Each time, it comes out that a religious conservative has fallen into some sort of moral failing, this is cited as proof that social conservative ideas are wrong. Yes, this is a logical fallacy, but that’s not my point today.

I’d argue that Mark Souder’s behavior isn’t unique. I knew of a great minister who stood up and talked of justice and equality, and wrapped himself in the Bible, yet he secretly had extramarital affairs. That hypocritical minister? We have a holiday for him. His name is Martin Luther King, Jr.

What do we make of politicians like Mark Sanford or John Edwards who profess to be paragons of virtue, but then cheat on their wife in such tawdry matter? It’s easy to try and score political points off of these moral failings or to simply dismiss them as nothing but slimeballs. I think to do so misses a warning for those in politics.

You think about John Edwards, Mark Sanford, Mark Souder, or MLK and one thing comes to mind. All we’re crusaders. You had John Edwards and his “Two Americas” rhetoric and staring down the nose of people that shopped at Wal-mart, you had Mark Sanford as the crusader against pork in his home state and the ruination of our nation from foreign creditors, and of course you had MLK as a crusader for civil rights and Souder as a solid pro-family vote in Congress.

The pattern I see is not that all of them were standing for evil and selfishness, but they were standing for a version of moral rightness. And perhaps, that’s where the peril lies. As John Bunyan once declared, “There’s enough sin in his best prayer to damn the whole world.”

The danger we face when we stand up for something that we believe to be right is that we can become self-righteous, and our belief that we’re morally just because of the causes we’re fighting for can lead us to overlook and excuse moral blind spots and use the good cause we’re standing for as an excuse. “Hey, I may cheat on my wife, but I’m fighting for civil rights.” Or “Hey, I’m watching hardcore porn, but I’m also fighting to save the country from bankruptcy.”  It’s all the same thing.

I don’t think its reasonable to say, “Don’t stand up for things. You may become self-righteous.” Where would we be if no one fought for civil rights or for the abolition of slavery because they were afraid of becoming self-righteous? Many people do stand up for what they believe without it destroying their character. I also don’t think the temptation to self-righteousness is limited to “family values” issues. It can just as easily be “saving the environment,” “more funding for roads,” or “trans fats are evil.” The problem ultimately lies in the human heart, and so does the solution.

The key is to remember is that taking a right stance doesn’t make you a right person or a good one, nor does it make actions in pursuit of your agenda justifiable. I’ve run into plenty of conservative jerks in my day, and I think any honest liberal will have to acknowledge they’ve run into a few people on the left who are not great people to be around.

The key is humility and honesty about yourself. Trying to tie human failings to a political agenda simply doesn’t wash.

In critiquing libertarianism, one has to be careful. There are multiple definitions of the term. It is often used by lazy media people to apply to pro-choice Republicans, even if their positions on other fiscal and even other social issues would not fall in line with libertarian thought. Calling a pro-choice, pro-gun control fiscal moderate a “libertarian” is inexcusable.

 In addition, it ought to be owned to that many libertarians make a solid contribution to conservative causes. John Stossel’s reporting on government waste and mismanagement are extremely helpful. However this doesn’t negate the basic flaw in the belief system applied to society.

The fundamental problem with libertarianism is that it is not a practical philosophy of governance. Ayn Rand and Karl Marx both lacked insight into how human beings actually function. Both proposed interesting philosophies on paper that fall apart in the real world.

This is in contrast to the theories of the Founding Fathers. Adams stated that the Constitution fit the religious and moral people of his age, but that a less disciplined people would require a larger government. The philosophy of pure libertarianism which would leave us believing that you would need no more government if your city were full of drug-adled maniacs and you had an 80% illegitimacy rate and a house of prostitution on every corner than if every citizen was as staunch and sober as a stereotypical puritan. The reality is that you would have more government because people would demand it.

I would argue that libertarian aims on fiscal and social issues are at war with each other. Let’s take the issue of legalizing hard drugs, something that many libertarians favor. The libertarian conclusion on the issue would be that people can use the drugs and they suffer the consequences. If they end up homeless, destitute, and addicted to drugs, it was their own choice, and really none of our concern.

In practicality, if hard drugs were legalized, crystal meth would became as easy for teenagers to obtain as alcohol is today. This would lead to a great increase in the number of drug users.  Would Americans let their family members, neighbors, and children die or see the streets filled with a never-ending supply of homeless and dangerous derelicts? Or would they demand that the government step in to provide rehabilitation and help to bring people back from the darkness. The end result would be an expansion of the welfare state. The short-term gain in personal liberty among drug users would be paid for by a lost of economic liberty by all taxpayers.

Poet  John Donne was right when he observed that “no man is an island.” The social libertarian position disputes this as well as the basic human experience.

It is my contention that the proper role and function of government is the preservation of liberty. If a behavior or activity undermines liberty and will endanger it, then it may be appropriate for government act.

Here, I make a limited argument. My purpose in this piece is not to define what actions government may take or when it is appropriate for government to act, only to say that government may have an appropriate role in the preservation of the culture. The Founding generation recognized as much when they approved the Norwest Ordinance declaring in Section 14, Article 3, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

As a footnote, I know that many libertarians love to cite Ronald Reagan’s stated in an interview with Reason Magazine, in which he said, “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”  If the quote is examined in context, Reagan was speaking to a libertarian magazine, and trying to encourage libertarians to join with him, he declared, “The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.” He hastened to add that he didn’t agree with what everyone who identified themselves a libertarian said.

What Reagan stated was good politics and an almost successful attempt at co-option, but in terms of using Reagan, a staunch drug warrior and, in 1975, a strong pro-life advocate, as an argument for the libertarian social view is ahistorical.

In the next series, we’ll turn our eyes on the left as we begin to examine the dominant force of our times and how it fits into this debate..

The popular thought of the day is that social conservatism is an accessory item to fiscal conservatism. It’s like an optional sun roof, a pretty good idea if you’re driving in the South in the winter, but a really bad idea if you’re in Maine in the fall or winter.

Even some advocates of limited government believe that religion is outmoded. A Libertarian group made news after the Kelo decision, when it wanted to have the house of Justice David Souter seized by eminent domain and turned to the hotel. The group promised not to place Gideon Bibles, but instead give patrons a copy of Atlas Shrugged.

However, in its broadest sense, social conservatism is the engine that makes limited government possible. John Adams declared, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Strong houses of worship and strong families are more vital to the nation’s welfare than a strong dollar. The welfare state has waxed strong, while family, faith, and community has waned in influence as the government has taken on an even greater role in efforts like the War on Poverty programs of LBJ and all the continuing “reforms” that were added.

