Free Republic

On this day in 1965, the 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law. Contrary to myth, Republicans supported this law much more than did the Democrats. In the Senate, 94% of Republicans voted in favor, while just 73% of Democrats voted for it. In the U.S. House of Representatives, 82% of Republicans voted in favor, compared to 78% for the Democrats. Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL), co-author of the 1965 VRA, helped outmaneuver Democrat opposition: "There has to be a real remedy. There has to be something durable and worthwhile. This cannot go on forever, this denial of the right...

On this day in 1866, a mob of Democrats, led by the Democrat sheriff, attacked the racially-integrated state convention of the Louisiana Republican Party, meeting in New Orleans. Democrats killed 40 delegates, all African-Americans, and wounded at least 150. When the survivors appealed to the Democrat President, Andrew Johnson, for protection, he blamed the violence on Republicans for holding the convention. Revulsion at this Democrat savagery contributed to the GOP's landslide victory in the mid-term elections that November.

After the polls closed on election night 2008, I was answering the phone at the McCain/Palin national campaign office. A woman called to say she was “now glad to have a terminal disease because [she] won't live to see how Obama will destroy this great country.” The pain and rage and sorrow in her voice came through loud and clear. Ma'am, whoever and wherever you are, I salute you.

Why is it that Republicans are so easily outmaneuvered by Democrats? Why do Republicans so readily fight among themselves? Why is it so difficult for Republicans to advance their policy agenda? Here's why. Having forgotten our roots, modern Republicans can be thrown on the defensive on nearly any issue. Democrats control most of the media, but they also write most of the history books, thereby controlling what even Republican activists think they know about our Grand Old Party. What we must do is to draw upon the strength and clarity to be found in the GOP's heritage of civil rights...