A Rip in the Fabric of the
GOP Tent!
We Republicans have a growing divide in our party…the divide between Liberal Republicans and Conservative Republicans. I don’t include Moderate Republicans because, frankly, I don’t believe there is such a thing. Moderates, I believe, are simply Liberals afraid to take a stand.
Here’s the problem: Liberals want to compromise. They LOVE to compromise. Conservatives do not want to co promise at all. In fact we view compromise as losing. We conservatives had rather lose than compromise, period.
This trait has caused the Liberal Republicans to hate our guts and, believe me when I tell you, there is no love lost for Liberal Republicans in the Conservative Camp.
So, basically, what we have is… a big tent with two political parties underneath it.
This is not good for anyone... except the Democrats.
So, I propose the split of the Republican party. The Liberals may keep the name “Republican” if they choose and the new name for the Conservative Republican party would be: “The Conservative Party”.
I have said often, before, that I believe a Conservative Political party would draw conservatives from the Democrat party who feel they have no place to go now. I still believe that.
It is a fact that the electorate in America leans conservative… all the time. So… why not have a Conservative Party, as such? Makes all sorts of sense to me.
I do not believe we would be a three party system long. I am fairly certain the liberal Republicans would fold straight away, or join with the Liberal democrats… as they should, anyway.
Taking uncompromising stands is the hallmark of a conservative. That’s what we do. It’s how we got to be conservatives in the first place.
The Libs in the GOP really want us to be gone… they think. The problem, for them, you see, is… we win elections for the party. The liberal GOP, left to it’s own devices, cannot swing a single election. Soon there would be no liberal Republicans in the House or the Senate. I can’t help but feel that would be a good thing for the Party and the country.
Conservatives know what they believe and they can articulate it well. They aren’t good at nuance, or shading their beliefs, in any way. You ask Conservatives a question and you will get a direct answer. No flip-flopping. Unlike Liberals who are with you at the beginning of a war but flee at the sound of the first gunshots, Conservatives stay for the entire war… period!
We can be defeated… but not easily. As things are today, the GOP is continually on the edge of defeat. A Conservative Party would stay away from the edge.
I fully expect to see another party develop in the next few months, which will field a candidate for President. It will be a conservative party. If that does, in fact, happen... it may well, put an end to any chance the Republicans have of holding on to the White House in ’08.
The rash of conservative themed bills in both Houses of Congress, recently, is only the GOP’s attempt to stir us up and prime the conservative pump in readiness for the next two elections.
The bottom line is this: Conservatives are fed up with being used to win elections and immediately afterwards being dumped. We don’t like it. We feel if we had our own party, we could do even more than the GOP allows us to do today. We feel we could eventually capture the seats held by Liberal Republicans in the Congress and in the White House.
So, give us the party. Give us a party named “The Conservative Party” and we will flock to the banner. I’m ready! How about you?
Longstreet
As A good liberal I am on the fence! Just kidding. I am for anything that protects our individual freedoms and the constitution. I just feel the Dems. do that better than the Republicans. I am for the middle class, I do not see the Republicans doing anything for us, at least the Dems. offer some lip service and occasionally do some good. I am for a strong E.P.A. (it was actually started by Nixon). I am for the National Park Service and Conservation (Again started by conservatives), until the Conservatives got into bed with the corporations. I may even be in, if they are truly for LESS GOVERNMENT INTRUSION INTO WHAT INDIVIDUALS DO, and keep corporations at bay. It is, you see, I am not against you as I am against the erosion of our standard of living and our quality of life in this country. I guess I am an isolationist.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I continue to say that Southern Democrats, by and large, are conservatives. Let me see if I can explain that a bit better.
ReplyDeleteIt might help you to understand why I believe that. Aside from the fact that I live with these folks everyday, and know them as my neighbors.
I am a registered Republican in a county where I am outnumbered by registered Democrats, something like, 13 to one.
They are registred as Democrats for two primary reasons. one heritage. Southern Heritage is tied to the Democrat party. The other is... they can vote in the primaries. For a very long time Republicans were so weak, here, that we had no primaries for Republican candidates. There weren't any!
Now, consider this. Senator Jesse Helms was elected time and time again by North Carolina DEMOCRATS. If every Republican in the state had voted for Jesse, he would still have lost. It was registered Democrats who elected Jesse Helms all those years.
Why? Beause they are conservatives!
I am a member of an organizattion which has strong ties to the Civil War and the Confederate side in that war. The organization is non-political, but most members are Democrats. They are conservative democrats though, because a liberal could not feel at home in the organization... which is clearly conservative.
Somehow, it seems to escaped the notice of the DNC. The campaign they are running now, and the last two, have been huge turn-offs to Southern Democrats. Southern Democrats have moved closed to the Republican right than they ever have before.
I'm not just blowing smoke when I say the dems can't carry the South today. I'm also not blowing smoke when I say that John McCain cannot carry the South, either.
The immigartion thing, and the President's unwillingness to do the right thing about it, has solidified the coalition of conservative democrats and conservative republicans, down here, where the problem is felt the worst.
Both parties are in for a rough ride this fall.
Now, if we could take that coalition of Conservative Dems and Conseravtive Repubs and blend them together into a single party... it would be a power house.
if the two existing parties don't watch themselves much closer than they have in the past couple of years, that is exactly what will happen. Heck, I'm ready, right now, to move to a New Conservative Party and I am a life long Republican!
Longstreet
I have been an Independent all of my voting life and voted for whomever I felt was the best candidate. Get a Conservative Party going and I will join.
ReplyDeleteIf the liberal republican senators joined the democrats there'd be a democratic majority in the senate immediately, so I fully support your idea!
ReplyDeleteI agree, Tom. But, if we can get a TRUE Conservative party off the ground and running, that would be a temporary situation.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree
ReplyDeleteDon't call these guys (Republicans) in congress liberal. That they are not. They are just further right than conservatives. There is a point when the Right move too far and corpoate influences and money run the government and that power corrupts as well. All this globalism is to the right-The far right. They creep back to the left a little and dabble in religion to motivate true Amerian conservatives to push for their corporate agendas. Hitler was extreme right, I know you don't want to hear it but these guys are just to the left of him and then theres the conservatives, the center, my side (libwerals) then socialists (Chauvez) (true socialists not the name calling in this country) then there's the communists left of that (Stalin). At least that's how I view the spectrum and see it. If we could get the far left and far right out I feel we'd see the Liberals and Conservatives have the same goals for this country, just slightly different ways to achieve that end and debate could be done and we could move forward without all the extremist crap we get mired down in as a nation.
ReplyDelete