Unless faith, family, and community are restored and renewed, limited government is really a pipe dream. To dream of a return of constitutional liberty without a renewing of the essentials of religion and morality is like dreaming of losing weight while living a sedentary life and eating a steady diet of cake and ice cream.

Incredible hypocrisy is going on in the pro sports world. While Keith Olbermann writes for mlb.com and covers big NFL games, Rush Limbaugh couldn’t even purchase a team and was driven out of football over some over-hyped statements about Donovan McNabb and his media coverage.

The double standard isn’t limited to Mr. Limbaugh. Screenwriter Andrew Klavan has stated regarding Hollywood, “If you’re a conservative, especially a religious person, people have to meet in secret. They talk in whispers. It’s a very disturbing kind of culture.”

The left has not limited its attempts to ruin lives over politics to media figures. Margie Christofferson, a co-owner of the El Coyote Café in California was reduced to tears by a mob of gay rights activists angry for giving $100 to help passed Prop 8. She apologized if she offended the gay community, but failed to comply with their demands to give a $100 donation to repeal Proposition 8, stating, “I cannot change a lifetime of faith.” Similarly, Scott Eckern resigned as artistic director for the California Musical Theater after a boycott was threatened, stating, “I am disappointed that my personal convictions have cost me the opportunity to do what I love the most.”

With Olbermann, conservatives have a chance for revenge. To do unto the left as the left has done to conservatives. It’s a viscerally appealing prospect. The question is whether it’ll actually make things better.

A famous axiom about communism is that it succeeded in making people equally miserable. If the goal is to achieve equality of misery, then going after Keith Olbermann makes sense. If not, it’s an ill-conceived declaration of war on the ever-shrinking non-political sphere.

One of the problems in our civic life is a faction that wants to make everything political, that wants to wreak havoc on the lives of political opponents by making them suffer for daring to have a different political opinion. The consequences of this are profound. 

First of all, it makes people afraid to express their opinion, lest they, like Scott Eckern, find their entire career trashed. This is poison for citizen involvement. Second is that it makes our politics far more personal and visceral as more people stop discussing issues and become part of emotion-driven vindictive mobs.

The Olbermann attackers’ goals, taken to taken to their logical conclusion, would mean mlb.com would have to insist, to write about baseball, you can’t speak out on politics. When one has set up a system where, if you comment on politics, you forfeit your other occupations and associations, you have effectively penalized political activity.

In addition, what can be said of the aims of getting mlb.com to fire Olbermann? It’s unlikely to succeed because your average conservative is not this vindictive and outraged. After an Oregon school teacher urged people to infiltrate tea parties to make them look like racist nuts, the local tea party head opposed firing the teacher.

Further, Olbermann is too obscure a target. Given Mr. Olbermann’s ratings, if you asked average conservatives if they despised Olbermann, they’d give about the same response Rick gave in Casablanca, “If we gave him any thought, we probably would.”

Even if the movement were to succeed, what would be the upside? They would have driven the host of a low-rated news program on a low-rated network off a blog that hardly anyone’s heard of.  Not exactly the Republican election victories of 1994 and 1980.

On the downside, this type of thing encourages more of such movements on both sides of the political aisle and will further poison our political dialogue. Success in the attacks on Olbermann at mlb.com will mean people in an ever-increasing number of occupations will have to choose between speaking up on issues of the day and being able to enjoy other parts of life.

I’ve known an executive director of a Christian political organization who served as a high basketball announcer. In the mid-2000s, I alternated between writing fiery conservative commentary and lamenting the poor state of Colorado Rockies baseball at the time with no political edge. Such efforts are endangered by those who want to make everything political. The harder it becomes for people who can’t live off the government to be involved in politics, the less conservatives will become involved.

If conservatives really want to level the playing field, they won’t do it by trying to get Keith Olbermann fired. They’ll get it by establishing websites, publications, and media companies that will allow conservatives the ability to create and think without fear of reprisal. President Obama said it well. “The future belongs to those who build.”

Every liberal media company and organization that so frustrates conservatives has been built or acquired over the years by liberals. Whether it’s newspapers, movie companies, or basketball teams, leftists have been acquiring institutions of cultural importance. The question for the future of conservatism and the battle for our culture is whether conservatives are willing to build, or will be content to whine.

Here’s the problem and, as I see it, it’s a problem that is actually sort of built right into the Tea Party movement from its inception. That would be its essentially leaderless nature. Certainly this leaderless nature has suited the tastes of those suspicious of government, tired of failed party machinations, and the preternaturally aloof folks that populated them. Perhaps the gatherings could have occurred no other way and are born of this peculiar instant of political sensibility. Nonetheless Tea Parties have been disparate, unfocused, leaderless, and might prove to be pointless in the end.

There was no unifying single goal of the Tea Partiers and no agency or party directing them. This means that the raw power behind them just might go untapped because there will be no way to translate the passion to power. Every transformative movement has been led by a single man and his small group of powerful adherents but the Tea Party movement has no such leader and might just find that its passion will dissipate until there is nothing left but disgruntled followers.

This attitude was illustrated on an Idaho blog back in November on a blog here in Idaho: Politics, Guns, and Beer where the blogger and his son, nicknamed “the inconvenience” went to a town meeting. The blogger’s son received applause for an interesting suggestion:

Anyway, The Inconvenience kinda stole the show when he let them have it with both barrels during the Q&A. He told the candidates he didn’t want a leader, he wanted to be left alone.

I understand the sentiment, and in your own personal life, you should be left alone, but here’s the problem. When it comes to politics, you do need leaders. When you engage in political activity, it’s nice if someone who knows what they’re dealing can tell you what is the most effective use of your time, energy, and resources. And if you expect to make changes to the government when elected, you don’t need clueless people wandering about the Capitol.

Unfortunately, what Republicans have offered is untrustworthy leaders who keep putting the knife into the grassroots. This leaves some folks feeling like trusting no one. It’s a comforting idea, you trust no one and no one can stick the knife in. Unfortunately, trusting no one to lead means your effort are frustrated and come to nothing.

How bad can it get when there’s no leadership, when everyone just runs out doing whatever with no plan or strategy? Disaster. In 1996, Congressman Bob Dornan was a well-known conservative Congressman who lost re-election by 800 votes. There were allegations of fraud, but what killed him was an Operation Rescue guy running as a third party and getting 3600 votes. Dornan was as pro-life as the day was long, but some wise guy decided to run a campaign that he shouldnt’ have and the net result was the election of a liberal pro-abortion Congressman. I love it when a plan comes together. Oh wait, there was no plan.

