Don't 'Vote for the Candidate'

There is a noble-sounding attitude that many Americans hold regarding whom they vote for. "I vote for the candidate," they say.

It sure sounds good. Voting for the best candidate, rather than the party, sounds as American as apple pie. But as the Democratic Party has become a doctrinaire left-wing party, this sentiment is no longer noble. It is actually foolish and dangerous.

There was a time when there were terrific Democrats whom an independent and even a Republican could vote for. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was such an example. He was a liberal -- he believed in the good that he thought an expanding government could provide -- but he was a hawk on foreign policy. What did "hawk" mean? Hawks were politicians such as Lieberman who believed that both for America's sake and in order to reduce cruelty on earth, America must be the world's most militarily powerful country, and that it must be prepared to use this power, when feasible, against the world's worst cruelest tyrannies.

Another was the great U.S. senator from New York (served: 1977-2001), Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who coined the phrase that summarized the post-1960s steep decline in America's values: "Defining Deviancy Down," the title of an article he wrote in 1993 for the American Scholar (a conservative journal).

Another such Democrat was Henry "Scoop" Jackson who served as U.S. Senator from Washington state from 1953 to 1983. Jackson was one of the leading anti-Communist "hawks" in American politics.

But such Democratic politicians no longer exist. The left chased Lieberman and others out of the party.

Therefore, voting for just about any Democrat for the House or the Senate, and almost as consistently for governor, is a vote for leftism. It is a vote for clones of President Barack Obama, Senator Harry Reid, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, to mention just the leaders of the Democratic Party.

Obamacare provides an excellent example of why "voting for the candidate" is an act of self-delusion. Every vote for this medical and economic transformation of America came from Democrats in the House and Senate; and every Republican, even the most "moderate," voted against it. Regarding the most destructive legislation in modern American history, "the candidate" didn't mean a thing. Party meant everything.

This may be the primary reason Republicans do not do better in a country in which few of its citizens identify themselves as "left:" Republicans run against their opponents, rather than against the left and the Democratic Party. That's what Mitt Romney did. And that's why he lost an election he should have won. Romney never defined his presidential campaign as being opposed to the left or to the Democratic Party. It was solely against Barack Obama, a popular president at the time and the first black ever to serve as president, something that continued to mean a lot to many Americans who hoped that this fact would reduce black animosity toward white America.

Had Mitt Romney constantly repeated that he was not merely running against Barack Obama, the man, but against Barack Obama, the most left-wing president in American history, and continually explained what that meant, he might well have won. But he never made the election about ideology or party. Instead it was about individuals. He, Romney, was the best candidate because he could fix things -- as he did in his business career and with the Salt Lake Winter Olympics. So the election was not about how big government undermines the whole American experiment; how big government makes citizens small people; how the left sees America as just another country; how the teachers unions have helped ruin public education; how the left changed our universities from places of education to places of indoctrination; or how cruelty -- mass murder, torture, slavery, and totalitarianism -- would inevitably take over as America retreated from more and more places. Which brings us to the present elections. The most horrific movement since Nazism and communism, violent Islamism, has taken over much of Iraq solely because America retreated from that country. Millions of Americans understood, and many of us wrote and broadcast, that if America leaves Iraq, a country that was becoming increasingly stable and peaceful, it would be transformed into a bloodbath -- which is exactly what has happened.

Why doesn't every Republican candidate remind voters that the Democratic Party supported the complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq -- and that this made the Islamic State possible? Either the left succeeds, or America succeeds. Tell that to your constituents, Republican candidates. And then tell them that the left's political party is the one your opponent is proud to represent.

In the old days when I heard a low information voter self righteously confide that he or she never votes for the party but "I always vote for the man," I used to reply, "but the primary season is over."

Today, that retort no longer applies because the primary season as a time to segregate good candidates from bad candidates on the Republican side of the ledger has failed us. It has failed us because of the intervention of the establishment Republicans.

Too often today it matters not whether a Republican or a Democrat is sent to Washington because the outcome will be the same. In August I posted this reply:

When it comes to the GOP I am freshly out of loyalty. I look at the field of United States senators who claim affiliation with the Republican Party from safe seats and I ask, what have you done for the conservative cause lately?

What has Lindsey Graham done from his safe seat in South Carolina? He has been more than a nuisance, more than an obstruction, he has been an active agent against conservative principles.

What has Mitch McConnell done? He has colluded with Karl Rove to siphon off donor monies into campaigns to defeat conservative Republican challengers who bear the label "Tea Party," even applauding the treachery in Mississippi.

What has Lamar Alexander done from his relatively safe seat in Tennessee? He's been on the wrong side of every issue including amnesty.

What have of the placeholders done, Mike Enzi, Thad Cochran, John Cornyn and the others? What have they done to advance conservatism? Too hard a question? What have they done to impede Obamas tyranny? Still too hard?

Do you really believe that these guys will repeal Obamacare? Do you really believe that these guys will fail to endorse amnesty? Oh they might give you a head fake but if their votes are needed they will betray us. Some like Alexander and Graham at least are upfront about it. The rest are skulking around the cloak room ready to do the bidding of K St. or of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.

I don't give a damn about conservative credentials if they are not worth anything. To be worth something conservatives from safe seats must do something. Yes, I judge senators from safe seats more harshly than those for marginal seats. No apologies.

Let's put the fear of God in some of these placeholders and turncoats to "encourage" the others.

From George Washington's Farewell Address

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

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