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.

[Just A Nobody]

since they prefer to lump us all together

I'm sure you are correct, however I demand that they cease and desist immediately. The reason the conservatives have lost control is because they have allowed this psychobabble to continue unabated.

Take back the language!
Republican and Conservative are NOT synonymous!

[buckalfa]

Yet it was rock ribbed conservative South Carolina that
sealed the deal for Bush 2 and McCain.

[Just A Nobody]

There are those conservatives who believe the crash was imminent no matter who held the WH.

I understand the premise...a lesser evil is still evil.

My point was that I cannot believe a real conservative would actually VOTE FOR the greater evil. Abstain from voting-yes, write in a conservative-yes, vote for the greater evil-NO!

[Just A Nobody]

Obama's election is a variant exception. He won for 2 reasons.
1) Hatred of Bush

BULL

[Just A Nobody]

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

Has there been a report on how the PUMA's voted?
If their 18 million voted for the "R" than he sure didn't have many actual republicans or conservatives voting for him.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Has there been a report on how the PUMA's voted?

Democrats voted for Obama is almost precisely the same percentage that they did for Kerry, four years ago.

The so-called "PUMA" phenomenon was (roughly) about 99% hype.

[Just A Nobody]

The so-called "PUMA" phenomenon was (roughly) about 99% hype.

Yeah, that's what I thought, but was wondering if anyone had the guts to say it, since we welcomed them with open arms and all.

[arthurus]

Even excising Aztlan will not change the electoral makeup of the citizenry of the remaining USA. The border with Aztlan would just be the border which they have to cross to reach Los Estados Unidos del Norte. The will wet thier backs on the Sabine River or the Platte or maybe the Mississippi.

[FunkyZero]

"BULL "

very insightful of you

[HighlyOpinionated]

I think most Republicans have been in Washington, DC, waaay too long (as I also think most Democrats have been) and that their ability to see the forest is hampered by their ability to see the lobbyists and the 527’s and their own cushy benefit plan.

Democrats do not know what they’re doing. Some of you will think I’m crazy for saying that, but look at the whole picture. Pelosi doesn’t want Union Vineyard workers, but the Democrat agenda includes Unionization without secret ballot. Doesn’t she pay attention to what that can mean to her? Nope. She got caught in the Followership or Followorship of Barack Obama. And it will probably come back to bite her. There are a lot of people who think that Obama is going to instantly “share the wealth” and pay their mortgages and car payments and get them free gasoline. Why do you think there were so many street celebrations? Obama is their Sugar Daddy, they think.

The bigger picture of what Obama promised as opposed to what Obama can actually accomplish in the next twelve to eighteen months before the Followorshipers finally wake up and smell the coffee is minute in comparison. No one’s mortgage is going to get paid and no one is going to have a free Obamobile complete with lifetime gasoline. It’s not going to happen. And not just because old-line Republicans are going to fight tooth and nail against it in Congress. It’s not going to happen because Pres GeoWBush threw a One Trillion Dollar bailout into the economy. And into Obama’s lap. It’s his ‘hot potato’ and now he has to find a way to handle it. Although I think it was innocently done, it was a fantastic move on Bush’s part. “Here, PresElectObama, hold onto this and let’s see what you can do with it.”

The bigger picture is that BIG Government just gave away those mortgage payments and free cars to BIG Companies who have no plans to share their wealth (except to CEOs and for vacation trips). And it’s too late to call that back. Open ended and no preconditioned bail out from Congress will destroy the US economy faster than Obama can raise taxes or get his agenda of freebies to his adoring Followorshipers.

What Conservative VOTERS must do is hang onto the coat tails of their Representatives and Senators and make a LOT of Conservative, Traditionalist, Constitutionalist NOISE! And we MUST remain active in local politics so that we can promote good, solid, American Conservatives to run for Congress in 2010. We CANNOT allow the old-guard comfy Republicans to remain in Congress any longer. We must replace them and any Democrat we can, with Pro-USofA Republican (or even Libertarian etc) Congresscritters.

AND we must contribute the money these fresh Republican faces will need to get elected.

[Edit35]

You forgot the most important - No More George Bushes

GWB was a pretty good candidate, even if his performance in office was somewhat lackluster.

At least GWB had the guts to run hard and win.

Dole and McCain had this loser "we have to be gentlemen" mentality where they were afraid to hit too hard.

Actually, I think it has something to do with the era they were raised in, with these "Queen of Marquesbury" rules.

Meanwhile, the lib Democrat media (triple redundant) long ago began practicing 2008 rules of deep cover leaks, ACORN registration frauds, and investigations of joe-the-plumber and other private citizens.

In reality, GWB is getting a bum rap. If the banks hadn't frozen the past two months, the GWB record wouldn't have been all that bad.

Average 3.5 % GNP growth the past six years, fairly low inflation, successful in Iraq, and NO MORE TERROR ATTACKS after 9/11.

Yes, oil spiked but that issue was a winner for Republicans, not to mention that oil is back down to below $60 thanks to GWB's announcement of off-shore drilling.

This election was so lopsided because a majority of people were REALLY TICKED that their investments just got halved, and the press easily blamed the Bush Administration.

In 2006 the press likewise harped on Iraq over and over and over...

The Republicans still have winning conservative issues, but they must find new dynamic candidates who can articulate the message with confidence and class.

McCain had none of those. This might sound mean, but if McCain hadn't been a POW and a Vietnam hero, we wouldn't have given him the time of day.

[wgflyer]

But can one really claim a “Bush supporter all the way” as a real conservative? We're in this mess largely because of the liberalism of the Bush administration, and the liberal trend it accelerated in the Republican party. Would you not agree to that?