By Tim Dunkin
These are exciting times if you’re a grassroots conservative activist. After years of being taken for granted by a Republican Party leadership that simply assumed that we’d keep on voting for whatever leftist RINO they handpicked for us, a new paradigm seems to be in the making. The assumption that the GOP has to “move to the center” to be electable appears, as we speak, as if it is being proven untrue. Doug Hoffman, the insurgent conservative candidate in the NY-23 special congressional election, has successfully driven off the RINO candidate and now appears poised for victory over his Democrat rival, if two polls that came out on November 2nd can be believed (at the time I’m writing this, the election still has not taken place). Likewise, in Virginia, a slate of very conservative candidates are set to sweep the big three state races handily – each has led his respective race by double digits for weeks now – polling well even in northern Virginia, the place where we’ve always heard that solidly conservative candidates just can’t win anymore. Yet, Bob McDonnell, an unabashed socially and fiscally conservative Republican – who was even attacked for a very conservative religious thesis he wrote twenty years ago – is going to smash his Democrat opponent tomorrow, in what is now a purple state that voted for Obama in 2008. All in all, conservatism appears set to make a comeback tomorrow – the news reports of her demise were certainly premature.
Of course, this only surprises those David Frum-style “moderates” who have spent the last four years trying to foist off the narrative that the Republican Party needs to become more liberal to stay competitive. So far, that has only led to two straight drubbings in the national elections – 2006 and 2008 – as the Republican Party drove off its own base while failing to replace them with an adequate number of “moderates.” This is unsurprising, since this nation is fundamentally centre-right. An estimated 40% of Americans identify themselves as conservatives, making us the dominant plurality. It should only seem to be common sense that if the GOP drives away 40% while trying to plug into the 30% or so that claims to be “moderate,” that it would find itself electorally hampered. Conservatives are the base of the GOP – we are the ones who do the groundwork, who work the phones, who put up the yard signs, who donate the money. If we’re not happy, as the old saying goes, ain’t nobody happy.
And it looks like our hard work is paying off. With conservative Republican candidates winning, with a successful elimination of at least one RINO already, we appear to be taking our rightful place once again. We should, of course, realize that the county-clubbers who run the GOP won’t let go without a fight, but we are in the process of successfully proving that this is a fight we can bring to them and win. We are the barbarians coming out of the rough, and messing up their neatly manicured putting green – and we’re having fun while doing it!
As with any group flush from a dazzling array of initial victories, we need to be careful with where we proceed, however. Raw emotion, enthusiasm, can only carry us so far. We need to consolidate our gains, and strategize intelligently about where we go from here. As I ponder this necessity, I’d like to make a few suggestions.
First, conservatives need to understand that, ironically, the victory of Doug Hoffman over Dede Scozzafava and the Washington D.C. establishment, and likely over Democrat Bill Owens, hammers home the message that third partyism is not the direction conservatives need to take. “How can you say that,” you might be tempted to ask, “when the guy running on a third party ticket just took out the establishment Republican candidate?” Well, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out the other day, the Hoffman/Scozzafava divide was really the GOP primary that should have occurred to decide who the GOP nominee would be in the first place. If there had been a primary and rank-and-file Republicans had been allowed a voice in the process, Hoffman, by all evidence, would have been the nominee going into this race. Hoffman himself still identifies himself as a Republican. The ones who largely will be giving him victory in this election by voting for him are Republicans. The big names whose support brought this race to national attention and helped to hand it to Hoffman were mostly people like Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, and others – in other words, Republicans. If Hoffman had had to rely solely upon those inclined to vote third party, he would not even be in the running. Hoffman will be a winner because conservative Republicans in this district and across the country revolted against the politics-as-usual and went for the guy who was more ideologically in line with them.
I want to be up front with folks – I completely understand the frustration that many have with the Republican Party, or more properly, with the spineless “leadership” of the GOP. Last week, I wrote up my own scathing harangue aimed at the elitist GOP county-club caste. I completely understand why people would want to wash their hands of it all and go third party. That being said, I think that is the wrong direction for conservatives to take, at least at this point. A good argument can be made, in fact, that a lot of the reason for the leftward drift in the GOP is because conservatives have been leaving it over the years. As conservatives leave, the moderates grow disproportionately more powerful in the party, and the ugly cycle starts all over again. In essence, conservatives have been acting to eliminate their own options. What the events surrounding the NY-23 special election show is that conservatives, both inside and outside the GOP, when we get together and start acting in one accord, can get things done within the Republican Party. Because let’s face it – Doug Hoffman most likely will not remain a Conservative Partyist only. When it comes time for him to be re-elected next year, he will be back to running on both the CP and GOP lines, unless the district-level GOP leadership up there is just completely insane and vindictive. When all is said and done, what we conservatives have accomplished is to win this seat for a conservative Republican.
My argument is that going third party is something of a cop out. It’s an easy way for some conservatives to prove their ideological purity without having to do any heavy lifting. Face it, taking the Republican Party away from the country club RINO elite and delivering it back into the hands of the conservative rank-and-file where it belongs will be a battle. It won’t be easy. It’s not something that we’re just going to snap our fingers and see happen. But it can be done. We’ve already seen it at work in NY-23, and there no reason that we can’t see it happen all across this country – if we’re willing to man up and do it. There’s no reason why we should fritter away our strength among dozens of third parties, each vying to prove its self to be the One True Conservative Party. Why build a national organization from the ground up, when there’s no need and one is already in place, ripe for the taking? While painting the GOP with a broad brush and accusing all Republicans of being RINOs (ironic, that) and condemning the GOP across the board may be emotionally satisfying to some, it is ultimately destructive to the conservative movement. Think of it this way – you don’t shoot a wild horse that’s bucking you. You saddle it, break it, and make it do what you want it to. That should be our attitude towards the GOP and its current crop of “leaders.”
