Posted on 02/16/2007 8:30:44 AM PST by meg88
The GOP Should Dump Its Litmus Test By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | February 16, 2007
The philosopher Diogenes is said to have wandered around ancient Greece holding a lantern and seeking to find an honest man.
My fellow Republicans, sans lanterns, are now wandering around the political landscape seeking to find the perfect Republican presidential candidate.
I don’t know if Diogenes ever found that honest man, but I do know that those Republicans are never going to find the perfect candidate, simply because he does not exist.
Some Republicans insist that the only perfect candidate would be a clone of my Dad, Ronald Reagan. Aside from the fact that there is no such thing, it’s important to recognize that Ronald Reagan, as he often admitted, was anything but perfect.
One of the criticisms about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney focuses on his record concerning the abortion issue. We are told by the modern day Diogenes clones that he can’t be trusted to fight abortion because he once, more or less, supported a woman’s right to butcher her baby.
It may come as a surprise to these purists, but Ronald Reagan once supported abortion too. Yet nobody ever questioned his strong pro-life credentials after his conversion to Republicanism. They accepted his sincerity. Why can’t they accept Mitt Romney’s?
Romney’s record shows he should be totally acceptable to all conservatives, yet because of one dubious question concerning the validity of his conversion to the pro-life side, he is deemed unsuitable to carry the conservative banner.
The same is true of Rudy Giuliani. On every major issue, he is a solidly conservative and extraordinarily adept executive, but because he backs abortion and some form of gun control, America’s mayor -- the hero of 9/11 and the man who did the impossible by cleaning up New York -- is all but ruled out as a 2008 candidate.
Not one of the major candidates is free of some real or imagined flaw that offends some conservatives.
This is madness, and if it does not stop, the GOP is going to lose the presidential election in 2008. In the search for the perfect candidate we are going to end up with an imperfect candidate. Keep in mind the truism that agreement with someone on most issues and disagreement on others is seen as normal, but should you agree with someone on every single issue imaginable … well… to put it plainly, psychologists say you’re nuts.
I recently got a letter from a conservative Christian organization that asked me if the current GOP candidates are the best the Republican Party has to offer.
“Is it possible that GOP conservative ranks are this thin?” the letter writer asked. “Has the GOP nothing better to offer? Should not pro-family pro-life voters also want a low taxes and limited government candidate before they vigorously support him? Increased taxes and expanded government hurts everyone. Was Ronald Wilson Reagan an anomaly and did he represent the values of his party?
“These GOP candidates,” the letter instructed me, “are little better than Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, or [George] H.W. Bush. Did anyone notice they all lost?”
This makes me wonder if anybody can stand up to the litmus test these people are applying to candidates.
Ronald Reagan had one litmus test he applied to candidates. Were they Republicans? If they were he backed them all the way. He would let the party choose the candidate and he would support and vote for the candidate. He didn’t go sniffing around trying to find some flaw in their character or their past. Once nominated, they were his choice.
And nobody was more candid in admitting that he was anything but perfect than my Dad. He knew that like all men, he had his flaws and he spent a lifetime combating them. Had today’s GOP litmus test been seriously applied to him, he could not have passed the test.
The Democrats don’t have litmus tests. If the nominee is a Democrat, they support their candidate all the way, and if they lose it isn’t because they didn’t fight like demons for their man or woman.
If we want to win in 2008, Republicans had better wake up, and quit talking Ronald Reagan and start being like Ronald Reagan.
I think Michael has a LOT more right to his opinion of his Dad than anyone here.
He has a right to his opinion, but if he puts it out in public we have a right to challenge it.
The GOP is not the same party as it was under Reagan, especially as evidence by the current frontrunning candidates who often seem to the left of the Dems in 1960.
Would you care to clarify your claim that Michael Reagan is writing puff pieces for Rudy because he is supposedly failing?
Reagan mentions nothing about Rudy, or any candidate for that matter.
Primaries are not for unity, but some posters wish to try to make certain that unity will never happen. I am not one of those posters.
