Posted on 08/25/2007 5:45:03 PM PDT by The Spirit Of Allegiance
Every so often, someone decides that the world is too corrupt to reform. And they start a political party.
Sometimes this makes sense. More often, though, it's just foolishness, and bad stewardship to boot. And for Christians today, that's exactly where things stand.
Third party advocates will sputter and fume at this. They'll talk about conscience, as though there are no issues of conscience concerning the second-order consequences of their actions when they help a leftist win. They'll pontificate about how God could sovereignly raise up an army of believers for their new party, as if He cannot do the same thing in the Republican Party, or even the Democrat Party. They'll claim we are advocating power politics, while they advocate electing a President (just a President) and using his veto pen and executive orders to thwart all other freely elected branches of the American government.
The particular third party which advocates that last bit, by the way, only passed the resolution declaring itself officially "Christian" by one vote. But no one ever mentions that, of course, any more than they notice that their preferred method of "reform" would involve making their standard bearer a dictator.
Like most things which ought not be done, this is all very well-intentioned. The advocates of this are fed up with the compromises of many leaders in the Republican Party, can't stand the outright wickedness they see in their government, and want to do something now. This is all admirable, and correct.
What is not correct is the set of myths which swirl about third parties, myths without which those parties could not attract even the handful of followers they have. Here are a few of them.
1. The Republican Party is a monolithic entity, controlled by Washington "insiders".
The exact opposite is true. In fact, the Republican Party (like the Democrat Party), is made up of literally thousands of legally independent entities, none of which have any power to tell each other what to do, expel each other from the party, or meddle (much) in each other's affairs. That's all the county parties, all the state parties, all the regional groupings, even the various national entities (yes, the National Republican Congressional Committee is completely separate from its Senatorial counterpart and even from the Republican National Committee). That's not even counting the support groups, like the Republican Women and the College Republicans; and the support groups are as independent of each other as they are of the party, and the national, state, and local levels of each of these are independent as well.
In fact, there are only two ways in which any of these bodies are joined together: (1) in most (but not all) states, campaign finance laws lump them together for the purpose of limiting total contributions; and (2) in most cases, the lower bodies elect the levels immediately above them. That's it; that's all. And for the most part, this isn't a choice: it's the law. If a third party ever grew large enough to be subject to those laws, it would have to be "organized" the very same way.
2. Okay, but none of that matters, because the "big boys" keep control by disbursing the money.
Pardon me while every activist in America laughs. Each party organ just mentioned has the joy of raising its own money. That's why, once you get on their phone lists, you get constant telemarketing calls from the NRCC and the NRSC and the RNC and your state Republican Party, plus any number of other groups. And since they have to raise their own money, they're loath to share it: they each have their own kingdoms to build. This is why the majority of county Republican parties in America have an annual budget of less than $1,000. That's not being "bought"; it's not even getting taken to dinner.
3. Well maybe, but the party bosses in Washington certainly control the elected officials.
Nope. Once again, follow the money: the candidates have to raise their own too. And whomever this might or might not come from, precious little of it comes from the party. Quite the contrary: the various party organs depend on the officeholders to raise money for them.
It gets worse (or better, depending on your perspective): the parties don't pick the candidates either. They recruit very few of them, they recruit opponents for a lot of the ones they have, and they have no say in who gets nominated. The law, once again, has usurped this traditional party role, once guaranteed by the First Amendment freedom of association: even though a political party is a private organization, its candidates must be chosen (for the most part) by a vote of the people. And in many states, "the people" don't even have to identify with the party in whose primary they vote! In states like Michigan and Arkansas, Democrats frequently flood the Republican primary to elect the "Republican" of their choice. In Louisiana, no party nominee is selected at all: everyone has to run in one big primary together, with the result that the two general election opponents are usually both Democrats.
