Can Republicans Pander Their Way Into Leadership?

By: Christopher G. Adamo

Never have the stars lined up for Republicans as profoundly as has been the case this year, with the arrogance and ugliness of the Obama, Reid, and Pelosi political juggernaut, and the threat it poses to the future of this country, on full display. But rather than seizing the moment and restoring the strength of political conservatism, too many among the GOP “inner circle” seem content to remain scavenging on the fringes of the liberal agenda.

The 2010 mid-term congressional races could easily become a rout of the left, with heartland America energized and active as it has not been in nearly two decades. According to current trends and polling data, next year’s races are nearly guaranteed to go decidedly to the right. Unfortunately, the Republican Party has opted to soften its stances and pursue a strategy of “inclusiveness,” which in reality represents a shift to the left, and out of the good graces of heartland America. Nowhere is this travesty more flagrantly on display than in the upcoming New York District 23 special election.

Overwhelmingly rural, House District 23 barely went for Obama in last year’s election. And as was the case throughout the nation, the Democrat ticket was helped immeasurably by the insipidness of the McCain campaign. Clearly, this district is not a “lock” for the Democrats. Yet, when selecting a Republican nominee in the upcoming election its Republican Party apparatus sought to  “lead” by following, and chose the extremely liberal Republican Assembly Woman Dierdre Scozzafava. On most issues, she is at least as far left as Bill Owens, the Democrat.

Worse yet, notable figures within Republican circles, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and current House Minority Leader John Boehner are endorsing the Scozzafava candidacy purely on the basis that she calls herself “Republican.” From their perspective, giving the seat to someone who holds that title is somehow superior to allowing it to go to a Democrat. Yet recent history paints a starkly different picture.

In Pennsylvania in 2004, then “Republican” Senator Arlen Specter faced a stiff primary challenge from Congressman Pat Toomey. Believing that Specter would somehow help garner Pennsylvania for George W. Bush in his re-election bid that same year, the President made over two dozen campaign appearances on behalf of Specter. Clearly, this boosted Specter’s political fortunes and helped him win a razor thin victory over Toomey, whereupon he immediately turned on Bush and the GOP, siding with Democrats in several key votes. Ultimately, in the wake of the 2008 Obama victory, Specter came out of the closet and declared what honest observers knew all along, that he was indeed a Democrat.

Is this the great Republican strategy to turn the country back from its current downfall? Do Republican “leaders” really believe that the outrage from middle America over the thuggish nationalization of industry, banking, and possibly the healthcare field by Obama and his minions can be channeled into a boost for the candidacy of a “me too” liberal Republican like Scozzafava?

At least when the Trojans of yore brought that confounded wooden horse into their midst, they did so in total ignorance of the danger it represented. It would have been beyond credible, even in a fable, to contend that they might have still accepted it, knowing its sinister contents, under the absurd auspices that doing so would ensure a greater number of warriors to fight the impending battle against the Greeks. Yet that is precisely the mentality of those who claim an allegiance to conservatism while supporting the likes of Scozzafava.

Fortunately, conservative America has finally had its fill of the empty “RINO” promises. All of the stirring rhetoric of a well-crafted party platform is absolutely meaningless if the party proceeds to accept and even embrace a liberal agenda. While some true conservatives are still working within the GOP in an effort to regain control of it from its liberal captors, others are working outside the party to jolt it with a dose of reality, and hopefully gain the attention of its myopic upper echelon.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, making good on her promise to continue the political fight from outside of public office, has endorsed the candidacy of Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate. In this she is joined by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey and former Senator Rick Santorum, along with an enormous and extremely energized contingent from grassroots America.

Few on the political “inside” appear to have any comprehension of just how much is at stake in the District 23 race. If Scozzafava somehow manages to win, she will be heralded as the embodiment of what the Republican Party needs to become in order to regain majority status in the Congress and Senate. Consequently, any Republicans running to the right of Scozzafava in subsequent races would invariably be marginalized on the nightly news and among the party liberals as being “out of the mainstream,” thus giving all Republicans an enormous obstacle to overcome in their electoral pursuits.

Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. The political ground occupied by Scozzafava is exactly what destroyed GOP momentum in the last decade, and what ultimately cost it in 2006 and 2008. Conservatives know this, and so do the liberals. Only the Republican “insiders” remain oblivious.

From as far back as the Nixon Administration, Republican political fortunes have risen and fallen in direct correlation to the party’s embrace or abandonment of conservative principle. Things are no different this year, despite the stunning successes of the Obama machine in 2008. Disillusionment with the current Administration, by itself, is not sufficient to bolster Republican popularity with voters. Only a real conservative opposition will properly address the outrage and energy of traditional America and, with the promise of a real reversal of the present destructive and unconstitutional liberal agenda, rally the conservative grassroots to victory in 2010.

