The Grand Old Party at 150

This weekend marks a proud milestone for Republicans, the 150th anniversary of the first Republican National Convention.

Founded in 1854, the Republicans, distinct from Democrats, grounded their party on two noble convictions: that America was truly one nation, not a polyglot of regions, races, or classes, and that American identity was based not on blood or soil, but on its founding ideal -- the dignity, worth, and fundamental rights of each person in the eyes of their Creator.

At first, the GOP's main cause was to oppose slavery, the most depraved institution of their day. Indeed, Democrats were so vehemently pro-slavery that just four years later they split the nation and went to war; and despite Republicans’ victory, those same Democrats established and maintained segregationist “Jim Crow” regimes in the Southern states for another 100 years.

This is another way of stating Jefferson’s formulation -- from the Declaration of Independence -- of man’s inalienable rights. To be truly free, man must own property; he must not be property himself. Without economic freedom, political freedom cannot exist. And while an equality of results is impossible -- indeed, such “equality” would actually defeat the idea of freedom -- it is certainly the job of government to make opportunity as nearly equal as possible.

For this very reason, Lincoln's Republicans weren't anti-government. They believed strongly in a government that promoted and protected freedom, responsibility and enterprise for all.

What they did oppose was government's pitting American against American, the left’s chief strategy to this day. Or as Lincoln put it:

Unfortunately, for a time -- roughly calculated from Herbert Hoover till Barry Goldwater -- Republicans badly lost their way.

And as Americans rejected the semi-socialist Hoover for the charismatic FDR, a “consensus politics” emerged in which Republicans became sort of “Democrats-lite”, proposing mostly the same things, just slower and stingier. When Nixon claimed in 1971 that “we are all Keynesians now,” he meant it.

By the 1970s, Democrats’ traditional reliance on regional and ethnic separatism had opened the door to a far-left counterculture attacking everything American, myriad ethnic and class-based special interests asserting their priority over the nation or any individual’s liberty, and crazed, Orwellian courts conjuring a “Constitutional right” to kill the innocent unborn alongside a prohibition against executing convicted murderers.

Abroad, these Democrats embraced “moral equivalence”, the idea that America is no better -- and perhaps far worse -- than its enemies, particularly the tyrannical (but left-wing) Soviet Union. At home, their Keynesian economics unraveled in a mire of stagflation, double-digit unemployment and inflation, amid calls for greater and greater centralization reminiscent of that same USSR.

Have they changed? Not at all. The hippies are still running the show, horrified that President Bush would harm Iraq’s butcher Zarqawi, clamoring to hand over 25 million Iraqis to a couple thousand al Qaeda terrorists, demanding that government confiscate 55% of your assets when you die. Even their racial separatism remains: Democrats tried -- and failed -- this week to pass legislation creating an ethnic-separatist regime in Hawaii, openly encouraging it to secede from the Union.

This is bemusing, even annoying, in a minority party. It would be suicidal in power.

So when Republicans found their way again under Ronald Reagan’s banner, Americans flocked to them in droves. They haven’t stopped since.

To borrow from Tocqueville, Republicans are great when Republicans are good. It’s not enough to win elections, or “have a seat at the table”. They must stand for something; and not just anything, but those core values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; of an overarching national identity; of equal opportunity for all; and of a God-given freedom and human dignity for every person which cannot be compromised or legislated away. These are conservatism, and these are the values which make us who we are.

When Republicans have abandoned these things, they’ve descended into utter irrelevancy. When they have stood strongly upon them, at home and abroad, they have won the greatest triumphs of our time.

Common Tator, I've read some of your posts with interest and find your conclusions to be rather half-baked or in error, but I will try to address the ones here that you came up short on...

"You must have flunked math. Only about thirty five percent of likely voters are conservatives."

What percentage of the voters are "Conservatives" can vary from election to election, and they don't necessarily translate into voting FOR the "Conservative" candidate. Voters are a bit more complicated than that. You can argue, at least from a Presidential election standpoint nowadays, that roughly 40% of the voters will support one party or the other, and the battle is to get the 20% unaligned.

"Like Barry Goldwater you seem to think that 35 percent of the voters can cast 51 percent of the votes. I think it was the day after the election in 1964 when Barry finally figured out 35 percent of the voters can't cast 51 percent of the vote."

Now, see, CT, this is where you start drawing erroneous conclusions. We need to start off by stating simply and clearly that Goldwater was under no false impression that he would win the general election. He knew the moment JFK was assassinated that no Republican was going to win the general election of 1964 (and all the hysterical claims by the Republican establishment that it was possible IF ONLY we had nominated a Rockefeller or a Bill Scranton, was patently ludicrous (Scranton himself maintained that incredible stance to me personally in correspondence as recently as 1997. As they say, denial ain't just a river in Egypt !).

