[Sans-Culotte]

There’s no way I’d agree with most RINOs ‘90% of the time’. And his analogy about red and blue armies is incredibly lame, particularly for a ‘brilliant’ guy. Scratch another guy off the list.

[Retired Chemist]

I think this is the reason we ended up with 4 more years of Obama.

[nathanbedford]

More than five years ago I wrote the following post which points a different way from the path recommended by Doctor Carson, it is Ronald Reagan's path, it is the way of clarity and character. It is not the way of compromise or trimming. It is a whole different approach to building electoral majority which rejects the idea that conservatism is somehow not a salable commodity. To the contrary it asserts that conservatism is an eminently attractive and wholesome philosophy.

Here is the post:

Here is a portion of a post which I published in response to a Politico article calling for Republicans and conservatives to move left to fill the big tent:

As we conservatives drag the remnants of our movement into the wilderness with no idea how we will emerge or whether we will ever emerge as an electoral force in America which is recognizable by my generation, we must inevitably engage ourselves in the most soul- searing inquiry of what went wrong. This will be an agony but equally it will be effective only to the degree that it hurts. It will not succeed without bloodshed. There must be finger-pointing and bloodletting. We must carve to the bone. The process must be Darwinian. Those whose ideas are false must be bayoneted on the trail.

The object is to find our soul - nothing less. In a come to Jesus sense we must get absolutely clear what it means to be a conservative. Only at this point do we look to the tent flaps and open them. Those who cannot subscribe to the hard-won consensus, to a confession of faith as to what is a conservative, should walk out through that flap. Those who are attracted from the outside to the core message of conservatism should be encouraged to walk through the flap and enlarge the tent. What the left wants us to do is to expand the census in the tent prematurely and thus turn a movement into a menagerie. The Soul-searching must be conducted by conservatives without the earnest ministrations from liberals like those of Politico. This article, of course, has nothing whatever to do with explaining why Republicans lost 2008 election across the board, it has everything to do with first efforts by the left to sabotage the rebuilding process on the right which must be done exclusively by the right.

We have not lost the 2008 election because we were excessively partisan while Obama was enlightened and transcendental. We actually lost the election because George Bush and Karl Rove betrayed the soul of conservatism. A party without its soul is like an army which does not believe in itself, it cannot win the next contest. A party which had abandoned its principles and so lost the last two elections and frittered away both its power as the ruling coalition and its status as the majority philosophy of the nation, cannot expect to swell its ranks by recruiting to a lost cause. The party must first know what the cause is and only then can it recruit. To again borrow the military analogy, a party like an army disintegrates without a mission. Armies are assigned missions but a political party finds its mission only through soul-searching.

As this process occurs we will be told by the left that only a big tent party can win and that to become a big tent one must move to co-opt the center. That is not how it works. That is the reverse of the way it works. The center is not peopled by voters with fixed notions about the exercise of power who wait for one of the great political parties to surrender their values and embrace the tempered and resolute opinions of the middle. That happens with splinter parties but not with the mushy middle. When an unaffiliated voter bestirs himself to enter the polling booth he is confronted with one of two options: right or left. He does not consider who has moved the farthest geographically from right to the left or left to right any more than he commits because of his own long held political beliefs. He votes for the fella who best tickles his fancy at the moment. Put more charitably, he votes for the candidate who persuades that he is the best, and has the best to offer.

If we as conservatives do not believe that we have the best to offer we should get out of the business. A candidate, like a party, who is centered on his philosophy has integrity and is persuasive. And that philosophy must first have a vertical spiritual component which finds expression and out working in a horizontal governing philosophy.

Because of his race, Obama was asked only to demonstrate that he could walk and talk like a president. Obama has won the middle, not because he pandered to them, which he did, but because he had the wind at his back.

As John McCain reverts from titular head of the Republican Party to United States Senator, it falls to the rest of us to contrive a governing philosophy which he, unfortunately, did not own and therefore could not bequeath to us. We had such a legacy from Ronald Reagan but we squandered it. We must construct our own. We must do it in the wilderness. We must do it unaided by intermeddling liberals. Their's is the serpent's way, the easy way, a pander to the superficially popular, the accommodation to the middle. The bed of birth has always been a bed of pain. The pain must be embraced if we are to receive a new life.

