Michael Reagan: The GOP Should Dump Its 'Litmus Test'

Front Page Magazine ^ | Feb 16, 2007 | Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, heard on more than 200 talk radio stations

[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.

[zbigreddogz]

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.

I've said this several times. I've been denounced as a RINO and told I was 'bashing Reagan'. Well, is his son bashing his father here?

This is madness, and if it does not stop, the GOP is going to lose the presidential election in 2008.

Can't be repeated often enough.

[Scarchin]

He's right - and as of today - we're going to lose.

The current FR poll shows a fractured base.

[EternalVigilance]

Apparently the 2006 election did not make a dent in your brain. The U.S. has turned more moderate - not liberal, not conservative but more moderate in their voting!

Squishy Republicans like you can always be counted on to draw the (180 degree) wrong lessons from any set of events.

[onyx]

Hillary and the democrats are the enemy. They're my focus. Our military does not deserve CIC Hillary.

[zbigreddogz]

Yah, the same Ronald Reagan who recruited Arlen Specter to run certainly wouldn't support moderate candidates. /sarc

[proud American in Canada]

Excellent article! Thanks for the ping, areafiftyone, and thanks for posting it, meg.

[Hydroshock]

Wrong, many of the dems who won ran as conservatives. What teh American people turned against was the corruption, the spending and they are tired of the war. Basically they turned their backs on the Rockefeller/Country Club republicans.

[MilesBennell]

IIRC, Reagan ran against Jimmah Carta.

[twonie]

I believe we have not yet SEEN spoiled kids. Right now they are just getting red in the face and huffing. Wait until later when they roll on the floor screaming, stand on their desks, jump up and down, remove their clothes and throw objects at us, hold their breath. The best part is ahead of us, I fear.

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>Rudy Giuliani.... be an excellent leader for this great country.

Yeah right. Conservatives like those big govt, pro-abort, pro-amnesty, pro-gay rights, global warming kook, gungrabbers.

NOT!!!

[spikeytx86]

They won against in most cases, republicans who were much more pro 2nd and pro life then they were. They won because they were running against R's in 2006 plain and simple. We lost Liberal,Moderate,and Conservative republicans in 06'. It was a backlash against the governing party.

[EternalVigilance]

Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney with both be an excellent leader for this great country.

I guess so, if the kind of leadership you want is pro-abortion, anti-Second Amendment, pro-illegal alien and pro-gay special rights.

[xsmommy]

i think it has far more to do with dissatisfaction with the current crop. i have never longed for someone new in the past, i always had someone that i was enthusiastic, to one degree or another, about supporting. i fully fit the bushbot paradigm on FR, but the idea of rudy as the nominee demoralizes me to no end. yes, i would vote for him, but i think the rudy boosters underestimate the impact of a grudging vote for him. President Bush had people out in full force working the polls, manning the phonebanks, people who had NEVER done anything in a political campaign before! the grudging vote for rudy will have none of that. an unenthused electorate means a very low turnout, who does that benefit?

[JCEccles]

Reagan was much less conservative as a governor than he was as a president.

The country as a whole was (and is) more conservative than California. It was a natural shift for Reagan to move hard to the right when he moved up to the presidency.

Romney has a similar opportunity.

[BonnieJ]

It took me until almost November of 2000 to truly like G.W.Bush, even though I was determined to vote for him. I'd never consider 3rd party after what happened in '92.

[Txsleuth]

He also appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the SCOTUS>

[NorCalRepub]

.....great...we are both entitled to our opinions...and if you throw in the hypothetical the "if Reagan were around today"...then I suspect he would stay a Repub and enlist a candidate he could support instead of bolting....and I don't "act" like he is some permanent party saint, I just recognize the once someone changes parties, they don't seem to bolt back....I know alot about Reagan....and I don't think I'm reading him wrong...I suspect Michael Reagan knows his dad better than you or I

[George W. Bush]

These one issue name callers are short sighted fools who need to create their own party.

We did. It's the modern Republican party, a party whose platform is rigorously pro-life and pro-gun.

It's the liberals who need to form their own party. Or just vote for the other liberal, the Democrat candidate.

[JAKraig]

McCain could defeat Hillary, one of the few Reps that can.

____________________________________________________

Not a snowball's chance in Hell. Hillary will have the woman vote and the black vote, McCain will only have half of the white male vote. Hillary will have Obama as a running mate, that is the only reason he is in the campaign now. McCain does not handle himself well in front of the TV cameras. Hillary does not handle herself well in front of the cameras either but the press will never show her bad side.