Posted on 03/02/2007 4:16:56 AM PST by Jim Robinson
To have a successful future, it helps to understand the past.
First, let’s understand that conservatives and conservatism did not lose last November.
The election loss was a direct result of the Republican Party and its leadership in the White House and Congress moving left.
The Republicans became that which they beheld.
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, they beheld the corruption and abuse of power by the Democrats. But a few years after the voters threw the Democrats out of office, the Republicans became that which they beheld-the Republicans became corrupt and abused their power.
When most of the Congressional Republicans first ran for office, they ran against the sewer that Washington had become. But after a few years in Washington most of them act like they’ve discovered that Washington isn’t a sewer after all – it’s a hot tub.
In other words, the Republicans’ real message was: “We didn’t want the Democrats spending the money, but now that we are totally in charge, let’s blow the door off the bank vault, and let’s spend and spend and spend our children and grandchildren’s inheritance.”
ALL FOR THE SOLE IMMORAL, CORRUPT PURPOSE OF HOLDING ONTO POWER.
And how appropriate that it turned into ashes in their mouth.
In January 2001, for all intents and purposes, the Republicans in the White House and Congress adopted a one-word strategy to govern.
And that one word was BRIBERY.
In essence they said to the voters ‘you’ve got votes-we’ve got money-let’s talk - let’s deal.’
The illegal corruption of Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff, and Mark Foley is not a serious problem for us, our children, or grandchildren’s lives.
They’ve been caught and punished.
But far worse crimes have been committed by the politicians who are still sitting in their Capitol Hill offices. I’m talking about the legalized theft of trillions of dollars these politicians have stolen from the children of tomorrow – in order to buy votes to stay in office today.
Therefore conservatives, our #1 need going forward is for new leaders.
Conservatives are like the Biblical Jews who had to wander through the desert for 40 years until that generation of immoral corrupt leaders had passed away.
As conservatives, we’re not going to get to the political Promised Land until we also get new, uncorrupt, principled leaders.
Dr. Phil, the TV psychiatrist, likes to say: “How’s that working for you?”
And I say: How’s that working for you conservatives – to be an appendage of the Republican Party?
The voters spoke in November, and what was the first thing the Republicans did? They kept in power all the leaders who had led them over the cliff!
Obviously the initials GOP now stands for Go On Partying. Or Give up (G) on (O) principles (P).
Well, the Republican party apparently has a death wish, but that doesn’t mean we conservatives have to go along with it.
My strong recommendation is for conservatives to stop being an arm of the Republican Party and become a 3rd Force, but not a 3rd Party.
The left has had enormous success by building strong 3rd force groups and coalitions.
The left has hundreds of environmental groups, consumer groups, civil rights groups, feminist groups, and homosexual groups, etc., etc.
And these groups have their own agenda, their own members, their own money, and most importantly they operate independent of the Democratic Party
Conservatives must do the same.
No longer think of yourself as a Republican, but as a Reagan conservative.
Let’s re-launch the conservative movement.
Let’s act independently of the Republican Party and their failed big government leadership.
Let’s focus on the conservative movement, not the GOP.
We need to greatly increase the size and number of principled conservative organizations.
Let’s launch a thousand new organizations reaching out to:
1. Small business owners, especially women, Hispanics, and Asians.
2. America’s youth, who know the current Social Security system just won’t be there for them.
3. Independent voters, most of who support a balanced budget, family values, and fiscal restraint.
4. Values voters, who agree with us on same sex marriage and the culture of life and promoting traditional moral values – not Hollywood values.
5. Young married couples, who care about child tax credits and better schools.
6. Senior citizens, who want to stop the politicians’ raid on the Social Security Trust Fund – and don’t trust them to manage their health care, either.
7. Doctors, who are already being hamstrung by red tape – and are scared to death of the prospect of socialized medicine.
8. And all the Americans in the “sensible center” who know deep-down that conservatives really are “right:” We’re right on illegal immigration, right on taxes, right on health care, right on the economy, right on terrorism – and right for America.
Let’s withhold support from all Republican National Committees because they spend our money in primaries to defeat conservatives.
Let’s withhold support from most Republican elected officials, supporting only those few principled conservatives
Let’s challenge in primaries all establishment big government Republicans and Democrats at the National, state, and local levels.
Let’s run principled conservatives for local, state, and national party offices.
I congratulate CPAC for not having the Chairman of the Republican National Committee at CPAC for the first time in memory.
And conservatives—this is important – for the time being, we should withhold our support from all of the top tier 2008 Presidential wannabees.
Not a one of them deserves our support today.
They all fail the Goldwater/Reagan test.
Goldwater became our hero when he and he alone in Washington stood up and criticized the Republicans for their big government policies.
On the floor of the Senate in 1960, he said President Eisenhower was running a dime store New Deal.
He spoke truth to power. Where is the Republican Presidential candidate that has stood up publicly to the big government Republican leaders in the last 6 years?
And if they haven’t stood up for conservative principles in the last 6 years, they won’t start if they become President.
And Reagan regularly criticized Presidents Nixon and Ford.
And the second test is, tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are.
Reagan walked with conservatives- long before he ran for President in 1976; he was at our meetings, our receptions, and our rallies.
And surrounding Reagan were conservative stars Lyn Nofziger, Marty Anderson, Dick Allen, Ed Meese, Judge Clark, Joe Coors, and many others.
If conservatives have not been around a Republican Presidential candidate before he began asking for our votes, I guarantee you conservatives will not be around him if he moves into the White House.