I hate to point this out to those who would remain leaderless, but the Founding Fathers believed in leadership. In fact, that’s why not every single person in the Founding era was a Founding Father. The Founding Fathers were the leaders of their time who took the time to do things like write the Constitution and Declare Independence, and the founding generation responded to that leadership.

I don’t necessarily feel that 2010 will be a disaster, but I think a lot of elections will be lost that could have been won because of the lack of leadership that the Grassroots can trust, and a lack of willingness to embrace leadership.

The debate over Glenn Beck is fascinating, but both sides have missed the real truth. Glenn Beck’s current position of prominence is a problem, but not for the reason that his opponents imagine.

The debate has come down to a question of whether Beck is good for conservatism. Dan Riehl argues Beck is made prominent by the media because he hurts conservatism. Bernard Chapin provides the counterpunch that Beck is under attack by the media because he’s good for conservatism and revitalizes it.

The problem is that few people are as strategic as Chapin or Riehl suggests. Certainly, Fred Phelps and his ghoulish family are given prominent media play to tar actual conservative Christians, and the media never mentions Phelps’ support for Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 1988. Similarly, I’ve seen people I know to be reasonable, decent folks turned into monsters by the media in order to marginalize them.

However, this can’t be said of all media action. Would anyone say conservatives are attacking Keith Olbermann to make him prominent to give us election wins? Your average voter could care less about the latest outrageous statement by the Sportscenter alumnus. Conservatives attack Olbermann because they don’t like him. If there’s some grand strategy behind it, it’s not working. Nor would anyone say that Sean Hannity has James Carville or Bob Beckel on his show in order to make Democrats look like buffoons. Well, they wouldn’t say it about Carville, anyway.

The news media is about passion, energy, and novelty. “George Will writes bland intellectual column” isn’t news. “Glenn Beck throws down the gauntlet to the Obama administration on national television while wearing lederhosen.” Now, that’s news.

It’s silly to charge Glenn Beck with being bad for conservatism and bad for the Republican Party. Do Beck bashers imagine that people are going to say, “The economy may be awful and I may agree more with the Republicans, but I can’t stand that Glenn Beck, so I’m voting for the Democrats”? Will that show up in the exit polls?

British Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan appeared on Glenn Beck’s show to opine on ObamaCare. His advice: “Don’t do it.”

He called the NHS “a 60-year failure” and pointed out that Britain had adopted its health care system in the midst of World War II when rationing was in vogue — not only for health care, but for food and gasoline. That America was considering a move towards socialized medicine in peacetime was unbelievable to Hannan.

Across the pond, the reaction from Conservative Party leadership was chilly, to say the least. Conservative leader David Cameron called Hannan “eccentric” and stated that “’no one should be in any doubt, for the Conservative Party, the NHS is our number one priority.” Meanwhile, critics on the left were far less kind, calling Hannan “unpatriotic.”

Now one can wonder what has happened to Great Britain to turn it into a nation where loving one’s country requires loving every bureaucracy that operates within it. However, there’s a larger scope to this row. Cameron and Hannan ultimately represent two archetypal visions of conservatism that are in conflict not only in Britain, but in the United States as well.

Hannan favors ending the National Health Service and creating a system of private accounts. The idea may seem like common sense to American conservatives, but Britain’s National Health Service is the third largest employer on the face of the Earth. That Hannan believes such a bureaucracy should be dismantled is a radical concept.

However, Cameron sees that the Conservative Party’s easiest path to victory in the next election is to accept the status quo regarding the National Health Service. And anyone who thinks otherwise is, at best, “eccentric.”

Thus, we see the fundamental conflict within conservatism on either side of the Atlantic. Hannan and those who identify with Hannan-style conservatism have a clear vision of what government should be like, what functions it should have, and what it shouldn’t do. Cameron conservatives are pragmatists who seek to keep the world the way it is. They’ll oppose the introduction of bad government programs, however once those bad government programs are established, they will accept them as a fact of life and even defend them.

If you need evidence of this, look no further than the U.S. Department of Education, a gift from the Carter administration. Ronald Reagan opposed it, as did the GOP platform. Everything critics said about the Department of Education at the time it was created was correct. In fact, in 1994 the GOP promised to eliminate the Department of Education. However, due to repeated failures at the 2000 Republican Convention, opposition to the existence of the Department of Education was pulled from the Republican Party platform. In 2008, even Ron Paul was silent about getting rid of the Department of Education even though it still does not educate children after thirty years of existence. Its only useful function is to release statistics throughout the year that indicate its total lack of effectiveness.

Since the day after John McCain lost the election, a battle has raged. “Pragmatists” have demanded that conservatives, particularly social conservatives, compromise their values in order to win elections.

The argument between the principled and the “pragmatists” goes back and forth, and there are numerous variations. A personal favorite, from the conservatives, is the pugilistic argument: make us.

This, of course, is not so much an argument as a challenge to the David Frums of the world. Conservatives did not obtain their spot in the GOP because the Rockefeller wing decided one day that, in order for the Republicans to win, they needed to let conservatives run things for a while. Conservatives became the core of the party through hard work and struggle.

But conservatives may not be utilizing the most potent fuel for the fight: the self-styled pragmatists’ ideas, listed below, are anything but.

He was a finalist for Time’s 100 most influential people. He’s got a radio show in the works and has a book on its way to the stores. This past Friday, he made the trip to Chattanooga to headline the Lincoln Day Dinner with four candidates for governor.

Oh, by the way, he’s fourteen.

Jonathan Krohn is not the first teenage political pundit, but the level of notoriety he’s achieved in a few months is stunning. Krohn lacks polish, but he makes up for that with competence in understanding political issues and unflappable confidence.

Some liberals have made fun of Krohn, while others have tipped their hat to him — as did most Huffington Post commenters. Many conservative bloggers have embraced Krohn, primarily because the fourteen-year old is better able to defend conservative values than many members of Congress.

But Krohn’s harshest critics come from the right. They believe Krohn lacks the life experience to be commenting on politics. Hot Air’s Allah Pundit asks, “Does he understand what he’s saying, or is he just doing some sort of superb mynah-bird impression of a conservative pundit in the Tucker Carlson mold?”

Likewise, President Herbert Hoover once advised a young man not to concern himself with politics until he turned twenty-one. And there’s the famous quote by Winston Churchill that a young conservative has no heart but an old liberal has no brain.

Is Krohn a brainwashed puppet of dastardly right-wing parents, or a shining light for conservatism’s way forward?

Dear Senator Cornyn, 

We the undersigned believe that the National Republican Senatorial Committee should be committed to serving ALL the members of the Republican Party.