This means that parties have no say in the most important thing parties do. Likewise, candidates, having been turned into lone wolves, have exactly as much loyalty to their party as happens to suit their own personal agenda. And once again, this is the law: the Constitution and Reform Parties would, if they ever got big enough, have to play by the same rules.
4. Whatever. I'm sticking with my teeny-tiny party because no one could possibly take over that whole, gigantic Republican Party.
Newsflash, friend: if you can't manage to take the Republican Party -- much of which already broadly agrees with you -- how are you ever going to take the whole country?
The fact is, all the things I just described mean that the Republican Party is completely open to any movement which can produce the numbers and organizational skill to get the job done. If you show up with enough people, you win all the offices at the county committee. Win enough county committees, and you have a majority of the state committee. Win enough of those, and you have the whole party.
The party is porous at the bottom: you just have to know what to do, and have the patience to stick with it. Sure, unorganized grassroots will rubberstamp lots of stuff the higher-ups want, but the power is still below; and if a leader — or leaders — organized them, they could easily and quickly permeate the whole party with their agenda. If.
The problem remains that the party is very big: there are 3066 counties in America, and it would require organizing, taking over, and controlling the Republican committee in a majority of the counties in a majority of the states to be able to elect most of the state committees and the national committee. This, to many third party folk, seems impossible.
It isn't. And if it is, they should abandon their third party as well: building a third party that was vaguely competitive would require organizing even more counties still. And its one thing to get people involved in reforming something they've heard of and (probably) already belong to; it's quite another matter to get them to go off with Don Quixote.
5. Well if it's all so easy, why haven't we already done it, big man?
Hey, lay off my weight! And anyway, the answer's pretty simple, and you'll have to deal with it no matter which party you pick.
Our problem isn't mean old bad Republicans preventing us from holding office. In fact, nearly all the vocal Christian officeholders in America are Republicans, and studies show that the Christian Right has steadily gained power (although not yet control) over the past eight years in all but seven of the nation's state Republican parties, and outright control in seven more. The problem — and this is especially true the more particular you get about what you want believed and done — is that Christians don't have enough cultural influence to consistently field candidates and win primaries, much less fill party positions. There are huge chunks of the country where we never run anyone at all.
Now whose fault is that? The left's? Billy Graham's? The New World Order's? I don't think so.
If Christians are thin on the ground — and if the Christians we have are less sound than some might prefer — we have no one to blame but ourselves. It's our job to disciple, our job to preach, our job to fill the Earth with the things we believe. And it seems to me that if we can't even get our own local churches and denominations running decently, we shouldn't expect any better success in an endeavor (politics) where people normally have some idea of what they're doing. Hint: ranting at them won't work any better than it did in the last three Reformed denominations you left.
Winning takes more than ranting. Winning takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of time. It takes preparation (ask Moses). It takes set-backs (ask David). It takes enough postmillennial vision to stick with something which may not be fulfilled in your lifetime (ask Abraham). And it takes a plan; preferably a plan which doesn't require multiple miracles to have any hope of success.
6. Okay, you've convinced me. But after all that stuff about how impotent the party structure is, why would we want it? Why not just run candidates?
Simple: the organization and the brand name.
You can't elect candidates without a tremendous labor pool. The party has it. Likewise, you can't do it without raising money; and people don't like giving money to things they've never heard of, much less things they're convinced can't win.
Why reinvent the wheel? If all you have is enough activists to organize a county anyway, organize yours. Go to your Republican county committee meeting, get involved, and when it comes time for officer elections, elect some good ones. If you don't like what the rest of the party's doing, pass your own platform. Send out press releases. Do whatever you want to do. And like the Apostle Paul, go teach other Christians in other counties to do the same thing.
Somewhere along the way, in your area/state/whatever, the word "Republican" is going to come to mean what you say it means. And at the same time, you're going to have a real say in the real world, from the election commission seats which are legally guaranteed to the Republican Party to the press coverage which comes when a Democrat does something and your local newspaper needs to cover "the other side." Oh, and the donor base: don't forget the donor base. Because lots of people will vote for and give money to Republicans just because they're Republicans, and they couldn't care less what those Republicans believe.
