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).
Rudy is a liberal. A flaming liberal on the social issues and on fiscal matters, he's another big government Republican. Just like Dubya Bush has been for most the last six years!
I say, if you support Rudy you're betraying conservatism, and thereby advancing liberalism. If that is your objective, fine. Don't think it fools anyone, cause it doesn't. nIN the end, you vote for a liberal and you'll get whats coming you you.
This thread is about Viguerie's speech, not one word of which has anything to do with comments like that at all. He's simply said we need to build a conservative movement, independent of the GOP. Is he wrong? Or are you mad about that idea for some reason? You've been griping about the man personally up to now, now you're griping about people calling out RINOs, or calling flyover country hicks, even about how we need to compromise. You still can't seem to address the idea he put forth in his speech, which is that CONSERVATIVES need to organize INDEPENDENT of the GOP. What is wrong with that? Is that somehow 'engaging in my conservatism is better than yours?' Is that somehow implying that 'conservatism is monolithic?' Is that somehow destroying the Republican party? Feel free to explain how!
Plenty. Where's this concerted effort to organize, and build independent of the GOP. All I see is these conservatives clinging to the GOP like little kids to a father's coat, whining that they're getting screwed over.
Excuse me. I missed where you explained how the absence of achieving the goal somehow makes the goal a bad one. Could you show me what, exactly, is 'plenty' wrong with conservatives organizing outside the GOP--other than they haven't done it? I especially love how your characterization of conservatives as whiny children serves no purpose other than to insult conservatives and sidesteps stating why the idea is a bad one. That their demands and comments are so irritating to you, how does that show somehow that it would be a bad idea for them to organize separately from the GOP?
Anyway, you wrote:
You still can't seem to address the idea he put forth in his speech, which is that CONSERVATIVES need to organize INDEPENDENT of the GOP. What is wrong with that?
Nothing is "wrong" with that. The question is not whether it's "wrong," but whether it's wise.
Not that the parties can't ever morph into essentially new entities, but the fact is that the two-party *system* is firmly entrenched in our nation.
In fact, as flawed and cumberson and clumsy as it is, I personally would hate to see our two-party system devolve into a Euroweenie scenario with parties springing up and dying constantly and the name of the game being forced into "coalitions" before governing can even commence.
That aside, here we are. With a two-party system.
Want to change that? Knock yourself out.
As I posted earlier, when Ronald Reagan felt that the Democrat party had "left him," he realized he had to become . . . a Republican. That is, he knew he had to work within the two-party system, and I am quite sure that you don't want to become a Democrat.
Of couse, nothing is impossible. Feel free to organize however, wherever and with whomever you like. However, I do hope those who repeat the Ross Perot mistake of 1992 and 1996 at least take responsibility this time if, come Election Day 2008, the Rat Machine is handed even more power on a silver platter.
Viguerie pointedly said this:
"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."
Since Viguerie obviously and clearly did NOT advocate forming a third party, nor did I, why do you try to address a call that hasn't been issued and wasn't raised in this speech? I repeat the question I asked and you have not addressed yet: what is wrong with the idea of conservatives organizing themselves outside the framework of the GOP?
I repeat the answer I gave you, substituting "third force" for "third party" as appropriate, to suit your view that there is some practical distinction with merit between the two.
You can organize a "force" or whatever term you want to use all you want. You would still end up having to work through the two-party system.
Moreover, there already exists this so-called "force" within the two political parties. This "force" is otherwise called the party's "base."
The bases of each of the two political parties have been organized, and have been trying to further organize, within the parties since time immemorial. Yet here we are. Why?
Because the deeper you drive into individuals' personal views, the deeper disunity becomes. There is a natural point beyond which "organization" cannot occur because there is no agreement on an organizing principle.
This is a natural fact and it's the reason why, today, the "force"---i.e., the more-or-less organized base in the Republican Party---cannot become more powerfully organized. It has reached its natural limit. At the micro level, there are too many nuanced differences in "principles" and approaches.
This is demonstrated right here on FR, where the "force" has not agreed on which candidate is conservative "enough" to deserve whole-hearted support.
But if you want to go for it, as I said, knock yourself out and more power to you. Regardless, to have any efficacy at all---unless you only want to be a homewrecker---you will end up having to work through the larger organization, meaning one of the two major political parties in America.
"third force" or "third party", six in one hand, half a dozen in the other.
The reason conservatives should not bother with Viguerie's call to organize is that they can't organize on any level smaller than the GOP. Don't think I agree with you on that point. What of the Main Street Republicans? What of the Club for Growth? The Moral Majority? The Minutemen?
"But if you want to go for it, as I said, knock yourself out and more power to you. Regardless, to have any efficacy at all---unless you only want to be a homewrecker---you will end up having to work through the larger organization, meaning one of the two major political parties in America."
