A Memo to Former Senator Jack Danforth - Moral Values Help Define GOP

When I joined the Young Republicans in the late 1950s, the senior party was controlled by the Country Clubbers. I came from the wrong side of the tracks. My family lived on the South side of Racine, Wisconsin, where Republicans were an almost non-existent commodity. In the precinct where my parents voted there were regularly six Republican votes cast. Two of those were from my mother and father. My father, a German immigrant to this country, as a first-time voter and a United States citizen, supported Democratic nominee Al Smith. He admitted to shedding a few tears when Smith was trounced by Herbert Hoover in 1928. In 1932 my father supported FDR. By 1936 Al Smith was disgusted with FDR and supported the Republican nominee, Alf Landon. So did my father. After he married my mother in 1939, neither of them ever cast another vote for the Democrats at the national level. In the explosive contest between General Dwight Eisenhower and Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, my parents staunchly supported Taft.

The Country Clubbers who ran the local party were intrigued with me, given that my father tended the boiler at a Catholic hospital and we lived among a sea of Democrats. By the way, these same Democrats in my neighborhood were enthusiastic backers of Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI). Most neighbors were Catholic anti-Communists who accepted McCarthy’s claim that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department. I was treated well by the Country Clubbers because they wanted to say that young people like me were joining the GOP. That was an untrue lie. Until I recruited some of my classmates at St. Catherine’s High School to join the Republicans I was the only one. While I was a useful ornament for the Country Clubbers to display, they were glad there were not lots more like me. They were not anxious to have the great unwashed as part of their organization. It was the same through the years when I became a reporter and covered politics and later when I started outside conservative groups, which were often allied with the GOP but never a part of the Republican Party.

When I would ask what the Republican Party stood for I always was told “limited government, free enterprise and a strong national defense.” Not a word about traditional moral values was uttered. When I called Wisconsin State GOP Chairman Claude Jasper after the Supreme Court ruled against prayer in the schools and asked him, as a reporter, for a comment he said, “We don’t get involved in such things.”

Removing my reporter’s hat, I reminded him that I had been active in his party and wanted to understand why he would not comment. He replied, “The party never involves itself in religion.” I responded, “Maybe so, but don’t you understand it would be the right thing to do by telling voters you don’t approve of what the Supreme Court has done.” Jasper was not convinced.

This distant relationship between the Republicans and people of moral convictions continued. Meanwhile, the Democrats made it clear to the Black churches that it wholeheartedly supported the civil rights movement, which Bobby Kennedy and others called the “moral imperative of our time.”

Along came the Carter Administration, which wanted to go after what was termed de facto segregation in Christian schools. For example, if a Christian school in Kearney, Nebraska had adopted a policy of welcoming people of any race, color or creed who could afford the tuition but had no Black pupils, even though there were only eight percent Blacks in the community, the school would be guilty of so called de facto segregation. The Carter Administration’s Justice Department wanted to deny that school tax-exempt status. That provided the opportunity for the Republican leadership to identify with the plight of the Christian schools, although many Republican leaders were against doing so. Meanwhile, the pro-life movement had managed to get language about protecting life inserted into the 1976 GOP platform. (The pro-life movement also tried and came remarkably close in the Democratic platform as there were many pro-life Democrats who had supported Carter on the grounds that he would back the Hyde Amendment, which banned federal funds for abortion.) The pro-lifers went full tilt in 1980 and got added to that year’s Republican Party platform a provision calling for a Constitutional amendment to prohibit abortion. In 1980 in churches all over America, especially in the South, the party platforms were posted side-by-side. By that time the radical feminists had taken over the Democratic Party so the contrast between the two parties on the moral issues was remarkable. Ronald Reagan not only won in a landslide but the GOP won 13 Senate seats including those in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.

