Thread: Is the Republican Party Going RINO Hunting?

Is the Republican Party Going RINO Hunting?

Posted by Bobby Eberle
November 6, 2009 at 9:13 am

For years the Republican Party has been a source of frustration for conservatives. Yes, the Republican Party is the vehicle to victory if conservatives want any chance of passing solid legislation, but too often that vehicle has an ejector seat. Only moderates, or RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), are allowed on board.

This week may have been the start of an awakening within the Republican Party leadership. I don't need to mention the conservative base, because we already know what we believe in. It's the "leaders" of our party who don't. However, after stunning gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia, and the near victory of a long-shot congressional candidate, establishment Republicans can no longer pretend that conservatism doesn't sell.


For the past decade, conservatives had put their hopes in the Republican Party only to feel betrayed and bewildered. Republicans swept to victory on a conservative message, then governed like big-spending Democrats. Adding a brand new massive entitlement (prescription drug coverage) is not conservative. Passing spending bill after spending bill that blow the budget and are lined with pork is not conservative. Is it any wonder that Americans turned out the Republicans? More Americans consider themselves to be conservative than liberal or moderate, yet Republicans acted as if the key vote was the liberal vote. Pathetic!

Then, we had the events of this week. In dramatic fashion, a message was sent to Barack Obama and his left-wing band of socialists that we aren't going to take it any more. America was mad at Republicans, but this is crazy. Does Obama really think that we want to turn away from the origins and spirit that made this country great?

A message was also sent to Republican leaders in Washington: the only way to win is to return to conservative roots and run on conservative issues. That's what happened in New Jersey and Virginia. And let's look at NY-23. A group of 11 people sitting around a restaurant pick a "friend of a friend" who has no business running as a Republican. She is NOT a Republican. The voters rebelled and a conservative candidate with no experience nearly won. In fact, Doug Hoffman would have won had the small percentage of Scozzafava voters actually voted for him.

As conservatives, we can all see what the election results mean. What we've probably all been wondering for the last few days is whether the Republican leadership is seeing the same thing we are. Well, there is hope.

In a web interview with ABC News, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele had a message for wayward Republicans: get back to conservative principles or "we'll come after you."

During the interview with ABCNews.com's Top Line program, Steele said:

"Well I'm gonna tell you honestly, that's where the line gets a little bit tricky. And you saw in the House and in the Senate that there are ramifications, because that goes against a core principle. And trust me, you're assuming that people want to have bloated debt, government expenditures and growth into their lives -- they don't. That's a talking point out of the DNC."

"You're gonna find yourself in a very tough hole if you're arguing for the president's stimulus plan or Nancy Pelosi's health plan. There's no justification for growing the size of government the way this administration and this Congress wants to do it."
In his own blog post following the Tuesday elections, Steele wrote:

Because of your efforts, the Republican Party is once again a bottom-up party. The Republican Party has once again found its voice. The great candidates that won last night shared your vision and heard your message. You energized behind these core Republican conservative principles and candidates and rejected the failed Democrat policies.

Because of your efforts, we are now positioned to show new strength as a Party moving forward. Republicans will take that momentum into the 2010 mid-term elections and beyond.

You did not waver in your convictions...and the Republican Party will be guided by and through this voice. I thank you, the grassroots.
Steele's warning, although somewhat tepid, is definitely surprising. I heard speeches myself at RNC meetings where they virtually disavowed conservatives, instead saying, "Let's all just be nice and be moderate." More of the country is conservative... not moderate or liberal, and yet the Republican leaders want to turn away from conservatism? How stupid!

Steele's comments also mirror the activities of the conservative Club for Growth. As noted in a report on USA Today, Club for Growth is "airing ads attacking Gov. Charlie Crist , R-Fla., for supporting President Obama's stimulus package."

The report also quoted another telling line from Steele's interview: "I don't need you to identify as a Republican," Steele said. "I need you to identify as a conservative. We are the conservative party."

Wow! Did I just read that correctly? What is going on in Washington?

There is no doubt that conservatives are energized. We have such a golden opportunity given Obama, Pelosi, and Reid's efforts at taking even more freedom away from the American people and putting more control in government. If Republicans can just get their act together, we could have staggering electoral success in 2010 and 2012.

But we have to learn our lessons. If Americans give Republicans another chance, and we don't govern as conservatives, I feel it could be the end of the Republican Party. If the Republican Party props up candidates to run as conservatives, then govern as moderates, what difference is there between a Democrat and a Republican?

Conservatives need a place to go, and that place had been the Republican Party. Through Steele's talk, maybe the establishment is seeing that conservatives are the key to moving forward. If they don't see the writing on the wall, then conservatives will eventually move forward without the Republican Party. Now is the critical time to mend fences and get back to conservative principles. Now is the time.

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/?p=119

Let the hunting begin.

