The Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party

It's primary season again and all across the country, there is a war being fought between the candidates of the liberal Republican establishment and the principled champions of the conservative grassroots members of the Republican Party who form its base. This conservative Republican base is responsible for every one of the nationwide victories of the Republican Party in recent memory; most notably the 1994 GOP landslide that swept Republican majorities into Congress. It continues to rebel against many of the moderate to very liberal candidates who are regularly foisted on it by an increasingly liberal Republican establishment disconnected from the Party’s grassroots membership. It is this grassroots conservative base that is responsible for transforming the GOP from a minority party during the 1950s-1980s into the majority governing party it has become today.

These battles are being fought in the individual congressional and gubernatorial races where conservative insurgents are often battling more fixtured center-left establishment candidates. The California gubernatorial primary this past March was the scene of one of the biggest battles between the conservatives and liberals in the Republican Party as former LA Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican-In-Name-Only (RINO) - somewhat to the left of Bill Clinton on social issues like abortion and gay rights - faced moderate conservative Bill Simon for the GOP nomination for governor of California. Riordan had been all but anointed as the GOP gubernatorial nominee by the Bush Administration. In fact, he was personally recruited to run against two much more conservative primary contenders by President Bush himself. However, Simon pulled off a remarkable upset and won the primary against Riordan by a large margin.

Only last year, Bush and his top aides successfully and stealthily championed the appointment of liberal pro-abortion supporter Gerald Parsky as the de-facto chairman of the California State Republican Party. This move was clearly a bid to remake the California Republican Party in the Democrat Party’s liberal image in order to make it more electable. They succeeded and the California State Republican Party, previously one of the most conservative in the country, is now under the control of a man who has savaged all pro-life Republicans - including GOP gubernatorial nominee, Bill Simon, as extremist. What’s worse, Parsky has stated that he will sit out the election even though Bill Simon is leading California’s vulnerable Governor Gray Davis by as much as nine percentage points in a state that has been morphed by illegal immigration into a Democrat electoral stronghold. This massive rift between the Bush-championed liberal leadership of the California Republican Party and the Party’s grassroots led by Bill Simon threatens to abort the chances of a GOP victory in November against liberal Democrat Gray Davis.

There are other examples of the liberal Republican establishment’s support of moderates and liberals against solid conservatives. President Bush recruited pro-abortion center-lefter Elizabeth Dole to run for US Senator from North Carolina against former Senator Lauch Faircloth, one of the most conservative Senators in recent memory. Senator Faircloth had contributed a great deal of his time and money get Bush elected president and promised to spend millions of dollars of his own personal fortune to get re-elected to the Senate, but who has since abandoned the race in disgust at being stabbed in the back by the man whose election he had worked so hard to champion.

Bush’s recruitment of mushy moderate Lamar Alexander to run for US Senate in Tennessee against conservative House Impeachment Manager Ed Bryant is yet another example. The White House’s philosophy in backing liberals against their conservative opponents seems to be that the best strategy for getting Republicans elected is for GOP candidates to abandon conservative principles. The White House also selected a pro-abortion center-lefter, Marc Racicot to replace moderate conservative pro-lifer Jim Gilmore as RNC Chairman and championed the appointment of a liberal pro-abortion RNC Finance Chairman.

However, perhaps the most vivid current example of the ongoing war between the Republican left and right is the New Hampshire Republican Senate primary where Senator Robert Smith - who, during his 12 years in the US Senate, has amassed a record easily besting Jesse Helms as the most conservative member of the United States Senate - is under siege by a man who can only be described as a young “mushy moderate” upstart, Rep. John Sununu, Jr. This is by far the most interesting GOP primary race in that Smith, a Senate incumbent so staunchly conservative that he briefly left the Republican Party denouncing it for abandoning conservative principles, is facing a moderate congressman who is the son of former governor and chief of staff to President George H. W. Bush, John Sununu, a man who is the very definition of political centrism and political pragmatism.

Unlike Smith, who was rated among the top three conservatives in the US Senate during the current congressional session by the New American magazine’s Conservative Index, Sununu was ranked well below the House GOP average with a positively anemic Conservative Index of only 40%. Sununu, who is of Arab descent, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and has received the financial backing of militant Islamic groups in the US. Sununu also voted in favor of President Bush’s proposed amnesty of two million illegal aliens, which passed the House by a one-vote margin, but was defeated in the Senate thanks to the venerable Senate President Pro-Tem Robert Byrd, a Democrat who is well to the right of both President Bush and Sununu on the issue of immigration.

After initially backing Senator Smith for re-election last year, the White House has shifted to a stance of official neutrality even as Sununu continues to receive endorsements from icons of the Republican left including liberal former Senator Warren Rudman and liberal White House Chief of Staff Andy Card. It was Card who recently warned of the threat from mushy moderate Bush advisor Karl Rove, the chief architect of Bush’s liberal GOP candidate recruitment strategy, whom he mistakenly identified as a “conservative.” The Sununu decision to challenge the most conservative member of the US Senate, Senator Robert Smith, seems likely to make this a bloody primary which will greatly increase the chances at getting the Democrat candidate elected as many of the supporters of the defeated primary candidate, whoever that may be, sit out the election in protest.

