer to a failing political system.
I believe that a look at history will also show that all of today's major political parties were at one time unknown. Their birth and rise to power was simply that the then existing major parties lost the faith of the majority of citizens.
When political parties become a ruling elite their existence will be challenged. If they fail to heed the warning signs they will — and should — be relegated to trash can of history. One might call this crisis politics or, perhaps, political evolution; but in any event I contend that's the way it is.