Additionally, the NRSC should be focused on defeating Democrats, not Republicans. Towards that end, we believe it was completely inappropriate for the NRSC to endorse a candidate in the Florida primary race.

Therefore, we request that both you and the NRSC alter your position on the Florida Senate race, maintain neutrality, and promise to spend no money directly or indirectly in that race.

Sincerely yours,

John Hawkins
Right Wing News

Erick Erickson
Redstate

R.S. McCain
The Other McCain, Right Wing News, Not One Red Cent

Ed Morrissey
Hot Air

Jon Henke
The Next Right

Eric Odom
American Liberty Alliance

Pamela Geller
Atlas Shrugs

Dan Riehl
Riehl World View

Jeff Goldstein
Protein Wisdom

Kevin Aylward
Wizbang!

Lorie Byrd
Wizbang!

David Blount
Moonbattery, Right Wing News

Melissa Clouthier
Melissa Clouthier, The Other McCain, Right Wing News

Jeff Vreeland
Tech Republican, President of VM Technologies and IT Chairman for the YRNF

Matt Lewis
Townhall

Ned Ryun
The Madison Project

Justin Hart

John Caldwell

Joshua Trevino
Co-founder of Redstate, founder of Treviño Strategies and Media.

Chip Hanlon
Red County

Robert Loewen
President of the Lincoln Club of Orange County

Richard Wagner
Chairman of the Lincoln Club of Orange County

Whatever one thinks of the Florida U.S. Senate race, it shouldn’t be decided by the NRSC and by injecting the NRSC into a primary for an Open Seat, Senator Cornyn has created unnecessary friction within the Republican Party and has shown a disrespect for the Primary process of the people of Florida.

As Morrissey points out, a similar tactic is causing friction among New York Democrats even coming from the far more popular Obama White House.  Already Cornyn is having to dodge questions on Facebook and in blogger conference calls and has a brushfire of anomosity building up. Now would be a good time for a graceful retreat to neutrality.

If you think we need men like Marco Rubio in the Senate, then open your wallets, we got a fight ahead.

Obama’s car tax.

We now own a car company and are forgiving a $15 billion loan. (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

The Obama budget deficit in perspective.  (Hat Tip: Willisms.)

The specter of cowardice. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Texas as the promised land and economic powerhouse.

Teachers who can’t learn math.

Georgia GOP takes a stand.

Oklahoma places ten commandments monument.

Click here to listen, click here to download.

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Stageleft, and DragonLady’s World, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

(Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

It’s too soon to say for sure, whether this is for real, but this is Steele at his best. He sounds a like a party chairman for the first time.

At this point, I’m not too keen on the idea of a Steele resignation. He wasn’t my candidate for chairman, but he is the party’s chairman. 

As an aside, yesterday, I received my first fundraising letter of the Steele era. And I have to say that I liked it far better than the Mike Duncan letters. Duncan would always try to make me feel guilty for not giving more. Steele is being positive and complimentary. Yes, he’ll get some dough from me. Not much, but more than  Duncan ever did.

How do you get conservatives to think your organization is worthless? A member quoted in the media suggesting it’s time to move past Ronald Reagan is a surefire way to do it. As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, Governor Jeb Bush never spoke those exact words, but that impression has been left with conservatives around the nation.

Bringing back the Republican Party is a hard task. It’s tougher still when its members don’t trust those running around trying to save the party. It’s worse yet when leaders have no idea why they aren’t trusted. In the minds of many of our leaders, if we could move past Reagan, we could all be sensible adults and make a series of compromises that would get the majority of Americans on board with the Republican Party. The problem with this thinking is that it fails to understand how a party wins an election. It’s not through attracting enough people via a series of compromises of core values. Rather, victory depends to a great extent on money and manpower.

If we are to learn anything from the 2008 campaign, it should be that building a campaign around moderates and independents is a poor plan. Moderates and independents made John McCain the Republican nominee with their support in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida, but their role in Republican politics ended with their vote. Many of the party’s faithful didn’t even decide to vote for McCain until the Sarah Palin pick, and only then were there any volunteer efforts. Even those efforts were far less than efforts on the left for their guy. Obama’s people had been involved and engaged throughout the campaign.

Republican elites have correctly guessed that they can count on the vast majority of conservative activists to vote for them. But they don’t just need our votes; they need our money, time, and effort. Unlike leftist interests such as labor unions, environmentalists, and “community activists,” the livelihood of most middle-class conservatives is not tied up in who runs the government.

For a time, Republicans may be able to inspire conservatives to action with fear. But after a while they get tired of reading ransom notes from the RNC threatening national doom should they not send in a $100 check while they watch Republican Party agenda track closely with the Democratic Party on issues such as the size of government and amnesty for illegal aliens. And then conservatives conclude that the Republican Party is not worth their time, money, or sacrifice.

A few weeks ago, an ABC-Washington Post poll revealed that only 21% of Americans identified themselves as Republicans. However, as one blogger pointed out, 35% of Americans in the poll still identify themselves as conservatives. Will the Republican Party win again if at least 40% of conservatives don’t identify with it? And this figure doesn’t even take into account the moderates in the Republican Party, so it’s probably even higher.

Read the rest here.

PJM columnist John Hawkins’ advice to conservatives to be as nasty as liberals is like Sean Connery’s “Chicago way” speech in The Untouchables applied to American politics: “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.”

But is the “Chicago way” the right way for conservatives? Certainly, conservatives need to re-evaluate their tactics in light of Democratic behavior. That Democrats will engage in obstruction of Republican judicial nominees, while Republicans will let Democratic nominees sail through is absurd. In my home state of Idaho, a local was critical of Republicans talking about challenging first-term Congressman Walt Minnick (D-ID) and urged them to wait until 2010, even though Minnick was on record as a candidate who criticized former Congressman Bill Sali back in January of 2007, the year Minnick raised more than $400,000.

When conservatives do things like this, they’re acting like British troops trying to form into straight lines while their enemies take positions behind rocks and trees to pick them off like flies. They’re denying reality and have failed to acknowledge that the battle lines have shifted. However, I think Hawkins’ thesis for conservative nastiness is wrong for several reasons:

1) Conservatives are not liberals

I’ll counter Hawkins’ martial arts analogy with a sports analogy of my own. A baseball team with several players that regularly hit home runs can get players on base, not worry about base running, and win with a strategy of “pitching, defense, and the three-run homer.” This same strategy won’t work if a team has decent speed and only one or two players that are reliable long-ball hitters. Baseball strategy is always going to be dependent on the team you have to play with. You can’t expect singles hitters to consistently deliver three-run homers, so you have to work it another way.