Christopher G. Adamo has been active in Wyoming politics for many years and is a managing partner in Best American Buy (www.bestamericanbuy.com), an e-commerce business that markets American made products including the incomparable Abigail Adams Bedspread Set from Bates Mills. Contact information for Chris Adamo, and his archives, can be found at www.chrisadamo.com

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2010: Not The Time For “Faux Conservatism”

By: Christopher G. Adamo

Our nation is coming apart at the seams, and Barack Obama is proving to be absolutely inept, or worse, at dealing with the situation. Instead of honestly assessing things and advancing solutions conceived in the best interests of the American people, he presses mindlessly forward with his ultra-liberal agenda, ignoring or deriding those who make any effort to forestall his destruction of the great institutions of this country. In league with him are the leading players of the Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA), both of whom have exhibited a vile degree of contempt for real America, and both of whom are pivotal figures in next year’s elections.

Reid, as a four-term incumbent and currently the most powerful member of the United States Senate, faces an uphill battle next year, currently trailing in double digits behind potential Republican challengers. And while Pelosi, despite her deranged political philosophy, is secure in her equally disturbed California congressional district, the fringe-left Speaker of the House has become a paragon of everything grassroots America reviles and hopes to expunge from this thoroughly corrupted and perverse government.

In many respects, 2010 is shaping up to be a pivotal juncture in the course of the nation. The intense anger and outrage expressed at the massive “tea party” gatherings throughout 2009 are likely to metamorphose into decidedly anti-liberal voting patterns next year on election day, which could likewise translate into major gains for the Republican Party. However, such a scenario is by no means secure. And as usual, within the GOP are forces that, if allowed to act unchecked, may yet sabotage the entire situation.

Democrats are on the ropes. So once again, those vaunted Republican “moderates” are attempting to come to their rescue. Whether motivated by stupidity, cowardice, or an underhanded intention to ensure that liberalism ultimately prevails in America, the usual suspects, while identifying themselves as Republicans, are giving aid and comfort to the left, at the ultimate expense of their supposed colleagues on the right. It is high time that their duplicity be exposed and underscored, so that their malevolent impact on conservatism can be finally neutralized.

At a critical milestone in the Democrat attempt to implement a government takeover of America’s healthcare industry, Senator Olympia Snowe (R.-ME) came out in support of the measure in the Senate Finance Committee. Thus she provides the bogus fig leaf of “bipartisanship” that Democrats so fervently desire.

Elsewhere, “Republican” forces are working hard to counteract the enormous influence of Christian and pro-life conservatives in the Party. Somehow, despite the mountains of historical evidence to the contrary, those morally rudderless pragmatists believe this would be a great boon to Republican electoral fortunes, doggedly refusing to accept that by remaking the party according to their “centrist” philosophies, they would ensure the abandonment of the party by enormous numbers of true conservatives.

Thus, their efforts continue. And in them the real animus towards Sarah Palin among GOP “moderates” becomes evident. Despite her lack of an Ivy League pedigree, or perhaps owing to it, Sarah Palin sees moral issues in black and white and, unlike her Beltway insider antagonists, is not afraid to say so. As such she poses a great threat to the Republican “business as usual” Washington crowd that occasionally plays to the right (especially at election time), but ultimately seeks its own advancement.

Over time, an entire class of posturing “conservatives” has been revealed. In the wake of the 2006 electoral disaster, in which both the House and Senate changed from marginally Republican to solidly Democrat, prominent Republicans including Senator John McCain and former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Pennsylvania seized on what they believed was the opportunity to purge the GOP of its Christian/conservative influence. Both offered disparaging words about the supposed political liability of the “religious right” on the gloomy Republican electoral results. And as the abundance of evidence proves, both were inarguably wrong.

In truth, conservatism must be solidly based in traditional Judeo-Christian morality if it is to be conservatism in any sense. So-called “fiscal conservatives” (Senator Snowe considers herself one) merely profess the ludicrous notion that they can confront liberalism’s resultant social rot at a far lower cost than that expended by the Democrats.

Predictably, when disastrous expansions of the nanny state result from such double-minded “governance” on the Republicans’ watch, they lamely attempt to defend themselves by claiming that their spending levels are still far lower than what the opposition would have perpetrated.

It is sad that this posturing among Republican “moderates” is as vapid as the current day “defenses” of policy offered by Barack Obama. In the face of massive job losses during his term in the White House, he insists that had it not been for his trillion-dollar “stimulus package,” the numbers would have been far worse.

Come November of 2010, people will indeed be looking for a real and positive “change” in the composition of this out-of-control federal government. And at this opportune moment, it is no longer sufficient for Republicans to campaign solely on the faults of the Democrat left. If true conservatives in the Senate and House are going to present themselves as a worthy alternative to the abysmal status quo, they must immediately begin defining themselves and the GOP as starkly contrasted from the Democrats. And, they must not allow imposters from the Republican Party’s liberal wing to seize the debate and thereby blur the differences between right and left.

Christopher G. Adamo has been active in Wyoming politics for many years and is a managing partner in Best American Buy (www.bestamericanbuy.com), an e-commerce business that markets American made products including the incomparable Abigail Adams Bedspread Set from Bates Mills. Contact information for Chris Adamo, and his archives, can be found at www.chrisadamo.com

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