I have repeatedly stated that I will support the GOP nominee, regardless. Others take delight in posting that they'll never vote for candidate X if he's the nominee.
To hell with those posters. Hillary must be defeated.
That 11th Commandment stuff is a fallacy, an urban legend.
RR never, ever, utter those supposed words about 'speaking ill' and broke said 'commandment' himself a gazillion times, going all the way back to his running for Gov.
No problem. No harm, no foul. Only one other person got the sarcasm. I guess I'll have to stop my lame attempts at humor (oops, I mean satire, since it IS based in fact)....lol
More importantly, Reagan chastised the leftwing and liberal Democrats even more.
LOL. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
What amazes me is how Christian conservatives never take the fight to Republican Congressmen who sat on their asses as left-wing policies were enacted into law. It's always the Presidential candidates fault, as if Rudy or Romney are responsible for abortion and the 20,000 gun control laws.
Go ahead and create that big bad 3rd conservative party so the real socialist will get elected. Social-issue conservatives are fools.
freedomfiter2: if we don't come together behind the nominated candidate whoever it may be we lose. There's a simple solution, nominate someone that we can come together behind.
freedomfiter2 is correct. It is necessary to find a candidate the entire party can support. A party works by accepting the opinions of all its members. If a party rejects the opinion of some of its members then it deserves to lose their vote. You can't expect the support of pro-life/pro-gun/pro-border/etc./etc. individuals if you trash their opinions and tell them to suck it up and vote for your guy despite the fact that he opposes them on their primary issue.
People should vote for the individual who most closely matches their own opinion on the issues which are important to them, even if this is a third party candidate. By doing so they prevent the media and party operatives from thinking their opinion is not important.
This means that a true party candidate accepts and supports the opinions of all the party members even if he has some differing personal opinions. That is, it's up to the candidate to "hold his nose" and support the party position. Party members should not have to "hold their noses" when they vote.
Reagan beat Ford around the head like a punching bag, and Ford barely held on. If not for Reagan showing Ford to be so weak, Ford could have beat that peanut farmer from Georgia.
The point is this, Reagan ran becasue he was trying to take the party in a directions it desperately needed to go in, even though the majority of GOP right or wrongers could not see it.
I am telling you as sure as I am sitting here that a lurch to the left is going to eviscerate the party. I hope you hope that I and others here are successful in making that not happen.
That's why I conditioned my remark. I haven't committed to anybody yet. The most electable candidates all have flaws, IMHO.
See post #172.
i wager the majority here WILL vote for the nominee regardless, but are hoping against hope, just as i am, that it ISN"T rudy. and every last one of us is entitled to counter the insipid boosterism with every bit of opposition that we can muster, hoping for a more conservative candidate. if he can't take THIS, then how in the world will he stand up in the general election? hillary will make mincemeat of him and his ample baggage.
Would you care to clarify your claim that Michael Reagan is writing puff pieces for Rudy because he is supposedly failing?
I never said he was failing. I said that he sees he isn't swaying the conservative voters with his promises.
You are right. Michael Reagan never endorsed Rudy or Romney or anyone yet. He's just stating the obvious and it seems people just don't get it that the American people DO NOT want a social conservative in the White House in 2008. Maybe in 2012 but not in 2008. How much of the 2006 election sunk into their brains? NOT MUCH!
The primaries have not yet commenced. The first candidate debate is set for April 4 and 5, 2007 and we might have more candidates enter and announce before that date.
Nothing better than a full field of GOP candidates!!
I support your philosophy.
Like Ronald Reagan, I will do what he would do; Support whom ever is nominated by the party. It's just that simple.
"I guess Michael forgot his dad ran against a sitting Republican president."
The difference was that Reagan was a gracious loser in 1976 and supported Ford in the general election.
..and so do I....the point is Reagan would be against all this infighting....I suspect that he would be for the most consrvative candidate, but in the end, would vote for the Republican in Nov....something many here said they would not do....they would stay home or something like that...It is my opinion that Reagain would not behave that way
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