Culturally, conservatives are unable to play the same game as liberals, because we do not possess the same mentality. I would argue that conservatives have a greater sense of respect for authority, rules of civility, and fundamental order within society. This is so ingrained that in Boise, when social conservatives felt the need to practice civil disobedience over the removal of a Ten Commandments monument, it was arranged in advance with the police that only a small number of people would be arrested and they would go quietly. There was a strong feeling among Ten Commandments supporters that they didn’t want to give the police officers a hard time, because the police were only doing their job and enforcing the actions of a boneheaded city council.

Hawkins responded with a piece of his own that didn’t leave me a whole to respond to in  an actual PJM response. Hawkins doesn’t prove that his tactics will work, only arguing that conservatives should do them because the liberals are due it.

 Hawkins of North Carolina questions the tactics of the Ten Commandments:

It’s fascinating that Mr. Graham picks that example, not only because it was a failure, but also because of the obvious contrast that has so often been drawn between Christian and Muslim protests. Christians are mocked and laughed at with impunity in this country because most Christians don’t have the backbone to stand up for their faith. Maybe the truth hurts, but I suspect there are few Christians reading this who’d disagree. On the other hand, Muslims are treated with the utmost respect here in the U.S. and across the world. Part of that’s because there is a fear that if you insult Muslims, one of them might kill you. However, even if that weren’t the case, Muslims would be treated with much more respect because they take grave offense when someone insults their religion. If Christians felt the same way, 90% of black Americans would be voting for Republicans instead of Democrats, Barack Obama wouldn’t be invited to speak at Notre Dame, and that Ten Commandments monument would be sitting in that Boise park today.

I’d also add that sometimes, regrettably, the only way to preserve “respect for authority, rules of civility, and fundamental order within society” is to give the people who are ruining those things a taste of their own medicine.

So, let me agree in part with Hawkins, that if Christians had cared in large enough numbers about the issue, there would have been a different outcome politically. We had hundreds involved, but there are tens of thousands of Christians who didn’t care and indeed who in order to make themselves look good attacked those who supported the Ten Commandments.

However, what if the 100 people who had volunteered to be arrested all lied down on the ground and made their bodies go limp, would that have stopped police? It would have delayed them, but the monument would have still gone out.  We needed Christians to care to the point that there were political consequences for the Mayor and Council, not for hundreds to obstruct police.

If this were an effective tactic, abortion would have ended during the Operation Rescue situation. While, it can be argued that Operation Rescue’s tactics were moral as a response to abortion with non-violent civil disobedience, they did not end abortion.

Hawkins also disagrees with my statement on trained protestors:

Really? The 18-year-old college students blocking conservatives from speaking at campuses are trained Alinsky radicals? I’m not so sure that’s correct. Moreover, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea to “never go outside the expertise of your people.”

I’d say many of them are, though probably more like the 21-year old ring-leaders. Generally, you’ll hear certain things at protests that people have been taught to do, like the screaming/chanting person who stands up like a priest during vespers.

Chanter: I say union, you say rocks. Union.

Crowd: Rocks

Chanter: Union!

Crowd: Rocks!

Going along with my point of conservatives looking silly in this regard, imagine this:

Chanter: I say Captain Gains Taxes and you say, “suck.”  Capital Gains Taxes.

Crowd: Suck.

Chanter: Captain Gains Taxes.

Crowd: Suck.

I rest my case on the poser point.

Moreover, the Right is slowly but surely narrowing the media gap. For example, WorldNetDaily — which Mr. Graham disparagingly mentions — gets more traffic than the Associated Press and the top seven conservative talk radio hosts alone reach more than 60 million people a week combined.

My point is that the stories on journalists are more likely to play in a conservative echo chamber and not get out to the general public. Conservatives are narrowing the media gap, but with the exception of Fox News, the only people who are being reached are conservatives. Therefore to expect to get great play in the mainstream of society by exposing Maureen Dowd is silly. Ain’t happening.

Since the election, the debate has raged. Who is responsible for the 2008 election debacle and the defeat of the Republican Party?

So far this question has centered on various groups’ attempts to reenact the scapegoat scene from Leviticus and cast all the sins of the Republican Party onto cultural conservatives and release their concerns into the wilderness.

The battle has been as entertaining as it has been misguided and pointless. Is there a war between economic conservatives and social conservatives? As someone actively involved in both social and fiscal issues, I’ve seen a lot of crossover between the two sides in terms of people who show up. This crossover is quite common. A leading economic conservative group, Club for Growth, often backed the same candidates as socially conservative groups like National Right to Life, Government Is Not God-PAC, and Focus on the Family Action. Newt Gingrich has begun to go around with slides showing that the most socially conservative members of Congress were also the most fiscally conservative.

I’m going to suggest an alternate conclusion. I’m going to reject the conventional wisdom that the election was lost because of the party grassroots and go out on a limb and suggest that maybe the problem is not the party’s activists. Perhaps (and I know this is shocking) the people who led the party over the cliff are the ones to blame.

The GOP doesn’t have a religious problem, a gay rights problem, or an abortion problem. It fundamentally has a good old boy problem. Let us tell the story of a primary, and we don’t have to name names, because the story is the same across the country.

Read the rest here.

When I first ran in 1980, Congressman Bud Shuster sponsored a fundraiser for me in Altoona where Congressman Jack Kemp was the principal speaker. When some questions were raised as to my political philosophy, Congressman Shuster said my most important vote would be the organizational vote. From that day to this, I have believed that the organizational vote belonged to the party which supported my election.

When the Democrats urged me to switch parties some time ago, I gave them a flat “no.” I have been asked in the last several days if I intended to switch parties. I have said absolutely not.

Senator PHIL GRAMM faced this issue when he decided to switch parties. He resigned his seat, which he had won as a Democrat, and ran for reelection as a Republican. As he told me, his last vote in January 1983 was for the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and he voted for Tip O’Neill with the view that he was elected as a Democrat and should vote that way on organizational control. Even though, he intended to become a Republican and would have preferred another person to be Speaker.

To repeat, I intend to propose a Senate rule which would preclude a change in control of the Senate when a Senator decides to vote with the opposing party for organizational purposes.

One other aspect does deserve comment, and that is the issue of personal benefit to a changing Senator. In our society, political arrangements avoid the consequences of similar conduct in other contexts.-Senator  Arlen Specter in 2001

My first reaction to the departure of Arlen Specter was, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”  and my feeling remains the same. Specter’s career ACU rating was 45%. That means that 55% of the time he voted against the conservative position. I’ll buy the premise that someone who votes with 80% of the time is our friend. Some who votes with us 45% is not.

