Currently, I do not trust Republicans any more than I do the Democrats. That is correct, while Democrats are more destructive to this nation than the Republicans, it is a question only of degree. 6000 earmarks vs. 10000 – such choices do not cause me to run out and vote Republican, let alone donate money, time and energy. When I see Republicans in the first decade of the 21st century acting and talking like Democrats from the 70’s, it is time to bar the door.
Despite the hatred poured out on G.W. Bush by out-of-power and power-hungry Democrats/Socialists, he was a Democrat from the 1960-70’s era. Bush was big on defense and conservative in his instincts, but he was also a big government, social-safety-net big-spender. J. Rockefeller would have been comfortable in Bush’s White House. Fiscally, the Bush era policy looked a lot like Johnson’s guns-and-butter policy. The wild increases in federal domestic spending in education and in government subsidies for health care should have made any honest Democrat shout with glee. This was the conservative president I voted for?
The late Bill Buckley put it very well, “Bush is conservative, BUT, Bush not a conservative.” His father and brother are cut from the same cloth. Jeb Bush just showed his true colors – in short Jeb is a sellout when it comes to principles and seeks office and power before anything else. There are other modern-day Rockefeller Republicans in the party. While I welcome them, they have no business driving the boat. The base of the party consists of conservatives of many stripes. The party leadership forgot this. In poll after poll it is shown that 34% of the country self-identifies as conservative, but only 21% self-identifies as Republican. Do the math, your misguided policies have alienated over a third of conservatives. This is what happens when one listens to the likes of Arlen Specter, John McCain, and George Bush. I am supposed to feel I have a stake in the Republican Party when the likes of these three are the voice of ‘my’ party?
Tacking further to the left will not save you. In 2002 and 2004, many Democrats ran for Congress as ersatz Republicans and lost. People will always vote for the genuine article. Republicans’ becoming more like Democrats is something that the New York Times will applaud. John McCain was the latest dupe to walk down that garden path. Listening to the left wing media as to what our policies ought to be is akin to taking advice from Germans for routing our troop and supply convoys in the Atlantic circa 1942 to 1945. MSM is not a friend of Republicans; repeat this every morning — five times while looking in the mirror.
Republicans tried the moderate candidate recently with our presidential pick, John McCain. The only time McCain lead in the poles was after he brought on Palin and before he went to Washington to APPROVE the bailout. Note that the more conservative he appeared the better McCain did. It was McCain’s support of the Bush administration’s TARP that finally sunk him, not Palin. Do not listen to the voices of MSM or the Rockefeller establishment Republicans in this matter. McCain’s trouble was McCain, not Palin. It was McCain’s embarrassing grandstand over the TARP and the Bush administration’s spending another $700B of the people’s money that did in McCain. Not only did it cost us the White House, it was this act that made Obama’s even more over-the-top spending possible.
When it comes to spending, Republicans now have no credibility in this matter. Saying they are not as bad a Democrats is very small comfort. It will take time to rebuild this credibility, so start now. I recommend you start at the state level and support a governor from outside Washington who is not covered in the slime of the past eight years, the current office holders there are damaged goods. Republicans need new congressional leadership.
I need to hear a change in tone from the Republicans. Not the change in tone that General Powell is espousing, for he is in what I call the Specter-Wing of the party. I need to see courage, not appeasement. It was a lack of courage that kept the Republican Party supporting the RINO Specter. For how many years, when the chips were down, did this power-seeking liberal-in-sheep’s-clothing vote against his own party? In order to cravenly placate the likes of Specter, the Republican Party enacted policies that brought the Socialists to power today; the Republican brand is now a sorry joke. In pursuing its holy grail of the ‘big-tent’, the Republican Party forgot about its core constituency, that is, conservatives. In order to regain the trust of this constituency it needs to remember its principles, not Reagan’s principles but conservative principles – and put them into action by both word and deed.
I am looking for a bold message that addresses the fact that a free market system is superior to the planned economics of the Socialists. I am looking for a message that proclaims government is not the answer to all the country’s problems – government is the source of many of the country’s problems. Look at the current banking fiasco as an example. The government via Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac forced banks to make loans to people who were financially incapable of buying a home. Where was the Republican Party on this? The gestures to halt this ruinous practice were a joke in light of the seriousness of the problem. The reason for such feeble action is a lack of courage brought on by a lack of principle. The Republican Party owned Congress and the White House, and they where all stopped by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd? Show me some guts, show me that principle means more than votes, and I will begin to trust you.
Until I see the Republican Party taking MSM and its political arm, the Democrat Party, to task for its character assassination of the next crop of leaders such as Bobby Jindal, I will not trust the Republican Party. People like Joe the Plumber should have been given at least as much help by Republicans as Miss California got from Donald Trump. The Republican Party needed to defend Sarah Palin better. Palin is a decent human being and successful mayor and governor – the party allowed her to be dragged through the mud. Instead, Republicans are embarrassed because Palin does not sound like some boutique writer for the WSJ? Most of the country speaks with a twang in its voice, and most of the country was not educated in some Ivy League school. Throwing Palin under the bus was craven. She deserved better. Her lack of understanding of global politics and other trivia did not warrant, let alone justify, the party’s behavior. At least Palin did not say there are 57 states, like the current Socialist in the White House. Abandoning Palin hurt the brand, which was stupid on top of cowardly.
Republicans need to defend their own — loudly. This means taking to task the Socialists and attacking them for making gaffes and anything else they do that is worthy of such attention. It has gotten to the point that the Republican Party cowers before its foes and will not call out their obvious flaws – Reagan, Kemp and Gingrich did so with class, and with vigor – because the NYT calls this ‘mean-spirited’? Until the party is able to articulate its positions without shame, with conviction and courage, and once again become the party of ideas, I will not trust them. Without ideas, principles, and courage, Republicans are just office-seekers.
