The Need For Conservative Unity in 2008

Human Events ^ | January.10, 2007 | Paul M. Weyrich

[mallardx]

I wish people would give it a rest. We just had an election. 22 months of this is too much.

[Reagan Man]

It is still not too late for most of the movement to get behind a candidate. There is no Reagan. But there are good men out there who would make an excellent President.

[ConservativeDude]

The sentiment of this piece is right.

But the problem is, it is way too late.

If he wants to talk about 2012 (assuming she wins) or 2016 (assuming the GOP wins), then I'm all for it. It would be great if we could all get on the same page. But it ain't gonna happen in 2008.

[ckilmer]

The 2006 election was absolutely not about "corruption and ethics" except to the extent that the dems used the issue to club republicans. You can see that in the stand up ovation the house black caucus gave to Representative Jefferson, the earlier re election of Ray Nagin of New Orleans and the reelection of Barny Frank. Its the particular genius of the democrats to figure out what makes them most despicable and attribute that to the republicans.

The greatness of Jesus is that he attribues his righteousness to everyone who believes in him. The reason for the greatness of this is that the ghastly diabolical nature of man is do just the opposite. Man tends to impute his own evil to others.(And the French have been doing this regularly since Rousseau gave them a methodology. Both the communists and the democrats have mastered the art of imputed evil as well.)

We desperately need a savior.

Nor is this is over the top. Rush Limbaugh said his impression is that conservatives are going to cave on illegal immigration. The reason this is so critical is that this is not the second chance for conservatives to get things right. This is their last chance.

The election was not about ideology. Bush governed from the center left and yet it was not the left/center left
republicans who were bumped by the elections. As the stats show it was mostly right and center right republicans who took fall for the presidents policies. Once again there was some very successful blame shifting going in -- even within the republican party.

Here are the ACU Ratings of Republican Incumbents Who Lost in the House according to the voting scorekeeper American Conservative Union:

Jim Ryun (KS) - ACU rating 98
J.D. Hayworth (AZ) - ACU rating 98
Richard Pombo (CA) - ACU rating 97
Chris Chocola (IN) - ACU rating 95
Gil Gutknecht (MN) - ACU rating 94
Charles Taylor (NC) - ACU rating 92
Mike Sodrel (IN) - ACU rating 92
Melissa Hart (PA) - ACU rating 91
John Hostettler (IN) - ACU rating 90
Don Sherwood (PA) - ACU rating 87
Anne Northup (KY) - ACU rating 86
Clay Shaw (NC) ACU rating 82
John Sweeney (NY) ACU rating 77
Jeb Bradley (NH) ACU rating 71
Charles Bass (NH) ACU rating 71
Curt Weldon (PA) ACU rating 70
Sue Kelly (NY) ACU rating 65
Mike Fitzpatrick (PA) ACU rating 60
Nancy Johnson (CT) ACU rating 47
Jim Leach (IA) ACU rating 43



Vacated Republican seats lost

DeLay (TX) ACU rating 95
Beuprez (COL) ACU rating 93
Green (WI) ACU rating 88
Nussle (IA) ACU rating 86
Ney (OH) ACU rating 86
Foley (FLA) ACU rating 78
Koly (AZ) ACU rating 74
Boelert (NY) ACU rating 40


Democrat Incumbent seats lost

None.


+++

Republican Incumbents Who Lost in the Senate:

Burns (MT) - ACU rating 91
Allen (VA) - ACU rating 92
Santorum (PA) - ACU rating 88
Talent (MO) - ACU rating 93
DeWine (OH) - ACU rating 80
Chafee (RI) - ACU rating 37


Democrat Incumbent seats lost

None.


I'm not saying that there was any collusion between republicans and democrats as to who would win and lose. What I am saying is 1.) There are some smart operators now in the democratic party including Begala and Soros. 2.)There is continuity of elite opinion across party lines that illegal immigration is ok. Elite democrats think they get cheap votes and elite republicans think they get cheap labor.