Specter’s decision to switch parties once again makes a fool of President Bush and Senator Santorum for all their efforts to save Specter. Specter looks like a hypocrite because of his stance in 2001. He knows his seat properly belongs to the Pennsylvania GOP, but acts like its his own personal fiefdom.

Of course, I know one of my front page colleagues has shouted (and I paraphrase), “You freaking idiots! Specter won a Primary 30 years ago! That should be it. Once he’s in, to hell with choosing your Representatives, Specter should be the GOP nominee for life. You don’t have a say anymore and if you challenge an incumbent, you’re an idiot.”

Or perhaps, I take him out of context. I believe that power flows from the governed and I don’t believe an aristocracy of continual re-nomiantion for someone who betrays time and time again the principles for which members of the political party stand.

In his leaving statement, Specter said he was elected as part of Ronald Reagan’s big tent. Of course, the big tent phrase and philisophy was advanced by post-Reagan GOP Boss Lee Atwater. Reagan did however address a situation like Specter’s in 1975:

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.

I guess all we can say to Arlen Specter is thanks for listening.

Toomey 2010.

With apologies to President Obama. (Hat Tip: The Corner.)

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Republicans offer a subsidy ridden mortgage plan (Hat Tip: Outside the Beltway.) and a budget with no numbers.

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Will Russia send bombers to Cuba and Venezuela? (Hat Tip: Don Surber.)

No more enemy combatants: another clue Obama doesn’t get the War on Terror. (Hat Tip: Surber.)

Obama snubs Brazil. (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

Obama helps stimulate the economy—of Switzerland. (Hat Tip: Instapundit.)

Judd Gregg, former Obama Commerce Secretary choice shows how Geithner’s lying.

Speaker Pelosi: What? Me? Partisan.

A look at  top 10 Senate RINOs. (Hat Tip: Club For Growth.)
Card Check: government control of small business.

Senate Democrats who are undecided on card check. (Hat Tip: Club for Growth.)

Senator Nelson currently no. (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

Chris Dodd’s suspicious pardon for a friend.

New York Congressman cheats taxes. (Hat Tip: Red State.)

Obama carbon tax increase on the average family: $4,000.

Governor Sanford warns of Zimbabwe style collapse.

Nothing has changed: lobbyists rule the roost in DC.

National Tax Day Tea Party.

Education policy by thuggery. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Coming to America: Islamic Mortgages. (Hat Tip: The Corner.)

Second Amendment update.

Democrat Science experts: unfertilized embryos.

The madness of anti-Gender Idenity discrimination laws.

Attacking Christian and Muslim parents in Great Britain.

Illinois approves its own version of the Freedom of Choice Act.

Pro-Life bills make their way through the legislative process in Missouri and Virginia.

Brave new world: using aborted children to make up for organ donation shortages.

15 strangest college courses.(Hat Tip: Outside the Beltway.)

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Did the Democrats achieve majority status by pitching a “Big Tent,” by thinking happy thoughts about their opponents’ policies, by turning over their rostrums to pro-lifers and tax-cutters? No, they achieved it by keeping their tent tight while maliciously counseling Republicans to erect a circus tent of willy-nilly inclusion and ideological irregularity.

Democratic leaders would send pro-life Bob Casey Sr. home from their conventions without a turn at the podium, then pop up a few weeks later on CNN to urge Republicans to keep the welcome mat out for gestating defectors like Jim Jeffords.

That tattered Big Tent now flaps pathetically in the wilderness of political defeat and out of it crawls its wounded confederacy of country-club dunces. Have they learned anything? Not much. Wowed by Obama’s popularity, they reflexively resume the me-too PC platitudes of “compassionate conservatism” and engage in what amounts to a big-government bidding war for the affection of the American people. Bad federal program A versus bad federal program B — that’s the debate between the parties at this point.

If victory is the Big Tent Republicans’ goal, why don’t they join the Democrats in calling for a one-party state? That way they could win every time.

The purpose of politics in a civilization is not simply to win but to win on sound principles. Otherwise, what’s the point? A party that seeks to win by discarding sound principles will have no wisdom left with which to govern once it does. And that’s how the Republicans got into this mess.

The Democrats win on their unsound principles, but at least they grasp the concept of winning as more than mere victory. They win office and implement their platform unapologetically; Republicans win office and timidly nibble theirs apart.

Do the Democrats have any hesitancy about rooting for the failure of Republican polices? Never. They will even root for failure in Republican-led military campaigns, as with Reagan and Bush, if victory threatens the perceived good of their party and the transcendent “parity” they think should prevail in the world.

Meanwhile, Republicans, suffering from a deep, largely media-induced inferiority complex, find “attractive” candidates like Arnold Schwarzenegger who end up advancing Democratic policies better than the Democrats themselves. The pointlessness of the California Recall cannot be overstated. That “Republican victory” sealed California as a de facto one-party state — a microcosm of what could happen to the GOP nationally if it maintains the Big Tent model.

Republican leaders should either pull the Big Tent down and start taking their platform seriously, not just on one issue or two issues but on every issue, or they should just get out of politics and stop wasting people’s time and money. At this moment in American history, “bipartisanship” is just another complacent name for tyranny.

Really, this in a nutshell is what goes on with a lot of folks on this site. If you’re all about victory and don’t care about principles or the Republican platform, why are you Republicans? If you want to be winners, why not the Democrats and the Obama triumphalism?

If principle is removed, politics becomes little more than tribalism and our two party system, removed from principal is irrational tribalism equal to the irrationality of Seuss’ Butter Battle Book and his sneeches.

While, one could argue with Neumayr’s assertion that the Democrats have not used a big tent approach, there truly conservative choices have been tokens as evidenced by only seven Democrats opposing the Stimulus and not a single Senate Democrat rising in opposition to it. The Democrats have certainly “sounded conservative” when campaigning, but rhetoric and action have not matched up.

I will say that never have Democrats become public, loud, outspoken campaign to cannibalize people seen as too extreme such as a Michael Moore. They never blamed their defeats on Black Voters, on Unions, on Liberal Talk Radio.

The time that has been spent on the blame game for people who had little to do with running this party into the ground has been stunning. From blaming Sarah Palin to blaming pro-lifers to blaming Rush Limbaugh, very little blame has been assigned in the discussion of what went wrong on election day to: Presidential Nominee John McCain, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner, RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, NRSC Chairman John Ensign (R-NV.), NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-Ok.). How is it that so many people would rather blame someone else other than the nominee for President, the leaders in Congress, the Campaign Committee Chairs, or the RNC Chairman? Is that just too obvious for folks? Sometimes, the butler really did it.