This being said, we conservatives need to do more than just plan political strategy. We need to re-establish our ideological foundation. We need to agree upon a foundational set of beliefs and positions that we want our candidates to hold to – be they Republican or be they the occasional Independent or Third Partyist in case we have another NY-23. As such, I’d like to submit the following as an outline of what we ought to look for that will distinguish us from the RINOs, the moderates, and others. Who knows, maybe somebody out there more policy-detail oriented than I would like to run with it and develop the next Contract for America? Of course, these should apply equally at the local and state levels as well, and while I may touch on a few examples, there are many specific and individual policy decisions that, when approached under these general guidelines, would readily be agreed upon by most conservatives. At any rate, I believe we can probably agree that our candidates should:
Support Liberty: Liberty is something that all politicians talk about, but which has widely various meanings, depending on who is using the word. What I mean by “support liberty” is this: we should seek out candidates who hold to the overarching view that the fewer laws we have, the better; the less money our government takes and spends, the better; the fewer intrusions into the everyday lives of American citizens, the better. I want to see candidates who will go up to Washington and who will go through the U.S. Code and see what can be removed, rather than what can be added. There are laws on the books that make you a criminal for growing a certain kind of flower in your landscaping. There are any number of laws on the books that people unknowingly violate any day of the week. Laws like these that serve no real public utility, and only serve to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens, and which unduly hinder us from living how we want to live, need to go. I want to see candidates who will seek to remove from the federal budget the spending and the waste that aren’t necessary for the constitutional functions of this government. I want candidates who don’t just mouth platitudes about tax and spending cuts, but who have an ideological commitment to lessening the burden that the government places on the people – all across the board.
Support Capitalism and Private Property: We need candidates who are committed to the truth that economic freedom is the necessary corollary to political freedom. I don’t want people who will support capitalism until a bank says it needs bailed out with public funds. I want people who will stand up and say that we’re not going to assault the underpinnings of our economic prosperity, regardless of what “crisis” occurs. We need candidates who will resist the urge to expropriate the property of hard-working citizens so that they can give it to yet another big box store promising to generate more tax revenues for the locality. We need candidates who support tax cuts for other reasons besides just the supply-side argument of maximizing tax revenues. We need leaders who will support small business and the middle class, rather than undermining and destroying them.
Support the Constitution: We need candidates whose first instinct, upon seeing a bill set before them on their desk, will be to ask “Is this thing constitutional?” instead of “will this thing buy me some votes with a special interest group?” We need candidates who won’t laugh when somebody asks them about the constitutionality of a bill. Subsumed under this would be candidates who clearly and unequivocally support our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms, our 1st amendment right to political and religious speech, and our 4th amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. At the same time, we need candidates who understand that the Constitution does allow for the federal government to operate in some spheres of activity, and who will not hinder it from doing so, such as in the pursuit of foreign policy and military action deemed necessary by our duly elected leaders.
Support the Rule of Law: Concomitant with a respect for the Constitution, we need candidates who will also have a respect for legitimate laws that are framed under and in line with that document. We need candidates who understand the difference between justice and anarchy. We need candidates who understand that the sovereignty and integrity of our borders is a necessary part of the rule of law, and that it is detrimental to reward lawbreaking that helps to undermine the very foundations of our sovereignty as a nation to make and enforce our own laws and our own borders.
Support for an America First Foreign Policy: I want to see conservatives fielding candidates who will take into account the benefit and advancement of the United States of America first, over and above the concerns of foreign nations or extra-governmental bodies. We need candidates who will refuse to support or enter into any agreement – such as the Copenhagen climate agreement or the Law of the Sea Treaty – that will harm the well being of our nation. We need leaders who will refuse to surrender even an ounce of American sovereignty to any foreign power, from the United Nations on down.
Support the Family: When I say “pro-family,” I don’t just mean adhering to the right position on a litany of socially conservative positions on a few hot button issues. I mean that we need to find and support candidates who will work to restore the traditional nuclear family to its position of prominence as the pillar of our social stability. Without the foundation of a father and a mother raising the children to be law-abiding good citizens, we have seen our country descend further and further into crime, anarchy, and corruption. As it currently stands, there are a number of things on the books – no-fault divorce, the organization of our welfare system, the marriage penalty in our tax code, and much more – that serve to undermine the stability of the family as the driving social force in America. We need candidates and leaders who will support the family, since strong families where good values are taught and where support is received from other family members will remove much of the demand for the government to act like a father and a nanny to the people of this nation.
Support Life: One of the fundamental liberties that are affirmed in our Declaration of Independence is the right to life. Opposition to abortion is implicit in this. We need to support candidates who understand that life IS a liberty issue – when abortion is allowed to take place, the liberty of an individual, in this case one who is unborn, is destroyed irrevocably. We must support leaders who will affirm the fact that the rights afforded by our Creator belong to ALL people, not just those who have passed through a birth canal.
These are probably just scratching the surface of what could be said on the subject of who conservatives should support. I readily acknowledge that there is much more that could be said than what I have done here. These are meant to be guidelines to stimulate discussion among conservatives about our fundamental values, and how we are to flesh them out, taking them from the realm of ideology to the realm of public policy. The last thing we need to do right now is rest on our laurels. There is a lot of hard work to be done between now and November 2010, and a lot of that will involve articulating our core convictions to the voters at large, cultivating conservative candidates who share those convictions, and capturing as much of the Republican party apparatus as possible to provide a ready-made vehicle for the advancement of those convictions.
Let’s get to work.
