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.
Yes, yes, we know. You're a broken record and completely irrelevant.
Absolutely defeating Hilary and Obama
It is simply ironic that the libs are so adamant about aborting themselves.
The difference is Reagan acted accordingly on many issues after his "conversion" from Dem. Rudy and Mitt have been Republican for many years but never changed from their Dem/Rino leanings. In other words there has never been a conversion in regards to party affiliation. They are what they always were.
No confusion here. But I like him OK, even if he's confused.
The world is weary of the carping on single issues that will ultimately be decided by the courts.
Even if he has only 9 listeners as you say, what he is saying is pretty important, and we had better figure this out or Hillary will actually win.
Sanity after all...
Check out the poll on this site. I will not be alone.
Even Reagan violated his own 11th Commandment. It was really a rule, not a commandment. Honored more in the breach, and so forth. He ran against Gerald Ford.
IMO you must stand up for something; call it a 'LITMUS TEST' or whatever you want, I won't support a liberal any form..not in the primary anyway..then they will have to 'Work' for my vote; I am not giving it away to the GOP for free anymore!
You guys get on these threads way too fast......
:-)
Yeah, I do. The 11th comandment was a fallacy. Was neither a Reagan creation or something he followed closely, especially in 1976.
A sitting Republican president who was not conservative enough for Ronald Reagan and we still have to go through the primaries, DUH.
Mike Reagan for president!
Jeb Bush for VP.
Reagan/Bush '08
I hope "the right people" are reading this!! And taking notes! And memorizing!
What a weird article. Sorry, I will vote for a conservative and only a conservative.
If that ends up saddling the country with Hillary, then the Reps have nobody but themselves to blame for not providing me a conservative to vote for.
FYI to you. If FR polls elected presidents we'd have Keyes, Buchanan, Forbes or maybe Bauer. You're clueless.
His point is valid. And I haven't heard his show for some time.
But he must think through the implications of a Rudy nomination. Dismissing life and gun issues for the sake of party unity is gonna be one tough nut to swallow.
We certainly do.
DUH.
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