Speaking of the blame game, Copious Dissent has a post on David Frum and suggests that Frum’s site would be better named, “The New Minority.” pointing out that according to Alexa, Frum’s site is by far less popular than other conservative websites such as HotAir.com, National Review, and Michelle Malkin:

What one can clearly see is that David Frum’s ideas are not reaching anyone. In fact, since HotAir, Mark Levin and others have been linking to David Frum’s website this week, his entire audience is based on someone saying, “Hey, click here to see what this fool is doing now.”

Frum’s YouTube channel also gets no support. He started it on January 8, 2009, and already it has a whopping 9 subscribers! Conversely, I started my YouTube channel, HowTheWorldWorks, less than three months ago and it has 1555 subscribers and more regular viewers than Frum’s pathetic website that is purported to create a “New Majority.”

Frum’s YouTube channel even uses professional lighting and expensive cameras, while I have a giant ceiling fan over my head and speak into a pinhole in my computer. Nevertheless, I am able to reach that mystical college educated demographic, who have rated my videos as some of the top on all of YouTube. Frum’s videos on the other hand literally have been rated 1 out of 5 stars by the demographics he asserts Republicans need to reach. That is quite impressive David.

Personally, I wish I could generate an audience simply by people hating my guts. But, that is David Frum’s entire shtick. He writes a book about how Conservatives “can win again” by abandoning Conservatism, and it is only read by 25,000 staunch Conservatives who think Frum is full of crap. The truth is that liberals don’t read Conservative political strategy books, Conservatives do. And Conservatives don’t think Frum is a Conservative.

Ironically, Frum is the one who calls Conservatives, the “say it louder” Republicans, claiming that the American public already heard about limited government, and they do not want it. Yet, Frum fails to realize that Conservatives are the only people in American who have read David Frum and they do not want what Frum offers either. So who is the “say it louder” minority? I think the evidence demonstrates it is Frum.
(Hat Tip: Instapundit.)

Ouch! That’ll leave a mark. Frum clearly has designs for the GOP, but just like David Brooks or Kathleen Parker,  he’s given a big megaphone because he’s going at the conservative movement. He’s going on a quest to draw new voters to the party by driving the old ones out.

What’s gone on with many moderates in the Republican Party is the same thing that happened on a national level with the Stimulus bill. A national crisis was used as an excuse to push a lot of feel good liberal hooey that had nothing to do with stimulating the economy.  What’s gone on in the midst of the GOP’s political crisis is that Rockefeller Republicans are trying to use a political crisis as an excuse for moves that the crisis itself doesn’t justify as well as to remake the party in their own image.

Frum’s efforts will fail because there’s not a popular following for their ideas. Not even if Frum were to try and get all 9 of his You Tube subscribers to run for Congress would he have any major influence in the GOP, because the number of people who agree with his position are small and the people who actually are on the other side aren’t going to be bullied or bribed with promises of victory that are vain and ignore the fact that real victory should mean something.

Bottom line: In ten years the GOP will still be the GOP and David Frum will have joined the Democrats.

Pennsylvania: Dump Arlen. Toomey may run.  (Hat Tip: The Corner.)

Joe Biden: we all know he’s a Democrat. (Hat Tip: Newsbusters.)

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McCain slams Obama on spending: 4 months too late?

Dean snubbed by Obama.

$7500 houses in Detroit. (Hat Tip: Wizbang Blog.)

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Two schools of thought exist regarding Ronald Reagan. One venerates Reagan as the pinnacle of conservatism, whose legacy holds the key to Republican renewal. The second suggests his legacy belongs in the same category as Ghostbusters, valley girl accents, and Wacky WallWalkers: a thing of the past irrelevant to modern politics.

Both positions are flawed. Reagan’s life certainly teaches important lessons for conservatives to learn. Those who diminish the greatness of his accomplishments don’t know what they’re talking about. He played a huge role in the fall of Communism and did more to advance conservatism than any other president. Consider: when Reagan began his Presidency, the top marginal tax rate was at seventy percent; when he left, it was at twenty-eight percent.

However, in the hands of Reagan’s greatest fans, Reagan has become more than a great man. He has become the political equivalent of Barbie: an ill-proportioned, unrealistic figure by which we measure candidates for office. We will always find them wanting in comparison to our image of Reagan. Not even Ronald Reagan himself could measure up to the standards of the myth.

What is the proper view of Reagan? Five realizations will put this great man and his life in the proper perspective:

1) Reagan won’t be reincarnated as the next leader of the GOP.

This ought to go without saying, but it doesn’t. I repeatedly encounter folks who expect history to do an exact rerun, who argue someone can’t be the next great conservative leader based on a difference in personal background. One argument even insists Sarah Palin complete a second term as Governor before running for President because Reagan did. The irony: Reagan didn’t. He ran for President in 1968, after two years as Governor.

I have news for such folk: Reagan is not the Republican version of the Dalai Lama. No one becomes a great leader by mimicking the last great leader. Reagan didn’t become Reagan by attempting to be the next Lincoln. The next great conservative President will bring his (or her) own unique experiences, personality, and style to the White House.

2) Reagan was not the perfect conservative.

As President, he agreed to several tax increases. Two of his four appointments to the Supreme Court (Kennedy and O’Connor) disappointed conservatives time and again. He signed the 1986 Immigration amnesty. Some of the concessions he offered the Soviets angered conservatives. Reagan endorsed the 1993 Brady Bill.

Looking back at the gubernatorial days, in 1975, Reason Magazine enumerated many of Reagan’s breaks with conservatism during his eight years as governor: increasing sales tax, massive increases in public school funding (105%), state funding for junior colleges (323%), and grants and loans to college students (900%.) Fetal rights advocates (i.e. pro-lifers) should add concern with Reagan signing a bill liberalizing abortion.

I say this not to bash Reagan, but to point out perfect Conservatives are mythical. Search for a deviation from conservative orthodoxy to use against a political leader, and you will find it. To expect perfection from our political leaders does violence to common sense. To invoke Ronald Reagan turns him into Hercules—or Superman if you prefer.

3) Reagan was a Conservative

Rush Limbaugh once declared President Bush was conservative, but not a conservative. The distinction seemed odd, but thinking about it years later, it makes sense.

Bush held overall conservative political views, but Bush’s conservatism didn’t define him. He didn’t enter politics over concern about the growing size of government or the culture of death. He entered politics to serve his state and his country, with a policy program being secondary.

Reagan, however, was a conservative whose involvement in politics was spurred by his political beliefs and his desire to change the direction of the country, in both domestic and foreign policy. The reason most conservatives think so little of Reagan’s flaws is that he truly came to Washington to lead a conservative Revolution. Despite his failures, conservatives see Reagan as one of them.