That could mean you, kemo sabe. If you want it bad enough.
Many reasons, the easiest is that Republican judicial nominees will one day end the bogus "right" to unfettered abortions.
The killing of 40 million American babies, the most beautiful and innocent of our blessings, is abhorrent to me.
Whine all you want little lady. I and many others aren’t intimidated by your scare mongering. What a bunch of cowards.
The article is drivel... the primary has not happened yet...
When it does happen, you will know who is the winner of the general election if Julie-Annie is the GOP nominee...
Maybe someday. Right now it still isn’t that big an issue in the public mind.
Here on FR, sure, but not among the general public. Those who ran in the last election as specifically anti-ilegal alien did not do all that well.
I would guess that no more than 10 to 20% of the population fits the Freeper profile. Face it, we’re a fringe group.
Nothing wrong with that in itself. So were the early proponents of American independence and the abolitionists. They didn’t win till they put together a coalition, which occurred in each case in the middle of a major war, which I’d prefer to avoid if possible.
If Julie-Annie is the GOP nominee he will lose... so pay attention... I will not vote for the S.O.B.
Whats happened to the right wing is the mystery..
"They" are seething some where, extremely mad..
Probably Sandy Berger was the straw that broke the CAMELS BACK..
The camel jockeys are on their way.. the right wing is listening for the hoof beats..
Why? Want to leave it to your kids and grandkids???
Those wars happened because it was avoided too many times before.
I'm ready...
Recently, I had a die hard claim to me that I would vote for Pol Pot for president if he were running as a Republican.
I pointed out that Pol Pot would be running as a Democrat but he wouldn't find the Republican to his liking and would allow Pol Pot to be elected.
Sometimes it's painful, but politicians do learn. Perot would not have existed as an real candidate until Bush 41 alienated his voting base by raising taxes and signing gun control.
Since Bush 41's reelection loss to the Arkansas grifter, very few Republicans have come out in favor of raising taxes or more gun control.
It will be much easier to do that now that we've watched the Democrat cowards in action. The Democrat reign of terror is about to come to an end. Is it any wonder why people identifying themselves as Democrats is the lowest in 10 years.
If Rudy or Mitt are the nominee I will not be voting Republican this time.. Its that simple, Life is my must have issue one is pro choice the other lies about being pro life..
Me neither. Add Romney as well.
You forgot the arrogance of the GOP lapdogs. They lost an election and adopted every failed tactic the democrats had. They can’t sell a politician so they threaten with a democrat. People don’t agree so they try to ridicule them into agreement.
At this point I expect to hear them crying that the democrats stole the election when the GOP loses.
No different...
” The Democrat reign of terror is about to come to an end.”
LOL
What reign of terror is that? Eight months of controlling Congress? You cheapen history with such hysteria.
Yellow Dog Republicans will talk about "compromise" and "accommodation," much as Vidkun Quisling invoked the same principles when Hitler asked him to make nice. And they'll ignore the first-order consequences of their actions when they help a leftist -- albeit one with an "R" after his name -- win. Furthermore, they'll have the audacity to hint that God endorses their tepid candidates, despite the fact that Jesus exhorted His followers to act on principle, not expediency.
No, the RINO is a far greater enemy to conservatives than the liberal.
Timing your wars can be critical.
If America had struck for independence 20 years earlier, it would have failed miserably. Too few people in the country. 20 years later, and it wouldn’t really have been that much of a fight. Too many people and spread out too much to conquer.
If the South had seceded in 1850, they would have won. The infrastructure to support its conquest (mostly railroads and industry) wasn’t extensive enought yet, and the disproportion in potential power between the sections was much smaller. In 1870 the Union would have won much more easily, as the disproportion in potential power was that much greater.
I’m not sure what great issue, equivalent in importance to independence or slavery, you think we should fight another civil war over.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.