Posted on 10/14/2006 3:14:12 PM PDT by Paul Ross
GOP needs tough love, not abandonment
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By Star Parker, World Net Daily, October 14, 2006
A survey just released by the Pew Center shows that 51 percent of Democrats are enthusiastic about voting in 2006 as opposed to 33 percent of Republicans. This is almost a mirror image of what the picture looked like in 1994.
A Pew Center poll also shows a precipitous drop in support for Republicans and the Bush administration among white evangelicals. It's now a little over 50 percent, whereas in 2004 it was closer to 75 percent.
Given the realities staring us in the face, none of this is a surprise. I know that these polls reflect the facts accurately just from reading my mail.
Republicans and conservatives are fed up with their party and their representatives. But can it be that anything is better than what we now have?
I've gotten letters telling me that I've sold out, because I've written that we should not abandon the Republican Party because at least there is a chance of fixing it. What do we gain by allowing Democrats, who are wrong on everything, to regain power, just to express anger at wayward Republicans?
I'm as mad as everyone else. In fact, I think I've been madder – and mad longer – than everyone else.
I've been arguing for years that although the current administration pays lip service to traditional values, it has missed the central point that limited government is the other side of the same coin as traditional values.
Big government and a moral, traditional and genuinely free society simply cannot go together. It's worth remembering the observation of British historian Lord Acton that "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The correlation between the amount of power that we put in the hands of politicians and the tendency of those politicians to become corrupt is a human reality, not a partisan one. We can expect it from Republicans as well as Democrats.
Given the failure of the current Republican regime to limit government and to actually find reasons to grow it, what we're seeing today should come as no surprise.
Nevertheless, I still will argue that we shouldn't take our eye off the ball. Conservatives need to stay focused on what we, and all Americans, need – traditional values and limited government – and continue to push positively toward this end. Despair is no answer and will only make things work.
With all the comparisons to 1994, it shouldn't be forgotten that Republicans ran in 1994 on a positive agenda – the Contract with America. Americans voted for something in '94.
I'm adding nothing new to point out that there is no Democratic agenda in 2006. There are only Democrats looking for power and trying to grab it by taking advantage of Republican incompetence. Unfortunately, not a challenge.
We ought to think back further than 1994 and go back to 1976 when Jimmy Carter was elected president. There are a lot of similarities between what is happening now and the picture then.
The country was still traumatized by the aftermath of the Vietnam War, by having a president resign as result of the Watergate scandal, and what was then called the "energy crisis."
Carter was elected to bring fresh air to Washington. He sold himself as a man of the people who would bring decency back to Washington. Fed up Americans voted for him in hope that he would indeed bring back the fresh air that they wanted to breathe.
Unfortunately, like all so-called populists, what Carter really believed in was government and not people. To deal with our energy problems, he created a new Department of Energy. To deal with our education problems, he created a new Department of Education.
Four years later, we had double-digit inflation, 20 percent interest rates, a doubling of energy prices and Americans held hostage in Iran.
The country had to go through even greater trauma than it was in before the 1976 election to open the door for the Reagan era four years later.
Do we have to go through this again? Is the only path to electing Republicans who really believe in traditional values and limited government to throw out the current rascals, lock, stock and barrel, and elect Democrats who will show us how bad things really can get?
There is no question that current Republican leadership has lowered the bar, but let's not forgot just how free this country is. We ultimately get the leadership that we want and are willing to tolerate.
I think conservatives let our elected Republican officials off too easy these past years by tolerating an excessive growth of government that itself was symptomatic that there was a problem.
The answer is to get refocused, clarify our principles and fix the party.
The question is if we'll have to do it sitting on the sidelines while the Democrats turn what is bad into what is worse.
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Lame.
I suppose you are in the Bush Clan? That's no excuse. I note your claims to Christianity. Act like it.
Standard operating procedure for every poll taken by the Democrat house organ Minneapolis Star Tribune, whose capacity for self-delusion exceeds even that of the New York Times.
No, we can expect that conservative judges will NOT legislate. Overturning previous rulings, such as Roe vs Wade, would not be a legislative act by the court. I hope I live long enough to see that happen.
James Sensenbrenner to name one. I jope someday you find a country you like.
Neither of which rolls back anything previous democrat Congresses have legislated.
Yep, but the only way to do that without at the same time putting a bunch of even worse Democrats in is to do it during the primaries, not the general election.
That said, appointment of federal judges and to some degree national security are still major differences between the parties. I say "to some degree", because if we are really fighting a war on terror, or anything else, our military budget should be more than 4% of GDP, which is only a few tenths of a percent higher than it was at the low point during the Bent One's administration. And in some ways things are actually worse now, since a much higher fraction is going to current operations in the war zones (beans, bullets and salaries of activated reservists and in theater contractors), rather than training, R&D, procurement, or even long term maintenance of equipment.
You make a good point. Congress has more than its share of scumbags - on both sides of the aisle.
"I think conservatives let our elected Republican officials off too easy these past years by tolerating an excessive growth of government that itself was symptomatic that there was a problem."
Hey, Star, what recourse do we have besides calling to complain, or contributing to CFG instead of the RNC? WHen those don't work, the only recourse left is to vote the folks who tolerated that excessive growth of government out.
I will be voting third party in races where RINOS and Rats are the only choices. Where I trust the GOP candidate to vote as a conservative American first and not a party hack Republican first, they will have my vote.
We can vote them out in primaries which was done wonderfully in Pa.
Agreed. And yet some Pennsylvanians (and others) are in denial about the success of this strategy.
ping
The weaker the dino media gets, the more exposed the special interests will be and our pols will start having to find themselves more responsive to their true constituents.
The problem isn't just with the RINO's. The entire Congress voted to keep a $250 MILLION bridge to nowhere in Alaska. The government has grown and grown under the GOP just as it did under the Democrats.
I agree. Bush has more of a chance to get LOST and instant citizenship for illegals with a 'Rat Congress than with a Republican one.
And even worse, the pollsters are telling us that our choices for next president with be the Hildebeast and McCainiac.
I would rather move to Mexico than vote for either one.
And who the hell are you? Some sort of freaking robot without the ability to see that your party is supporting less and less of what they should?
Wake up and smell the stench of professional politicians who care only about buying your vote with your money to keep their fat asses in power for another 2 or 6 years.
The GOP only responds when they get either large sums of money to buy them or 10,000,000 angry phone calls. And then it is barely lip service that you get.
Great response! Blackbird.
There. Fixed it.
In france extrem right wing often plays the game of the left and help socialists to get and keep the power.
May be some dem trolls here could find some interests in emphasizing cnservatives' disappointments toward GOP seen as a whole....
We call that the worst policy which lies on a misunderstanding about the political field.
A dems victory should mean a victory of the friends of france and a government ruled by UN...
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