What do the election results mean to conservatives?

American Thinker ^ | November 09, 2008 | Bruce Walker

[vietvet67]

The results of the 2008 election mean a lot of things to a lot of different people.  What do those results mean to conservatives?  The results do not mean conservative candidates lose elections.  Obama got a big slice of the conservative vote, largely because he portrayed himself as a post-ideological as well as a post-partisan candidate - and McCain tried to do just the same thing.  Ronald Reagan in 1984 was the last man to run as an unabashed conservative, and he won by the last true landslide in an American presidential election.

President Bush, admired for his personal honor and deep faith, was respected by many conservatives, but he was hardly a conservative himself.  No man who nominated Harriett Meiers to the Supreme Court could be considered a true conservative.  Anyone who could embrace the vision of Ted Kennedy for our national education policy was not a true conservative.  Anyone who could create a new entitlement for prescription drugs was not a true conservative.

Bush was simply a decent man who was not a Leftist Democrat.  As McCain found out, being a decent man who is not a Leftist Democrat means nothing at all to the Left.  Both men, like Bob Dole and like George H. Bush, are good Americans, admirable people, and men blissfully unaware that the Left is not just waging battles on issues like more socialism but are rather waging war on our entire way of life.  Bush, Dole, McCain, and Bush Sr. were not wicked failures because they were not conservatives.  They were more like Chamberlain at Munich:  They did not grasp the true depth and nature of their adversary and, they thought, their adversary might be reasonable.

How far have "conservatives" come from Ronald Reagan's famous maxim "If you can't make them see the light, then let them feel the heat."  In other words, conservatives must lead.  Or, as Reagan also said "All they can do is hang us from a higher tree."  This homey, typical truth trumped all the mush of moderation that brought Republicans in such disrepute over the last ten years or so.  Courage is contagious and so is cowardice.  

When Republican "leaders" like Trent Lott sabotaged the impeachment trial of a sitting president because they feared political fallout, conservatives cringed.  We conservatives, after all, do not involve ourselves in the public arena because of the goodies we might get.  That is what Leftists do.  We intend to protect the sacred values of the Declaration of Independence, which are utterly nonpartisan (the founding fathers, of course, dreaded political parties) and we do this recalling that the signers of that document risked all in taking their stand for transcendent liberty.  Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood star with a starlet wife and lots of money, did not enter politics to get but rather to give.  He entered to lead and not to herd.  This is what conservatives used to do.

And this is the way conservatives used to talk:  "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.  Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."  Barry Goldwater defiantly rejected the idea that Leftists could place him on some invented "Far Right."  He stood for specific things, which he recorded in books, and which represented an actual platform for conservative ideals.  John McCain, the other Republican nominee from Arizona, would never have embraced extremism, even in the defense of liberty.  The soft, warm, middle was his true home.  The safe, predictable consensus was his real party.

He was in the good company of pleasant and worthwhile citizens like Tom Dewey, Wendel Wilkie, Herbert Hoover, and Gerald Ford.  In a world at peace on a planet unscarred by a relentless ideological jihad on our values and our faith, these nice sorts would have made excellent managers of the republic.  But war was declared on us long ago, long before September 11. 

War was declared on us by militant atheists who sought to deconstruct all our values and to mask their crimes as science.  War was declared on us by active, pernicious agents of the Soviet Union who sowed the seeds of racial hatred, gender warfare, and every other discord they could inflame and poison - they were not in the business of calming and healing.  War was declared on us by jealous and irreligious Europeans, who view our faith in anything as hopeless naivete which it is their pleasure to debunk.  War was declared on us by radical Moslems, who saw the version of God which serious Christians and Jews embrace as too loving and too peaceful. 

War was declared on us, and the Left here joined the fight against us.  War was declared on us, and notional "conservatives" tried to lead us.  But, of course, they could not.  While Ronald Reagan embarrassed the establishment by calling the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire," our putative conservative nominee would not even raise the malignancy of Jeremiah Wright.  While Barry Goldwater nobly challenged federal grasping in 1964, his Arizonan successor called for Washington "solutions" to a Washingtonian financial disease forty-four years later.