To Goldwater's credit, he ran probably the most intellectually honest campaign for President in the 20th Century. Why he didn't succeed had nothing to do with a repudiation of his Libertarian Conservatism but a far more complex conclusion than one of "only 35% of the voters support(ing) him" (it was 38.5%, by the way, a full percentage point higher percentage than President Bush, Sr. received in 1992 -- and McGovern received exactly .07% HIGHER than Bush, Sr, too). One could argue that LBJ campaigned as the government "Conservative" against a "radical" Goldwater who sought to drastically reform 32+ years of governance. The country was in no mood for such change in direction in the wake of an assassination, though had they been fully versed as to what LBJ was planning for in his final 4 years, you might've seen a far closer race.

I would also go so far as to say the nation was not entirely clear on precisely what Goldwater's positions were beyond the sound-bites of the time and cute little put-down attacks "In your guts, you know he's nuts" that were clever but shameful substitutes for substantial political debate. In fact, LBJ was terrified of facing Goldwater in a debate and refused to face him (because the likelihood was that Barry would've demolished him).

It remains remarkable that Goldwater managed to get as HIGH a percent of the vote as he did with all of the obstacles against him (a hostile liberal & country-clubber GOP eastern establishment putting up with a standard-bearer laying out a platform that wasn't a carbon-copy of the Democrats and of all abominations, had Jewish ancestry !; an even more hostile left-wing media establishment ready to report that Goldwater was going to start World War III on his inauguration day). I tend to note a rather amusing side-effect that Goldwater was so villified in the media and by the political establishment that it drove UP his numbers in the South (had many there known that they were voting for a pro-civil rights figure with Jewish ancestry, he would've probably not performed at such a level).

"Here in Ohio RINO Voinovich won in 2004 with 63 percent of the vote. According to the latest polls RINO DeWine will win with about 55 percent of the Vote. Conservative Blackwell will lose with 42 percent of the vote."

In the case of Voinovich, that also has little to do with anything more than the power of incumbency against an underfunded challenger. DeWine, however, has jeopardized his own standing as of late with his RINO tendencies and some of those polls have shown him either narrowly leading or trailing the ultraliberal Sherrod Brown (moving left HAS harmed him, and he may end up having Conservatives not voting for him). Now, as for Blackwell, that also is no referendum on Conservatism, but one more on the state of the massively unpopular incumbent Governor and general dissatisfaction with the OH GOP establishment by the voters (and the fact that after awhile, voters like to swap party control, and no Dem has won the Governorship in 20 years). Fortunately for Blackwell, he still has time to turn it around.

"Read all the Tocqueville you want. But the only reading that counts are election returns. And it is next to impossible to re-elect a conservative running state wide in a left leaning state. Ask Rick Santorum how that works.. Specter can tell you as well."

Also an incorrect conclusion. By that definition, Reagan and George Deukmejian should never have won (or won 2nd terms) as Governor of "left-leaning" California. Even John Rowland of CT was still ostensibly Conservative when he won his first two elections (as for his third... well...). Gov. Don Carcieri of RI faces that test this year, and indications show he'll pull it out (narrowly, but remarkable achievement for that state). Even Al D'Amato eked 3 victories out of liberal New York state. As for Rick Santorum, he did something hard to do in the first place, and that was to knock off a sitting incumbent, and he also won reelection by a wider margin (PA is not as left-leaning as you may think, many of the Democrats there are social Conservatives). Santorum's mistake was that in aiding Specter, he alienated his very base that helped him secure his first two victories, and which has been slow to return (but not out of the question). As I said, many of your conclusions are dubious at best and wrong at worst.

You must have flunked math. Only about thirty five percent of likely voters are conservatives.

Ah yes, Million Man March math, where figures and statistics can be easily pulled from someone's anal cavity.

Like Barry Goldwater you seem to think that 35 percent of the voters can cast 51 percent of the votes. I think it was the day after the election in 1964 when Barry finally figured out 35 percent of the voters can't cast 51 percent of the vote.

America wasn't ready to elect a conservative President yet. Besides, how did that "moving to the middle" thingy work out for Republicans between Presidents Hoover and Nixon? They faced a losing streak. Only Eisenhower bucked the trend, and he won only because of his name.

Here in Ohio RINO Voinovich won in 2004 with 63 percent of the vote. According to the latest polls RINO DeWine will win with about 55 percent of the Vote. Conservative Blackwell will lose with 42 percent of the vote.

I think as the race goes on Blackwell will get more than that and may even pull it out as Ohioan voters are disgusted by the state GOP. The OH GOP is screwed up anyway, you can't tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Read all the Tocqueville you want. But the only reading that counts are election returns. And it is next to impossible to re-elect a conservative running state wide in a left leaning state. Ask Rick Santorum how that works.. Specter can tell you as well.

Rick Santorum is a principled conservative. He didn't need to "move to the middle." Specter would have been toast had the administration not stuck their noses in the race.

The bottom line is that your a typical GOP party flunky who advocates supporting RINOs over real conservatives.

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