Posted on 09/09/2006 8:53:34 AM PDT by quidnunc
The widespread frustration in this electoral season has given rise to perhaps the dumbest political idea in recent U.S. history: the notion that the way to advance the conservative cause is to insure the defeat of conservative candidates.
Frequent callers to my radio show have echoed the arguments of numerous e-mailers, and a few fringe commentators, suggesting that a Republican wipeout in November of 2006 would punish the GOP for its many failures and betrayals, thereby insuring the emergence of a new, more conservative, more ideologically committed party in place of the feckless current operation. Another element of this demented desire for defeat involves the belief that life under the Democrats would prove so bitter, so unendurable, that after a few years of suffering the public would welcome back the Republicans with enthusiasm and gratitude. To bolster this case, the Death Wish Republicans cite Jimmy Carter's narrow victory over Gerald Ford in 1976. After four years of utterly incompetent leadership by the pompous peanut farmer, the Republicans nominated a true, unaplogetic conservative named Ronald Reagan and he won in a landslide.
There are several obvious points that discredit these silly arguments for anyone who wants to give the issue more than a moment's thought.
First, and most importantly, the idea that Republicans can benefit from making the country suffer under Democratic misrule is disgusting, selfish, idiotic and unpatriotic. Can there be any more revolting example of putting partisan advantage over the national welfare? Anyone who seriously believes that it's worth damaging the nation to bring about future political gain is not only a fool, but the sort of traitorous fanatic who should never be trusted in responsible positions.
Consider for a moment the real example of Jimmy Carter, so beloved of Death Wish Republicans. Under his watch, the Soviets invaded Aghanistan (beginning a nightware from which we still haven't awakened), the Communist Sandinistas seized Nicaragua, and the Islamo-Nazi Mullahs deposed the Shah (with Carter's cooperation) and installed the fanatical regime that still threatens the world today. On the domestic front, Carter launched vast new governmental programs (including the utterly unnecessary new cabinet departments of Energy and Education) that neither Ronald Reagan nor any subsequent president has managed to eliminate. In other words, the appallingly inept Georgian did permanent damage to the country, both domestically and in foreign policy, from which all Americans still suffer, but the political gain for the GOP was merely temporary: by 1986, a mere six years after Carter left office, the Dems had regained control of the Senate and just six years after that they took back the White House (for two terms of Clinton). You can't build a successful political movement for the long term on the idea that you're going to turn over power to your opponents so they will proceed to wreck the country.
-snip-
But electoral defeat won't help that process; it will only help undermine it, as worried politicians will scurry toward the center, as they always do when feeling threatened. The idea that GOP defeats actually help the party is every bit as ridiculous as the wacko Third Party mantra that winning 1% of the vote and winning no elective office actually constitutes a great victory. Politics is a business of momentum, and you never help yourself by giving momentum to your adversaries. Unfortunately for the Death Wish Republicans, the rules of common sense and political history still apply, and it still makes not the slightest bit of sense to try to win by losing.
Let's purge the RINOs instead. That way the remaining Republicans will eventually realize they have to move to the Right or go home.
We removed one RINO here in Michigan with the defeat of Joe Schwarz. I suspect he was poised for real power in the house with some of the backing he was getting.
Not only that. Perhaps the Always Angry MIGHT want to consider there will be NO legal way to go back and UNDO the blanket amnesty the Democrats will pass EVEN if Conservatives win back the Congress at some future point.
Not guest worker, a real full bore legalization of all the illegals.
Maybe the Always Angry might want to keep in mind it was Senate Democrats that fillibustered to keep any of the US House Republican Boarder Enforcement provisions out of the Senate immigration bill.
Saying we need to let the DemocRATS win the Congress is absolutely hilarious. Maybe we should also let the Islamonazis take over America too. We could really teach the DUmmy DemocRATS among us a lesson.
The Dems could do tremendous damage even if they only have a majority for 2 years. A bigger problem too is that it might be well over 2 years. If the GOP were to lose control this year they might never get it back!
NO, conservatives will never accomplish a thing until there is a conservative majority in Congress. That requires eliminating the RINOS AT ALL COSTS, even that means allowing Democrats to take their seats for an election cycle.
Yes, conservatives should support Rick Santorum, Jim Talent and other conservatives while allowing Lincoln Chafee, Mike DeWine and other RINOS to die on the vine.
The rep party must decide: big tent or no tent. We are facing a possibility of democrats flooding the country with aliens, getting them to vote, and permanently seizing power.
And then there are Juges. Give the Dems control for even two years, even if we were to take the wild assumptions on the Always Angry Cacuses part seriously, and who knows how many judges will retire. We propagably will have at least 1 new SC Justice by Jan 2009 to appoint. Who do the " betrayed Conservatives" want deciding which Judges get confrimed? Harry Reid or Tom Coborun?
" If the GOP were to lose control this year....."
that's funny......WHAT control?
IMO, there is a better way to regain control of the government AND our elected politicians - restrict Congressional assemblies in Washington to no more than one month per year. IOW, keep the pols at home, in their districts and among the constitutents they claim to represent.
Today's telecommunications technologies allows Congress to meet from their home districts and conduct all the business they need to conduct, but allows them to stay at home. Washington is a poisonous atmosphere that makes these pols believe that they are demigods at the very least, and exalted members of an elite ruling class that believes they are above the laws they create for the rest of us.
By keeping them at home, they become acquainted with the problems REAL Americans face in REAL American cities in REAL American states. It also isolates them from the blathering of the likes of Teddy Kennedy, Harry Reid, John McCain, John F'n Kerry and the other hate-mongers who influence the other pols in Washington. Keep them home where we can keep an eye on them and maintain constant contact and communication with them.
Were it not for the Goldwater nomination in 1964, which energized conservatives, the GOP might still be run by the Rockefeller wing of the party. If Rudy ever becomes president, it will be "back to the future."
Thank you for the post. Medved has it exactly correct. We don't dare commite political suicide and destroy the country with such a rediculous 'death wish' scenario.
Republicans have a reputation of going for the jugular...unfortunately, it's always their own.
Just wanted to repeat that.
That's the correct time to remove RINOs--in the primaries.
NOT in the general elections.
Michael, if I vote for Arnold, I get Angelides. If I vote for Angelides, I get Angelides.....the GOP is already lost.
Michael, if they were conservative we wouldn't be making a fuss. The real "Death Wish Republicans" are those who rubber-stamp RINOs in election after election, with no mind to their increasingly liberal platforms, just because they run with an "R" after their name.
Conservative voters are in danger of being triangulated out of existence. If we make it clear, en bloc, that RINO candidates cannot be elected without us, RINOs might be pressured back to conservatism again. No candidate should ever take my vote for granted. It's true that on election day I may hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. But no candidate should ever count on that.
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