The slow process of adding the term “traditional moral values” to the litany of what the Republican Party stood for had begun. Finally the Republicans had in George W. Bush a candidate who understood the power of the so-called religious right. His 2004 campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, was the first in GOP history to target religious conservatives as part of the President’s coalition. Mehlman is now GOP National Party Chairman and seems determined to continue that effort. Values voters were crucial to the GOP Presidential election in 2004 as well as to adding GOP seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The coalition of values voters with the traditional economic base of the GOP appeared to be a key to victories in the long term.

Now comes former Senator Jack Danforth, our most recent Ambassador to the United Nations. Danforth says the Republican Party has been taken over by zealots of the religious right and the party should return to the way it was before the religious right got involved. Mind you, values voters amount to a quarter of the entire GOP coalition. Danforth, who is an extremely wealthy member of the establishment, also is an Episcopal priest. No doubt he was chosen to say what has been on the minds of establishment types since the great unwashed were let into the GOP’s inner sanctum. Do you want to return to the way it was before the religious right became part of the GOP coalition? If that happens, the Republican Party will be dead. Its majorities in both the House and Senate soon would evaporate and the party would be unable to elect a President, as in 1976, when Gerald Ford was defeated. Those who want to return to that era are welcome. I prefer victory.

Each new Senator elected in 2004 had the support of the religious right, even Johnny Isakson of Georgia who entered the race as a moderate and who now has pledged to support most pro-life and pro-family initiatives. There is no doubt that John Thune (Mo.), David Vitter (La.), Mel Martinez (Fla.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), Richard Burr (N.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) would not be in the Senate today but for the strong backing of values voters. Would former Senator Danforth care to return to the time when no legislation backed by values voters was passed, even legislation the establishment salivates over, because liberals controlled Congress?

I agree that the values voters can’t get everything they want. No part of a coalition can expect that. But unless they get enough action to the point that they feel it is worth staying they will be gone as soon as you can say “religious extremists.”

I have not heard the party leadership answer the Danforth viewpoint. I suggest the leaders do so by the actions they take. We formerly got the rhetoric, and the establishment the action. Perhaps now the reverse can be true.

The "religous right" are responsible for the sweeping victory the Repiublicans enjoyed this last election. I think the American people (Christians and non-Christians alike) are growing increasingly weary of the erosion of values in this county espoused by the liberals or "progressives". The very same values that helped form the foundation of our country in the first place. If anything, I think the Republican party should embrace these principles even stronger. Let the liberals cut their own throats. We'll just stand by and watch.

This item in particular shows why the ideal combination of political forces in this country would be a secular small-government conservative movement combined with the solid moral grounding of the "religious right."

The removal of prayer from public schools by the U.S. Supreme Court never really was such a bid deal in this country for any person with religious inclinations who had written off the public school system long ago. In fact, the best application of limited government principles would be a nation in which the basic premise of "public education" didn't even exist.

I don't know why the Weyrich family would have been so concerned about the elimination of prayer from the public schools, since it is clear from this article that they didn't attend public schools anyway, most likely for religious reasons -- which means they didn't like the religious tone of the public schools at the time.

Would former Senator Danforth care to return to the time when no legislation backed by values voters was passed, even legislation the establishment salivates over, because liberals controlled Congress?

This, imo, is the central point to those conservatives or libertarians that wish Christians to shut up and just vote. The ONLY reason the GOP is in a position to begin delivering on matters important to the other elements of the base is because people of faith are aligning with the GOP in increasing majority. Tax breaks, ANWR, strong foreign policy. Possibility of changes in S.S. None of this happens if Christians depart.

I grew up around Country Club Republicans and they totally suck. Most of them (not all) have a total contempt for religious folks. They'd rather hang with rich liberals than some "Bible-thumpin' bumpkin."

And it's really funny - none of them really liked Reagan, because he was a true conservative. They loved Rockefeller, Ford, Dole and Bush's father, because they weren't "Jesus freaks." Well, those guys won exactly (1) national election and that was only as an extension to the Reagan years.