I hereby urge all conservative Republicans to unite in support of their respective conservative primary contenders and take a stand against the White House’s attempt to defeat solid pro-life conservatives with their own hand-picked center-left candidates in the GOP primaries. Abandonment of conservative principles and recruitment of liberal and often abortion-supporting candidates will not win elections for the GOP. Instead it will only serve to transform the GOP into a virtual clone of the Democrat Party destined for minority party status and thereby stymie the conservative agenda for years to come.

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a national security expert who works in the US defense establishment responsible for the countries of the former Soviet Union and the Middle East among others. Mr. Pyne has briefed Army transformation and related issues at the Pentagon. He is also a licensed attorney and former Army Reserve Officer. In addition, he holds an MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. Mr. Pyne currently serves as Executive Vice President of the Virginia Republican Assembly. He is also a member of the Center for Emerging National Security Affairs based in Washington, D.C.

Great article here on some of the Bush betrayals of conservatism. The President's failure to take a firm stand for conservative champion, Sen. Robert Smith is most unfortunate, although I would like to emphasize to more moderate Bush loyalists on FR that Bush's endorsement of Smith for re-election has not been withdrawn. In any case, its high time for conservatives to take a stand and contact the White House and urge them to support conservatives for the House and Senate for a change if they want our votes in the 2004 Presidential primary. If conservatives stand together and work together as a united bloc, then we can and will effect positive conservative change in policy by the politically centrist and excessively liberal Democrap accomodating Bush Administration.

Sounds like the CA pubbies are selling out Simon like the NJ pubbies sold out Schundler. The dims stand behind their most repugnant candidates whether they like them or agree with them or not once they win the primary, why do pubbies insist on eating their own?

In any case, its high time for conservatives to take a stand and contact the White House and urge them to support conservatives for the House and Senate for a change if they want our votes in the 2004 Presidential primary.

It will never work because most everyone will vote republican no matter what. You have to be willing to let them actually lose an election before they will understand.

Its sad but true.

Parsky has stated that he will sit out the election even though Bill Simon is leading California’s vulnerable Governor Gray Davis by as much as nine percentage points in a state that has been morphed by illegal immigration into a Democrat electoral stronghold.

Rove and Parsky.. Bush Hit Men :-?

What about us poor citizens who can't afford to lobby from the country club?
DUMP DAVI$ & the Den of Socialists

GO SIMON

OOP, you beat me to it! Good point. Schundler was hamstrung by the NJ pubbies. McGreedy has since blamed the pubbies for every possible evil in NJ, fired all of them he could legally, raised taxes/fees on the toll roads here(which he pledged to eliminate altogether in 7 years), and has proposed to raise business taxes in the *middle of a recession*. Yay, I'm so glad our ex PUBBIE Governor, Donnie D supported McGreedy in private and refused to publically endorse Schudler. Can you imagine any dim refusing to support another one in a gubernatorial race???. (yes, in fact he did, and his wife admitted voting for McGreedy)

Actually, I am pretty much one of those who vote Republican no matter what. I believe that conservatives can make the most difference in the primaries where we can defeat moderates and nominate conservatives we like to take the places of the RINOs that we have had to hold our noses and vote for in the past.

now under the control of a man who has savaged all pro-life Republicans

There are more issues that make one a 'conservative' besides the abortion issue. This article seems concerned just with that one issue.

You don't hafta live with party pronouncements passed down from above.
Getting involved at the grassroots can beat that back. Nothing is as compelling as success.

Read, review and add your own practical ideas to the tactics suggested on this other thread:

I believe that conservatives can make the most difference in the primaries where we can defeat moderates and nominate conservatives we like to take the places of the RINOs

The primaries is where your conservative candidates get their final cheating. The Country Clubbers learned their lesson after Reagan's grassroots nullified their attempt to shut him out. Now you can count on falsified primary results. Chicanery there is most likely the reason the GOP won't confront democrat ballot fraud in elections. They know that they'd be subject to retaliatory accusations.

I have said this over-and-over, but I will say it again. The only way to get the Republican leadership to recognize that their base is truly conservative, is to vote Libertarian in any race in which their is a RINO (Bush included) on the ticket. Their strategists will see where the votes went, after they lost the election, and will finally start pandering to the conservative base again. Bill Clinton fooled everybody up on Capitol Hill into believing the conservatism is dead, and that the only way to win is to lean towards the left. We must be willing to lose elections to the democraps in order to bring our house back in order; a giant, political, wake-up slap to the Republican party.

Libertarian party-the party of principle, freedom, and personal responsibility.

I don't know where Bubba-2 and his defenders get the idea he is a "moderate Republican". On his BEST day he's to the left of the average moderate Dim. He is a statist just like his loser father,and that's the best that can be said for him.

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