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3.I’m adamantly anti-abortion, and yet I’d support Rudy Giuliani in a New York minute over Duke Cunningham, who received a 0% rating from NARAL.
Sam Johnson, the Republican congressman I helped elect in Texas (where I live), holds a much stronger view on gun rights than any Republican congressman who could be elected in the Northeast. But if Sam Johnson ran for Congress in Massachusetts, he’d lose.
The party with the majority of Congressmen/Senators elects the speaker of the House and the leader of the Senate, who control which bills are brought to a vote. Insisting that all Republicans hold exclusively conservative positions will only insure that the Democrats retain power.
To those who believe that it’s everything or nothing, and withhold your support for any candidate who isn’t ideologically pure, I have one simple question. How do you like having a veto-proof Democrat Congress and the most Liberal president in history?
We don’t have an ideologically-driven political system like England, which elects “Conservatives” and “Liberals”. We have a party system that elects Republicans or Democrats, and the occasional independent. If we act ideologically in a non-ideological political system, we guarantee our minority status, which means we guarantee that we will have little political power.
Without political power, there is no way to advance our principles legislatively. Advancing 50% of our principles is better than advancing none of them, particularly if those 50% will help lay the foundation for educating the public as to the overall wisdom of conservatism, which will allow for a greater advancement of principles the following election(s).
Politics is about power as well as ideology. If you insist on complete ideological purity, you will insure victory for your opponents. This doesn’t mean abandoning principles for power. Rather, it means that you must operate in the real world, and recognize that some populations are not as ideologically or morally advanced as others.
Running Sam Johnson for Congress in Texas works just fine. Running him for Congress in NY City is a disaster. So, you run Sam Johnson for Congress in Texas, and get someone who is maybe 30% conservative to run for Congress in NYC. You now end up with 2 Republican congressmen (and if the same model is followed in other districts), a Republican majority in the House and Senate. No Nancy Pelosi, no Harry Reid, no ultra-liberal legislation.
Or, you can run Sam Johnson’s twin in NYC, lose, elect a Democrat candidate who is 0% conservative, keep Nancy and Harry in power, and insure a few million more dead babies through federally funded abortions. But, at least you’ll feel good about yourself because you kept people out of the party who weren’t conservative enough for you.
If you want to exercise political power in America, recognize and understand how that power is actually acquired, and what happens to those who lack the power to push those principles.
If you want to remain ideologically pure, forget about ever holding real power, and be content to know you personally oppose killing babies, but weren’t actually prepared to do anything in the real world to actually limit or restrain abortion, because you’d rather be ideologically pure than elected to office.
It makes no sense, in the American system of government, for the perfect to be the enemy of the good. And it makes no sense to pretend that we have an ideologically-driven system of elections and government in this country when we don’t. The ideology of the House and Senate leadership is important, and that’s where our focus should be — helping those elected to office gain leadership positions who hold the strongest conservative values. If it takes a pro-abort Republican candidate in Massachusetts to give us that Republican majority where we can get a strong conservative leader, I’ll gladly support him/her.
In short, I’d rather have 50 more Rudy’s in Congress and, through them, regain control of the House where a Conservative leadership can set the agenda, than run 50 losing candidates, feel good about myself, and let Nancy Pelosi continue to push legislation permitting federal funding of abortion.
This is how politics operates in the real world. Wishing things were different won’t advance your interests one bit.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | September 18, 2009
Conservatism always wins. The reason we don't have control of the legislature now is because the of the RINOs being run for office in all of our states and districts.
You also contradict yourself, if we had 50 Rudys in office we wouldn't have a conservative majority, we would have a RINO majority, we had one of those before the 2006 elections and look where it got us. Vote for who you want, I will vote conservative every time and work like he** to get RINOs booted in the primaries.
Your post is based on the premise that a candidate like Sam Johnson can’t win in NY.
The RNC regularly throws its support behind the candidates it thinks are “winnable.” Someone, like Sam Johnson, would have to buck his own party to even try a run in NY, because the RNC would sabotage him for a RINO. Yet, for all the RNC/RINO talk about selecting moderates who can win in blue states, THEY AREN’T WINNING EITHER!
Who knows, maybe a Sam Johnson could win. Unfortunately, we’ll never know, and the RNC is a big part of why we won’t. Oh, I’m sure they’d laugh and say I’m not being realistic, that they’ve ran the polls and so-and-so doesn’t have a chance. Yeah, and how’s that picking the candidate who can win stuff working out for you, RNC?
I tell you this much, I’m not going to knowingly vote for another RINO—ever. I even held my nose for McCain, but no more (fellow FReeper pleas notwithstanding). If an Obama wins, so be it. Maybe an Obama administration is exactly the sort of wake up call this nation needed!
A pro-lifer runs for Congress. Pro-life voters tell his door-to-door canvassers, “I’m voting for him. I’m not interested in doing any else, though. yard sign? No, let me think about it. I’ll ask my pastor if that is necessary. Keep warm and well fed.”
Pro-life candidate loses 50.1% to 49.9%.
(a little secret: ... the pro-aborts aren’t the problem.)