And there you can see what the 2006 elections were about. They were about doing a structural realignment of voters on the same scale as happened in the early 1960's when Johnson's great society began to shift the south out of its solid alignment with the democrats.

The democrats want to make the structural realignment de jure.

How? By bringing millions of illegals onto the voting rolls to vote democratic. Once that happens the conservatives will no longer have the ability to affect the national agenda at the polls. Consequently, abortions stay legal. Sodomites unite. The internal collapse of the west continues unabated.

I think the abolishion of birthright citizenship is a good start--as a way to make the USA less attractive to illegals. But I also think that the "compromise" does not involve making illegals legal but rather to make Mexico more attractive. That would involve extending loan guarantees to the federales exclusively to fund more pemex oil drilling. (currently they're are lootinge pemex to fund government spending so pemex only gets half the investment they need to fuel oil production. So consequently oil production is falling--and falling fast. Therefor the federales are pushing more illegals north to get their revenue.(Bush would think the loan guarantee a good idea since he is collapsing Iranian oil production.)

The second thing is to announce that the US policy is to collapse the cost of water desalination and transport thereby making it economically possible to turn the deserts of Mexico green and triple the effective size of that country. The Mexicans will need their people back. They'll come back with skills.

The third thing is to put the US solidly behind the work of Hernando de Soto's ILD. Only about 65% of the Mexican GNP is part of the formal economy. The rest is informal. They don't have very good formal property recognition in Mexico. De Soto's organization works to formalize third world economies so as to release their productive capacity and increase their value. The first chapter of de Soto's book The Mystery of Capitaldoes a good job of illuminating de soto's ideas.

The current elite solution to "harmonizing" Mexican and American economies is to dumb the USA down. The better solution is to brighten Mexico up and send them now well trained workers to do the job.

[areafiftyone]

You are correct. The Republican party is already split right now. Maybe in 2012.

[RebelBanker]

Excellent analysis, but fails to answer the most important question: WHO?

I would love to see a conservative candidate we could all happily support, but I really doubt it will happen. I hope I am wrong!

Whoever the Republican candidate is, we can expect the most vicious smears and libels from the legacy media. They are abandoning any pretense of fairness in their fawning coverage of all things Democrat.

[ckilmer]

Reagan ran in 1976--as well as 1980.

[Froufrou]

I was in a gathering of around 20 well-educated and informed conservatives.

And yet you did nothing to attempt conviction within the realm of your own colleagues? But you think you can motivate the reading public? You insist we narrow the field, but offer no candidate to uphold?

[willgolfforfood]

Nice rant, Paul. Are you so mad you want to scream, or are you really, REALLY mad, and want to scream and stamp your feet, too?

It would be "nice" if all conservatives united behind one candidate. But what is the process for this? Writing this article?

There are millions of conservative folks in the US, scattered over 50 states and quite a few time zones. How exactly do we all do a massive, simultaneous mind-meld, and pick this candidate 18 or 20 months before the election, or 12 months before the primaries?

I understand his beef, but he's never said one word about how conservatives would have ever prevented this "problem".

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>The sentiment of this piece is right.
>>>>But the problem is, it is way too late.

I disagree. Paul M. Weyrich has been around, and his creditbility among conservatives is pretty good. There is still time to get behind someone who represents what Free Republic is all about. Political conservatism based on the Constitution remains the best form of governance available to a free people.

Its not to late.

Ronald Reagan challenged Pres Ford for the GOP nomination in 1976. Ford won 15 primaries and Reagan won 12 primaries, in what was the closet primary election in US history. Reagan lost the nomination to Pres Ford at the GOP convention by a small margin of delegates. Reagan fell short by only 60 votes. The winner needed 1130, Ford got 1187 to 1070 for Reagan. Ford barely won.