The quote, Weyrich. You ramble on for a couple pages worth but never give the actual quote that you object to. No information, all spin -- MEMO TO WEYRICH SOME OF US CAN JUDGE FOR OURSELVES.

I think Danforth and Weyrich both have their points. The modern Republican Party is a party of coalitions. Granted, we are not NEARLY as bad as the modern Democrat Party in that aspect. Our coalition is basically that of Christian-conservatives and economic-conservatives. The good thing is that most time, they are one and the same.

The Republican Party does need to respect both of these groups and strive to not let either gain a stronger foothold in the Party structure than the other.

The removal of prayer from public schools by the U.S. Supreme Court never really was such a big deal in this country for any person with religious inclinations who had written off the public school system long ago.

Prayer was removed from the schools as part of the bogus 'separation of church and state' idea.

Public prayer in school served two purposes:

1. a common, moral grounding was instilled in ALL children.
2. So people would know the difference between the natural law for the people and the positive law for the government, and understand that is what MAKES America a *Republic*.

The Founders believed in regular, public prayer:
“It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society publicly and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe: . . . As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essential depend upon piety, religion, and morality, and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of Public instructions in piety, religion and morality...”

Justice Brewer Trinity v. United States. 1892

If you look at where our country was morally in the 1950's and where we are 50 years later, it stands out like a neon sign why things are the way they are today. Back in the 1950's a belief in God was still central to most people's lives. Most people attended Church regularly. People had a better sense of what was right and what was not. Back then divorce was still had a stigma associated with it. Homosexuals were considered a pariah. School days began with the Pledge of Allegiance. It was ok to say God in school.

The decline of this began in the 1960's with the "cultural revolution" and the era of "peace and free love". There has been a stead decline in morals and Faith in God ever since. And look where it has gotten us. A 50% or better divorce rate. A rate of illegitimate births that is the highest in history. Scourges like AIDS and Hepatitis. Acceptance of moral deviants like homosexuals. A catering to agnostics and athiests. Attempts to remove God and religious symbols from every aspect of our lives. Deadly violence in schools. Global terrorism. The list could go on for pages.

I apologize if I have posted this before. When I was the president of a union local, I was in a meeting in Danforth's senate office with a few other union members from Missouri.
One of the older men ask the senator if his shoes were made in Italy. "Of course" said the senator. The older fellow ask the senator if the citizens of Missouri should continue to support the senator if he couldn't support the shoe making industry in Missoiri.
At the time Missouri was the largest shoe and boot producing state in the nation and almost totally non-union. However, production was quickly moving off shore.
The senator ask," Why should people care where I purchase my shoes?" The reply was " jobs senator, job."
"I don't understand." said the senator.
He still doesn't. By the way his fortune is from the family owning Ralston Purina.

I don't know why the Weyrich family would have been so concerned about the elimination of prayer from the public schools, since it is clear from this article that they didn't attend public schools anyway, most likely for religious reasons -- which means they didn't like the religious tone of the public schools at the time.

Excellent point.

Thank you Tailgunner. As I suspected, Weyrich's spin is a shoddy hatchet job.

Weyrich's interpretation of Danforth's op-ed:

Danforth says the Republican Party has been taken over by zealots of the religious right and the party should return to the way it was before the religious right got involved.

is a gross exaggeration.

While I very much disagree with Sen. Danforth's take on the issue, Weyrich's shoddy ignorant hatchet job is just so much demogoguery. If you can't make an argument honestly you have no business making it at all, much less writing about it for an audience!!!

All it takes is a simple FR search on "Danforth":

My point is that Weyrich wrote a whole article blasting Danforth while refusing to quote a single word Danforth wrote, and in the process dishonestly exaggerated and demonized a clearly wrong but not antagonistic op-ed by the former Senator.

If an author refuses to quote the source he's attacking, I refuse to trust their take on it and usually suspect that they're exaggerating or falsifying -- and in this case I was proven right. The MSM does it all the time, and this time Weyrich is guilty.

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