That may well be true, but having to channel candidates through one party's structure might be more easily done if the fundraising and campaigning for the candidates were not controlled by the party itself. Think of the Clinton/DLC machine, and the way it managed to turn itself into the party prior to Dean. After Dean began a separate structure independent of the DNC, the DNC realized it needed him to keep the party together, and since his 'rejoining' the Rat crowd, the DNC has hewed pretty largely to the public line of the far left, though it has had some difficulty putting up because those who will vote for far left officeholders are fewer in number than those who'll vote for a DLC type. And liberal contributions have stayed put in large amounts in the coffers of non-party organizations like Moveon, not to the DNC, a fact which Hillary has tried to use to move Dean out.
I think your arguments don't ring convincingly against organizing a conservative wing at all. They only really effectively demonstrate that you miss something important. You think that "The bases of each of the two political parties have been organized, and have been trying to further organize, within the parties since time immemorial." But you miss that the bases for each party have changed radically over the years. Even thirty years ago, the GOP was not entirely a conservative party, as it did not command (as it does not now command) the Jacksonian conservative political wing. The GOP had to actively court it and commit to it to win its votes even through the Nixon years, and Watergate's obvious corruption flipped that crowd away into voting for Carter.
Mead defines that wing as "Suspicious of untrammeled federal power (Waco), skeptical about the prospects for domestic and foreign do-gooding (welfare at home, foreign aid abroad), opposed to federal taxes but obstinately fond of federal programs seen as primarily helping the middle class (Social Security and Medicare, mortgage interest subsidies)..." This sounds significantly like the disenchanted 'whiners' here, with the obvious exception that most of these folks have gone off federal middle class spending (except perhaps as a method of somewhat evening the score for corporate and other welfare). Organizing that group separately from the rest of the GOP, making it into an independent power base to be wooed, would likely produce a recognizable rise in party influence. If that is homewrecking, perhaps the house needs more remodeling than you are willing to admit.
""third force" or "third party", six in one hand, half a dozen in the other."
Not at all. Would you call the Main Street Republicans a third party? What about the Log Cabin Republicans? Yet there they are, and organized to boot.
If they "show up" on election day and vote for a Leftist like Giuliani or McCain or even Romney (effective leftist because he is totally wishy-washy and pliable) then Conservatives demonstrate their irrelevance politically and it will be several election cycles before the Republican Party or Republican candidates think they should or can run on any sort of conservative principles and positions. When the Leftist calls himself a Republican that does NOT make him in any sense a conservative anything.
And remember I did not say just "organized." I specifically said "powerfully organized." IOW, organized in such a way as to exert real influence on the larger organization. I think the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and such at one time may be the types of organizations Viguerie (and you, possibly) are thinking of.
But how effective were they in the long run? They couldn't really, nor would they claim they were part and parcel of the party; that would have impunged their "independence." But, to the extent they were not part and parcel of the party, they did not have the "freedom" (loathesome as it may be sometimes) to make the pragmatic calls that the party must make to function within our system of self-government.
It seems to me that, to be effective in the scenario you've suggested, this "force" or "wing" (what I call the base) would have to be quite large. And if it were quite large, it would organize quite naturally and would quite naturally exert a strong influence on the party.
The fact that that doesn't *quite* happen (it happens to some extent, I think) tells me---at least in this point in time---there's no "there" there.
Your example of the Clinton wing is a good one. However, that "force" in the DNC did not create itself out of nothing. It was already a very large vein in the Rat rockbed; it's just that the Toon happened to be the one to come along at the right time with the ability to galvanize it.
And isn't that the basic problem here that we spend threads and threads talking over and hashing out what is to be done about it? That no galvanizing leader of the base has appeared yet?
I do believe it takes that certain leader to bring about. It will not come about otherwise. And, more than that, what is stopping people from doing it if they want it done? We have the internet, we have PayPal, we have millions of ways to organize that were never possible previously.
I have no quarrel with your considered judgment. My only concern is that, in the meantime, good people who love their country will, because of their dissatisfaction with a process none of us can fully control, actually harm our country by facilitating the election of the Rat Machine.
As I said in a previous post, I think anyone who does his best to impact the primary process for good can have a clear conscience come Election Day. On Election Day, you are presented with two choices, not of your making. Your conscience is clear. At that point, it is an individual's responsibility to vote to obtain the best result for the country from the choices presented.
That is an honorable, though sometimes unpleasant duty.
Founder Bump/Ping!
Thank you for trying. It's more effort than many are willing to put out.
The conservatives always want 100 percent of their demands met, or else. I genuinely don't understand what their inability is to compromise or understand where their sense of entitlement comes from-especially since they often claim NOT to be part of the GOP, but then want to dictate policy and make demands.
Ack. Exasperating.
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