Posted on 02/16/2007 8:30:44 AM PST by meg88
The GOP Should Dump Its Litmus Test By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | February 16, 2007
The philosopher Diogenes is said to have wandered around ancient Greece holding a lantern and seeking to find an honest man.
My fellow Republicans, sans lanterns, are now wandering around the political landscape seeking to find the perfect Republican presidential candidate.
I don’t know if Diogenes ever found that honest man, but I do know that those Republicans are never going to find the perfect candidate, simply because he does not exist.
Some Republicans insist that the only perfect candidate would be a clone of my Dad, Ronald Reagan. Aside from the fact that there is no such thing, it’s important to recognize that Ronald Reagan, as he often admitted, was anything but perfect.
One of the criticisms about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney focuses on his record concerning the abortion issue. We are told by the modern day Diogenes clones that he can’t be trusted to fight abortion because he once, more or less, supported a woman’s right to butcher her baby.
It may come as a surprise to these purists, but Ronald Reagan once supported abortion too. Yet nobody ever questioned his strong pro-life credentials after his conversion to Republicanism. They accepted his sincerity. Why can’t they accept Mitt Romney’s?
Romney’s record shows he should be totally acceptable to all conservatives, yet because of one dubious question concerning the validity of his conversion to the pro-life side, he is deemed unsuitable to carry the conservative banner.
The same is true of Rudy Giuliani. On every major issue, he is a solidly conservative and extraordinarily adept executive, but because he backs abortion and some form of gun control, America’s mayor -- the hero of 9/11 and the man who did the impossible by cleaning up New York -- is all but ruled out as a 2008 candidate.
Not one of the major candidates is free of some real or imagined flaw that offends some conservatives.
This is madness, and if it does not stop, the GOP is going to lose the presidential election in 2008. In the search for the perfect candidate we are going to end up with an imperfect candidate. Keep in mind the truism that agreement with someone on most issues and disagreement on others is seen as normal, but should you agree with someone on every single issue imaginable … well… to put it plainly, psychologists say you’re nuts.
I recently got a letter from a conservative Christian organization that asked me if the current GOP candidates are the best the Republican Party has to offer.
“Is it possible that GOP conservative ranks are this thin?” the letter writer asked. “Has the GOP nothing better to offer? Should not pro-family pro-life voters also want a low taxes and limited government candidate before they vigorously support him? Increased taxes and expanded government hurts everyone. Was Ronald Wilson Reagan an anomaly and did he represent the values of his party?
“These GOP candidates,” the letter instructed me, “are little better than Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, or [George] H.W. Bush. Did anyone notice they all lost?”
This makes me wonder if anybody can stand up to the litmus test these people are applying to candidates.
Ronald Reagan had one litmus test he applied to candidates. Were they Republicans? If they were he backed them all the way. He would let the party choose the candidate and he would support and vote for the candidate. He didn’t go sniffing around trying to find some flaw in their character or their past. Once nominated, they were his choice.
And nobody was more candid in admitting that he was anything but perfect than my Dad. He knew that like all men, he had his flaws and he spent a lifetime combating them. Had today’s GOP litmus test been seriously applied to him, he could not have passed the test.
The Democrats don’t have litmus tests. If the nominee is a Democrat, they support their candidate all the way, and if they lose it isn’t because they didn’t fight like demons for their man or woman.
If we want to win in 2008, Republicans had better wake up, and quit talking Ronald Reagan and start being like Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan’s speeches (audio and transcripts) -
http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/index.php/scripps/digitalarchive/speechDetail/32
Ronald Reagan Library and Foundation -
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/
Official site for the USS Ronald Reagan - CVN 76, now deployed at sea -
http://www.reagan.navy.mil/
it is to my everlasting shame that i never voted for RR. i was raised a bluecollar Dem in Pittsburgh, my dearly departed dad was flummoxed at how both of his kids grew up to be conservative republicans. my husband was hired by a conservative republican senator and thus came his conversion, and mine, in 1985.
Right now, I'd support Rudy, but whoever the R candidate is will get my support. The idea of Hillary in the WH again literally gives me nightmares!
hey Dr.
......that was a great post....I don't agree with you but you had a coherent and logical argument.....I can buy that instead of some here just going around and saying they will stay home and pout and whine and say things like "Rudy is a POS".....your view is much more intelligent, tolerable.
that being said, in "real life", i don't know a single soul who is in favor of rudy as the nominee.
Hunter needs help.. massive help like falling under Newts mantle..
[.. Newt, we don't know about ..]
Sure you do.. He's testing the waters.. To see if the republicans will "BORK" him AGAIN..
as I have said in numerous posts....
Right, the Republican Party of the 1950`s-60`s-70`s had a strong liberal contingent called, the Rockefeller wing. The Rockefeler wing of the GOP has been dead for 30 years, and Ronald Reagan killed it!
Rudy Giuliani is a throw back to those days of Rockefeller Republicanism. Rudy is so liberal, to call him a conservative in any way, sahpe or form, is ridiculous, an absurdity, a psychotic fantasy.
The sign of a dumb article.
Perhaps Mr. Micheal should have a chat with Joe Lieberman.
Reagan indeed ran against Gerald Ford. But he ran against him as a positive, alternative choice.
Reagan did not run against Ford through seeking to destroy him.
Reagan's ultimate (and eminently successful) appeal to ALL persons was through his personal manifestation of two things: love and religious faith - and the two are inseparable.
Our current President has these attributes also.
But they have been covered up by the clouds of the storm of the war in Iraq, and by those who hate such manifestations, as they did with Reagan's, and seek to both conceal and obliterate them.
The elections are won state by state. The question is what states can Hillary win that Kerry didn't in 2004 and what states that McCain can hold that GWB won in 2004. So what 2004 Bush states do you see Hillary winning?
_______________________________________________________
Every state that has women and blacks!
A agree that voting Rat is a horrendous diservice.
Thanks NorCalRepub.
Your kindness is appreciated.
By all means, cut off your country's nose to spite its face. Just remember that, in doing so, you give up all right to complain when President Hillary destroys the country. You put her in office, you support her.
supporting a different republican candidate for the nomination other than rudy isn't cutting off anything to spite anyone. this is a primary.....
You are making the unfortunate mistake of trying to reason with Reagan Man. It's a waste of time, fyi.
Conservatives need to learn the lessons liberals learned:
You don't wait for the knight in shining armor, you train one from the squires.
Instead of wanting people to vote for a candidate, we have to get the people to want to vote for him/her.
Emotion trumps intellect.
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