[dontreadthis]

there are 2 issues here, and Dr. Carson does not identify them individually:
1. Compromising with the left
2. compromising with the GOP-e
his case would be better made by elucidating these differences, and may lead him to a different analysis and conclusion

[Dead Corpse]

You don't win by jettisoning your base.

Period.

Let the other guy compromise.

[Moonman62]

Voting for someone who agrees with you 90 percent of the time is far superior to voting for someone who disagrees with you 100 percent of the time.

The problem is the Ruling Class Republicans can't reach 50% much less 90%.

[bigbob]

Dr. Carson is correct.

[roamer_1]

There is plenty of room for compromise, once the first things, the principles upon which we stand, are met.

Principles, by their very nature, cannot be compromised.

[Tamzee]

Every single time I vote, I compromise my principles and that is the way it should be. Unless Jesus Christ returns and runs for office, every person I vote for will be flawed and “a lesser of two evils”. It just makes sense to vote for the most viable candidate on the conservative end of the spectrum and hope enough people join in to start pushing this country back to the right.

The only point I disagreed with Dr. Carson on is whether or not it is too late for our country... I am afraid we might be passing a point of no return :-(

[eyedigress]

Dr. Carson

Conservatives will not compromise the Constitution of the United States.

Conservatives will not render that not in the Constitution to that of the federal government.

Conservatives will not step and fetch to the likes of Hairy Reed.

[Timber Rattler]

This is exactly what will happen if people refuse to exercise their civic duty and boycott elections because they feel betrayed

Whatever, Ben.

[Proud2BeRight]

I will NOT vote for a “lesser of evils” establishment RINO again.

[ForYourChildren]

Dr. Ben Carson, you are confused.

Winning elections is not what this is all about. If we wanted to win elections then we all could just join the democrats, boost their numbers, and then we would win elections. Or we could all be RINOs move to the left and compromise all our principles.

But this is about principles.

Sometimes, it is important to take a stand on principle. On principle we may need to fight. On principle we could lose our life. On principle we could lose an election. It is for us to do our duty, then let God determine how He will use us. Win or Lose. Let Him use our principled duty to Him.

We would not be in this mess if on principle we did not compromise. Compromise is what got us where we are. Therefore, we will not compromise with you. If you are not a principled conservative Christian and a principled conservative Constitutionalist, then we don’t want you.

Patrick Henry said on principle, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” He did not compromise. He was given liberty.

[Bryan24]

Dr Carson, I have a newsflash for you. The Tea Party candidates who are winning left and right are NOT running on an agenda of “compromise”.

[greene66]

RINO’s are not 90% ‘with’ me.
They are more like 90% ‘against’ me.

When it comes to issues that truly matter to me, down to the very pits of my soul... issues that define my beliefs, my culture, my identity, and compel me to the voting booth... RINO’s are no different than DEMS.

In some ways, they’re even more vile. They’ll be out campaigning on the stump, mouthing conservatism, saying they’re for fiscal responsibility or against amnesty or against homo-marriage... but once safely in office, they reverse their position, stabbing you in the back. They are contemptuous beyond words. The duplicitous enablers of the Dems and their leftist march. It is they who have helped the lib scum turn America into the putrid, socialist, degenerate sewer that it has become. Damn them all to hell.

I’ll never vote for a RINO. Those days are long over.

[dagogo redux]

Anybody beginning to suspect that this guy is a plant?

[lavaroise]

Compromise with voters, yes. With Democrates and their business... hell no.

[Kickass Conservative]

Levin Rule, period.

You won’t have a say in what’s for Dinner if you’re not inside the House. Standing outside screaming isn’t the answer.

[ExCTCitizen]

Ben I have to agree... a conservative who is 90% right is better than a 100% liberal. I won’t compromise on 3 things: the 2nd amendment, illegals (kick them out) and abortion.

[Yogafist]

Problem with this scenario is, the red army has been carrying the blue army's flag for way too long. At this point, we need a red army.