And I promise you; you will not have conservative policies or conservative programs without conservative personnel.
I don’t know about you, but I’m angry and I feel betrayed, but fortunately there are things we conservatives can do to become a governing majority in America.
However, it’s not likely to happen quickly, certainly not by 2008.
One of the strengths of the conservative movement is we’ve always approached politics as a marathon, not a sprint.
It may take 6-10 years for conservatives to be able to govern America.
But 1st conservatives have to follow the advice that Kevin Costner got in the baseball movie “Field of Dreams.”
If you build it, they will come.
We have to build a whole new conservative movement, independent of the two major parties.
And once we build a large, dynamic powerful conservative movement, the next Ronald Reagan will appear.
Remember the movie, “The Blues Brothers” with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. The idea in the movie was We’re putting the band back together And we’re on a mission from God
Well conservatives, We’re putting the conservative movement back together. And hopefully we’re on a mission from God.
--30-- NOTE to EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered ideological and political direct mail and has been called “the funding father of the conservative movement” for his role in helping build dozens of conservative organizations. He is the author of the newly released Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books, 2006).
The only reason I consider folks like you enemies is because of your constant attacks on "my house."
Never said I didn't like Viguerie. But I do think it's helpful to assess someone's track record.
It may be he's been exactly right every time. Still, there's no harm in people knowing and assessing for themselves Viguerie's approach over the years, is there?
I wouldn't read more into it than that.
For one thing, conservatives need to separate fiscal conservatism from social conservatism. The two are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum IMO. Fiscal conservatism has wide, broad intellectual appeal while social conservatism has muddied up it's waters with a confused emotion based message.
Fair enough. I read it as an attack, when in reality I shouldn't have done so. Regards...
Thanks for saying that.
I was just looking at the list of people we should reach out to and clearly some of them are law and order or national security conservatives vs. social conservatives and some of them are fiscal conservatives.
It's nice to get the whole package but I don't see that happening and so most of us are going to focus on national security and pocketbook issues.
Also, I see that the vanity suggests reaching out to certain groups including women. That's going to be difficult if it's something this forum intends to do given the recent forum decision to permit calling women desperate housewives or wish the women would get a venereal disease just because a lot of us support a fiscally conservative Republican who the social conservatives don't like.
Also, any movement by this forum to reach out to Republicans will likely be rejected by newbies when they start reading that they are treasonous liberals if they support a Republican candidate that social conservatives don't like.
It's a sad day for Conservatism when we have to attack and marginalize all for the sake of advancing the cause.
I know it. Very sad indeed.
What's really disturbing is that so many Republicans and conservatives don't realize just how MANY different kinds of conservatives there are. I don't claim that my brand of conservatism is better than any one else's, but there's a certain segment on this forum who think they are the only TRUE conservatives. It's so ignorant of the facts that it's embarrassing.
You left your house. You told many of us on FR time and time again that you're no longer a member of the GOP.
Conservative Bump!
These categories are not hard and fast, and people dip into and out of these three schools to varying degrees. The point is that conservatism is a dynamic philosophy, which has a constant churn of ideas. You'll notice that the main precepts of American liberalism / socialism have not changed for 50 years - their philosophy is intellectually bankrupt, and a failure as a result.
Regards, Ivan
************
All right. We can do it.
Very good, Ivan. I see that you know more about this country's politics than many of our own countrymen.
Oh I absolutely agree, and goes along with what I've always maintained, that conservatism itself is not monolithic, with a certain amount of give and take to allow for a certain degree of compromise.
You'll notice that the main precepts of American liberalism / socialism have not changed for 50 years - their philosophy is intellectually bankrupt, and a failure as a result.
The fact that it's "unbending" or unwilling to change (uncomprimising) with the times or the circumstances, is why it's a failure.
Bump
See, there's what I'm talking about. You have no compunction about telling bald-faced lies.
The Left has only made one concession to modernity; they decided after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that they were going to have to make some peace with business, namely that they were not going to be able to nationalise every company in the land. Instead, they are now trying to regulate them to death.
Regards, Ivan
You hit on what I see as a key point.
The reason this redefining of conservatism is taking place today has to do with a certain frustration and complacency on the rightwing. Conservatives have gotten a little bit unfocused and lazy. What Buckley and Goldwater started in the 1950`s and 1960`s to advance conservatism and what Reagan accomplished in the 1980`s, is now under a systematic attack from the internal non-conservative forces within the GOP. These "moderate" forces are slowing sucking the life-blood out of the conservative agenda and weakening the resolve of mainstream conservatism.
Today Republicans seem to be more fascinated in the liberal pop culture politics of A.Schwarzy and RudyG, then their are concerned with advancing conservatism. In addition, after 30 years in a dormant state, Rockefeller Republicanism is making a comeback and that doesn't help matters.
Over time this effort to move away from traditional conservatism and undermine its basic concepts, will only damage the Republican Party, and in the end maybe even destroy the party of Lincoln and Reagan. Its happened before. Political parties come and go. It can happen again.
How? Might I remind you that there isn't one brand of conservatism, or "My conservatism is better than your conservatism". I've never believed conservatism to be monolithic.
You believe what you want to believe, defend what you believe, persuade others to join your fight, and conservatism wins every time it's tried.
Anyone who adopts the "My conservatism is better than yours" mentality will always lose and remain pessimistic of the world around them.
If you build it, they will come.
BumP
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