I'm sorry, but the Republican Party is not the conservative party. It never has been. Fiscally conservative, moderately so, yes, but the Republican Party can't be what it never was. It was never a social conservative party. Conservatives who flocked to the Republican Party in recent years flocked to a round hole when they are a square peg. It will never fit. There's no match there, because the Republican Party has always been about freedom, liberty, equal rights, civil rights, worker's rights, women's rights and minorities rights coupled with fiscal pragmatism which is jobs instead of welfare, protected trade instead of free trade, immigration control instead of over-population and poverty, and laissez-faire instead of government intrusion.

Republicans don't care who you sleep with or when. Republicans don't care what procedures you have in your medical clinics or doctor's offices so long as they are scientifically sound and safe.

Republicans in their hearts and souls are not interested in the personal habits or life-styles of other people. We never have been and never will be. Our party is not the party to pursue those agendas. It's like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Republican descendants of the first Republicans are the base of the party, not conservatives. Republicans will never understand what or why conservatives are trying to do the things they want to do to other people. While Republicans will certainly understand fiscal conservatism and pragmatism in moderation, they will never understand or accept social conservatism or traditionalism.

Yes, Republicans will stand with conservatives on fighting socialists-globalists, fighting deficit spending to a point, and work with any conservatives or anyone else who truly want to stop illegal immigration, reduce legal immigration, get our people back to work at good jobs with good benefits and safe working conditions, and restore protected and fair trade policies.

But the "family values", the "traditional values", the anti-abortion agenda, the anti-gay agenda ... that just won't fly with Republicans. I know, I am one. My family's ancestors were some of the original Republicans in 1854. We fight FOR rights, and have done so for 155 years, we don't fight to take rights away or keep them away from US citizens. While most Republicans are very traditional in their own life-style and most are Christian and very religious, they still believe in separation of church and state and separation of government and personal lives. That doesn't mean we oppose school prayer or Under God in our Pledge or In God We Trust on our money. We believe as part of our freedom that we have the right to say Under God in our pledge and see In God We Trust on our money and say a school prayer so long as it doesn't unduly annoy or disturb other people.

In fact, Dwight Eisenhower is the Republican responsible for Under God in our Pledge and In God We Trust on our money. Yet he is also the Republican President who raised the 1875 US Civil Rights Act from the dead, that was over-turned as unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1883, and during his Presidency in 1957 pushed it through Congress again, this time securing court approval under the commerce clause. That legislation became the US Civil Rights Act of 1957 and laid the foundation for the 1964 US Civil Rights Act.

The Democrats had gutted much of the proposed act in 1957, but some crucial provisions became law to improve civil rights. The Eisenhower Administration had also supported Brown and filed a position with the US Supreme Court in the Brown versus Board of Education case, one of the landmark civil rights cases in the United States.

The portions of the 1957 bill gutted by the Democrats in 1957, ultimately became the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, and this time finally with the help of Democrats, namely Lyndon Johnson who worked with Gerald Ford on the 1957 bill in Congress, the gutted portions of the 1957 bill finally became permanent court-approved US law, with one exception, the voting rights which were gutted in 1964 by the Democrats. But Republicans pushed again and the next year Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois wrote and pushed through the US Voting Rights Act of 1965, this time with enough support of the Democrats to pass it.

There are 3 Constitutional Amendments and 5 US Civil Rights Acts that protect our liberty and freedom as Americans. We owe the Republicans for every single one of them. That was their destiny, the reason the party was formed. You can't remake or transform what can't be redone. Republicans are and have always been the liberal progressives of the United States. We don't only owe them our civil liberties, we owe them our standard of living because they were the ones who not only protected our liberty, they protected our trade and workers and controlled immigration, because they knew what would happen if we didn't, which is where we are today.

Republicans fought mandated taxation, voted against both the Federal Revenue Act of 1913 which established the mandatory income tax and voted against the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 as well, because as Republicans they knew what the outcome would eventually be, which is where we are today. They also wrote and passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act that prevents our businesses and consumers from the ravages of monopoly, anti-competitive behavior, aristocrats and robber barons.

Republicans fought for workers rights, higher wages, better working conditions, more employment benefits, the first minimum wage laws, the 40 hour work week, automatic overtime pay, child labor laws, women's working rights, OSHA, workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, anti-trust and so much more. They fought for preservation of our wild-life areas, and were the first conservations and environmentalists in our country. They also fought for the Inter-Continental Railroad, developed the Interstate Highway System and established the first food and drug safety inspections.

Please, conservatives, do not try to transform what can't be redone. Either embrace the history, accomplishments and philosophy of the Republican Party or please form your own so voters have Clear Choices at the ballot box.

Republicans have given their lives and fortunes advancing our society with hardly a remembrance of their contributions, with barely a mention of what their courage, sacrifices, commitment, perseverance and political philosophy have meant to our nation. And it never mattered to them. Republicans didn't do these things to win elections, seek glory or even have a note of remembrance in a history book about them. They did it because it was necessary and would improve the general welfare of our people and the nation they loved. We're the greatest nation in the world because of a simple straight-forward Republican philosophy of liberty and prosperity, a government loyal to protecting both for the people of the United States, and the members of the Republican Party for the past 155 years who made it so.