What does this mean to conservatives?  It means we must choose leaders who believe, even if their cause seems hopeless.  It means that we must recall that liberty was not born in our nation in easy ways but at Valley Forge when Washington saw his men's bloody, frostbitten feet as he contemplated the loss of everything he possessed in life if he were to lose.  It means remembering that Goldwater was routed in 1964, but came back to the Senate in 1968 with everyone - liberals included -- respected his courage and dignity.  It means going back four years to the Reagan Funeral and seeing the long lines of thankful Americans who waited for hours just to say goodbye to the last true leader they had known. 

We have hope now.  Obama cannot end democracy in America and he probably cannot impose a melancholy quasi-official censorship.  Obama can only assume total responsibility for what happens to us over the next two years.  Please, conservatives, resist compromise!  Make stands upon principle, like Reagan and Goldwater.  Take the heart of Washington, the true leader of all conservatives, in fighting for what we believe even if the outcome is uncertain and the struggle is long.  Contemplate Churchill in 1940, when he promised to resist rather than parlay with evil. 

If we believe in God, then hope is ever certain.  If we hold sure and proven laws of human experience, then we know that failed ideas in practice also fail.  If we believe in the spirit of the American people and their nation, then we sense that though change comes in elections, the liberty to which we have become accustomed longer than any people in human history cannot be simply crushed. 

We fight -- even today -- for our lives and the lives of our children.  If we have not had leaders, we must find them.  Victory may seem far off.  But we can see it still.  As another American wrote almost two hundred years ago:  "Oh, say does that Star Spangled Banner still wave?  Ore the land of the free, and the home of the brave."  Francis Scott Key, like George Washington, were models of what conservative leaders must be.  We had these men once, and we shall have them again. 

Bruce Walker is the author of  Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and the recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

[adc]

“What do the election results mean to conservatives?”

It means we have to get the Democrats on board against Infanticide. The rest will be easy.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Republicans WILL lose the next Presidential election -- just as they did this one, unforgivably, to a one-term Senate Marxist with open and unapologetic terrorist ties -- by alienating the conservative voting base still further (if that's even possible, at this point) and continuing to chase after the exact same phantom Democrats and "independents" who routinely spurn you every four years.

We did everything the RINO way this year, exactly the way the "moderates" wanted it, down to the last mewled syllable of their squishy, mealy-mouthed sock puppet's last apologetic campaign commercial.

The campaign "advice" offered up by these electoral dullards is, demonstrably, worth precisely jack squat. "Money talks, bull***t walks."

[epow]

The fault lies in the candidate this year, and nowhere else. The conservative position is undoubtedly the more popular

Then why were the only conservative candidates in the GOP primary dead on arrival even in the most conservative states' primaries? The fact that there were no nationally well known conservatives in the race was no doubt one reason, but RINOs such as Romney, Giuliani, McCain, etc, dominated the primaries in even the most conservative states such as SC and got all the media attention from day one. That was not because anyone actually believed that ANY of the front runners were conservatives, it was because they got all the media attention and all the campaign money and no conservative got anything but a media blackout. Who was financing those RINOs? It wasn't a fairy godmother so it must have been people who wanted a RINO nominee who would once again graciously lose to a liberal Democrat after being trashed in the general campaign by the same media that worked so hard to get him nominated.

Duncan Hunter was not well known outside his CA district and the media made sure he stayed that way until he dropped out, but no one can tell me that he wouldn't have been a much stronger nominee and a much harder-hitting campaigner than McCain if he had gotten sufficient financial backing and media attention early in the primaries. As it was he was virtually ignored and shut out of the contest by the media, who of course wanted another RINO loser to destroy after playing a major role in getting him the nomination.

We can't do much about the tactics of the media, but we can reject who they choose for us to nominate. IMHO the botom line is that if conservatives are ever going to nominate another conservative and win another election we have to reject the media's choices and back a real honest to God conservative in the primaries, not just vote for whichever RINO loser the media chooses to receive it's blessing during the primary season and then trash after the convention.

[The Californian]

bump

[Jack Hammer]

What the election results mean is that America has decided to commit political and social suicide. End of story.

[HighFlier]

no more BobDole’s or JohnMcCain’s.

You forgot the most important - No More George Bushes

[dfwgator]

For once I agree with Jesse Jackson, “Stay Out Of Da Bushes.”