Right now, the four major GOP candidates all have significant flaws. One is even an outright liberal. Three of the four do not measure up to conservative standards. Some might even say, they don't measure up to Republican standards either.

2008 is going to be a critical election for the future of the Republican Party. This is no time for conservatives to accept second rate candidates... liberals and RINO`s need not apply.

[OldFriend]

Oh really?

Where were the conservatives when the troops needed them, when this President needed them, when our allies needed them?

When the unborn needed one more conservative judge?

[ConservativeDude]

I agree with everything, except for the fact that it is still too late.

Reagan didn't have a lock on the GOP in 76, but he did have a lock on committed conservatives. Plus he had a decent financial infrastructure in place (check out Craig Shirley's book about that campaign. It's excellent). And money is a whole lot more important then than now.

Above all else, Reagan was Reagan. An extraordinary men who united conservatives of all stripes. He almost won in 76, and then in 80 he united all conservatives and all Republicans and the rest is history.

In theory, you could be right. That special "someone" could still emerge on the scene. But he better have a personal bank account of several hundred million in order to be competitive. (But even then he won't be strong, b/c a lot of conservatives have already signed up with one of the big 3...Reagan had the field to himself in 76 among conservatives, that is...it was either him or Ford).

I hate to bring the bad news, but it is too late. Next go round.

Of course a lot of us have been saying this since 2000, but usually we get a lot of flack from the geniuses here at FR who say things like "it's too early." In fact, you will probably seem some of that on this thread. Too early? Hardly. It's too late.

[Froufrou]

http://mikehuckabee.com/indexold.htm

Huckabee's a goner on so many levels it ain't even funny.

[proudpapa]

If Rudy McRomney is splitting the mushy MSM Moderate GOP vote three ways, we could easily rally behind an underfunded lesser known conservative...

...who could win the nomination, and possibly the whole thing.


Duncan Hunter '08!

[truth_seeker]

Reagan and Goldwater would be called rino, by today's religious "conservatives."
Like Guiliani and Gingrich, Reagan would get slammed for divorce; not to even mention his 1986 amnesty.

Goldwater was strongly in favor of equality for gays; something today's religious "conservatives" strongly oppose.

Finally Romney is "not one of us" by their religious definitions, hence good conservative Mormons can vote, but cannot be viable candidates.

And so forth. Religious "conservatives" write such a narrow definition, that nobody suitable to them is in the first tier of candidates.

Is it the candidates, or the definition?

If the bickering continues, it won't matter. Dems will get President, added to both houses of congress.

But idealogical purity will have been maintained.

[Reagan Man]

I warned FReepers throughout 2006 that if Bush, along with the entire GOP Congressional leadership, continued to ignore its conservative base, many conservatives would stay home on election day. Sadly, that is exactly what happened. Bush and the rest of the Republican BeltWay power brokers, kept right on spending like liberals, expanding the bureaucracy, enlarging the welfare state and advancing liberal immigration reform. Come election day 2006, the American people voted them out of office, and rightfully so.

You act as though it was the fault of conservatives that Bush was handed the worse loss by a Republican POTUS since Herbert Hoover in 1932. Bush, Frist, Hastert and the rest, only have themsleves to blame. If they hadn't moved so far leftward on domestic policy issues, many GOP candidates could have better weathered the gathering storm over Iraq, and just may have held onto their positions of power.

The old Reagan coalition of social and fiscal conservatives can still win elections. Without staying united conservatives can't help the GOP back to power. What happened in 2006, will happen again in 2008.

[SAJ]

FIne analysis.

[jellybean]

But there are good men out there who would make an excellent President. We still have enough power, with our magazines, radio and television shows and other media such as active websites, that we can raise that candidate to the top tier.

Once again Paul is right! There is someone out there who all factions of the party could support. He's well known, articulate, likeable and doesn't have any skeltons in his closet that I know of.

FRED THOMPSON

The RIGHT man for the job!

۩ ۩ Click above to see where he stands on the issues ۩ ۩