[webstersII]

“If it doesn’t end up killing us, it should make us stronger.”

Not necessarily.

“What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” only applies to people who MAKE that statement true. We will get stronger only if we work at it, and if we get rid of the weenies and moderates in leadership positions who have taken over the party.

[only1percent]

The media will not ignore any candidate who in the nine months between Election Day 2010 and Labor Day 2011 raises at least $50 million. That’s $250 each from 200,000 conservatives who are active, early and engaged. Can we do it? We certainly couldn’t come within ten miles this time around. We’ll see how much Obama moves to next time.

[SAWTEX]

“Obama got a big slice of the conservative vote
I call BS!!!
I am not going to sit back and listen to these lies for one second!

Prove it — or STHU!”

There are those conservatives who believe the crash was imminent no matter who held the WH. They will say let Obama, Reed and Pelosi take the heat. I do not believe that the number is as high as ten percent as has been reported.
I would have never voted for Obama. I was until Palin joined the ticker NOT going to vote for president. I’m in TX so my vote was not going to make any difference as McCain easily won here.

[patriot08]

.

Hussein Obama will NEVER be my president.

This election was stolen by a Muslim/Marxist who had the power of millions of dollars worth of illegal campaign funds, the most powerful black radical racists, Muslim terrorists and America haters on the globe behind him.

He won’t bask in the glory of his victory in peace. We intend to go after him:
http://www.freedommarch.org/

.

[fabjr60]

Spot on. Purge the squishy-in-the-middle moderates, recruit brave new leaders who operate on principle instead of seeking to be liked, organize intense, unrelenting opposition to that Marxist thug, establish strategy, tactics and contingencies, deploy a ground game that would make an armored division blush and crush your opponent. Keep your powder dry and pray the cretin does not step over the line and imperil the republic.

[epow]

continuing to chase after the exact same phantom Democrats and "independents" who routinely spurn you every four years.

Right on Kent. At every primary season the so-called "moderates" persuade conservatives that if we will only nominate a RINO moderate we will win over the mushy middle voters and everything will come up roses, and every time we fall for it all over again just as though it had never happened before.

If this debacle doesn't teach us anything then it's hopeless, because nothing could be clearer that this one, conservative Republicans win and RINOs lose.

[Just A Nobody]

3. Discontinue the "Winner Take All" nonsense.

Why anyone with less than one third, or even half of the vote commands ALL delegates is absurd and designed to screw the voters.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

At every primary season the so-called "moderates" persuade conservatives that if we will only nominate a RINO moderate we will win over the mushy middle voters and everything will come up roses

The way they've been huffing and spluttering their worthless blather over these boards, the past few days -- "Now, here's what you stupid conservatives ought to do next time," blah blah blah -- you'd thibk they'd actually won this last time out, or something! ;) Crazy! Absolutely delusional!

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

“thibk” = think.

[pray4liberty]

This is where we lost, IMHO. We could have countered Obama's "eight years of the Bush economy" with six years of the GOP economy vs. two years of the Pelosi economy. McCain had the opportunity during the debates and in his commercial messages (which played a lot in the blue area I was in), but he didn't.

You are absolutely right. I have an idea why McCain didn't. He is still a Senator, unlike Dole he didn't resign. He didn't want to insult his buddies in the Senate when he goes back in there after his loss.

This election was one big media drama, the outcome was fixed from the start and I think even John McCain knew it.

When the Obama-bots turn into the Obama-conned, that's when the real fun begins. The liberals haven't been mugged yet. What goes around, comes around. Wait.

[seoul62]

Study your opponent, if we fail to do that we are doomed to be the mini minority. Pay attention to their grassroots ground game, fund raising, their party discipline. The present approach is not working. Our next nominee will be Male, same age as his opponent, attractive, great communicator, resume that will show his opponents that he is not to be taken as an intellectual lightweight. Read Art Of War and Rules For Radicals, fight to win!!!!!!/Just Asking - seoul62.......

[publius1]

McCain didn’t argue, he asserted. I think he never understood the arguments — which is why he never got the redistributionism issue, & probably still sees it only as a political issue, not a real one.

[Northern Yankee]

Interesting... isn’t it?