The upshot for conservatives: if you want real conservative leadership, look for someone whose conservative ideals are fundamental to their political life rather than incidental.

4) Personality matters.

How good was Ronald Reagan at attracting Democratic voters? Future Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich voted for Reagan. Twice. Blagojevich didn’t become a conservative because of Reagan. Heck, he wasn’t even a moderate. So why did he vote for Reagan? Reagan made people feel good about their country again, with warmth and optimism.

In recent years, I’ve had to abandon the view that personality should be irrelevant when choosing a political candidate. While a candidate’s principles are extremely important, without the personality to connect with the American people and to effectively wield the presidency, it doesn’t matter what your principles are. You won’t have the ability to act. Now, charisma alone is also not enough to elect a candidate. Bill Clinton had good personal favorability ratings, but didn’t produce any lasting accomplishments for Democrats due to other failings in his character.

That said, I’d rather have a candidate that I agreed with most things on, who had the right personality and style to be a successful president, over someone who agrees with me on everything, but whose campaign will go nowhere because the candidate’s style is off-putting to the average American.

The best political leaders are a combination of strong character, solid principles, and a personality that connects with the American people. Conservatives must look for the strongest combination of these three when choosing a leader.

5) Act as if America’s best days are ahead of it.

When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be I will face it with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future.

I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

Ronald Reagan’s last letter to his country, upon finding out he had Alzheimer’s, brimmed with optimism for this country. Today, conservatives need to rediscover this optimism about our country’s future. Too many live in the past and its victories, and limit our present horizons. Telling people that America’s best days ended twenty years ago is not Reaganesque. It’s a sure-fire way to demoralize your base.

We need to look forward, not backwards. We must be guided by a long-term conservative vision that’s appealing and hopeful. Reagan’s ghost cannot win elections or fight battles for us. To be successful today, we must learn from the past rather than living there.

I’ve noticed a desire among many moderates to ask social conservatives to moderate their influence on the party voluntarily. I’m not sure if this is a rhetorical tool or if some moderates are seriously making this request of social conservatives.

Politics doesn’t work that way in America. Here is the rule of American politics:

If you can’t take it, don’t expect me to give it away.

If you rely on socially conservative votes to win, you have to deal with them on their own terms.

You’re not going to change that relationship unilaterally, unless you demonstrate you can win without them. As no modern Republican Presidential candidate has done this, we remain with our current intra-party political structure.

Social conservatives ask for some level of trust on social issues and candidates establish trust or see social conservatives hold back support.

Moderates who really want to change that have a very simple path (but not an easy one). You need to find a candidate who believes as you do. You need to nominate that candidate and have him win without reaching out to social conservatives on their own terms.

If you do that then you’ve taken what you wanted. That is the only way you’re going to get it in American politics.

Exactly, Rockefeller Republicans didn’t decide one day that it would be better for the party if they no longer ran things. It happened through a lot of hard work. I’ve not seen them being willing to do that hard work. Only expect others to surrender to you.

Also, an interesting question raised by Michael Sparxx:

“Why do the Moderates in the GOP establishment call for unity AFTER kneecapping Conservatives?” — Me

Elizabeth Dole’s decision to spend a million dollars saving Lincoln Chafee from a Primary battle, may have cost the Republicans far more winnable seats in Virginia and Montana, which if Republicans had won would have left them with a 51-49 Majority last session. On top of this, the move of the NRSC Injecting itself into Republican primaries rather than just helping Republicans win elections have led to a grassroots aversion to the organization and therefore less people have given money to it, including “Captain Ed” Morrissey’s “Not One Dime” campaign.

Somehow, I get the feeling that with Cornyn, it will be different. From the San Antonio News Express (Hat Tip: Hugh Hewitt.):

WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn is seizing the unaccustomed role of partisan attack dog, trying to slow down the early momentum of President Barack Obama to bolster Republicans’ recovery efforts in Senate races in 2010.

In the opening days of the Obama administration, Cornyn delayed Senate confirmation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by one day, and of Attorney General-designate Eric Holder by at least one week.

He has pointedly challenged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., mastermind of Democrats’ Senate gains.

As newly elected head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Cornyn has orchestrated GOP efforts to block the seating of Democrat Al Franken, embroiled in a contested Senate race with incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.

Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general and state Supreme Court justice, also led the GOP critique of Obama’s controversial decision to close the detention center housing some suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, calling it a “dangerous step.”

“I think he has decided that the only chance Republicans have is to be very aggressive,” said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. Cornyn, 56, says he’s doing what Texans would expect of a re-elected second-term senator who began a steady stair-step political career as an elected district court judge in Bexar County in 1984.

Cornyn, who won his first Senate term in 2002 with the help of then-President George W. Bush, said his expanding national role lets him remain a key player in the GOP Senate leadership as well as the architect of Republican efforts to orchestrate a nationwide comeback in 2010…

Larry Hufford, a political scientist at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, says Cornyn’s high-profile challenge to Clinton’s confirmation will please conservative Republican donors, particularly since Cornyn’s scrutiny also drags in the former president.

“There is no better name than Clinton to go after,” says Hufford. “It will be used by conservative talk radio hosts ad nauseam.”

Cornyn’s energetic efforts so close to the inauguration underscore the challenge he faces trying to recoup Senate losses, which trimmed the ranks of Republicans from 55 seats before the 2006 midterm elections to 41 seats today.

A master fundraiser who spent at least $28.5 million on two Senate races of his own in Texas, Cornyn said he’s working to rebuild Senate Republicans’ fundraising operation.

The NRSC poured $90.6 million into GOP Senate races on Nov. 4, far less than the $155.7 million spent by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee under Schumer’s leadership.

Cornyn’s got his critics, David Patterson doesn’t appreciate him insisting on getting the questioners that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) filled out and of course, John McCain (that master of winning national elections) is complaining that it’s too partisan.

However, Republicans are hungry for some fight and the answer is not playing possum, but to challenge the administration and give people out in the rest of America something to fight for. Cornyn is showing some spirit, and not only that he’s got the fundraising street cred. to bring some serious Capital behind GOP candidates.

Of course, Cornyn took the Senate Seat of the greatest NRSC Chairman ever when he succeeded Senator Phil Gramm. Gramm led a Republican Party that was a 43-57 minority to a 51-49 Majority.  An ideal election night for John Cornyn would include the tough task of holding all the Republican Seats, as well as picking up several Democratic Seats. An amazing scenario of a wave against Democrats would be Republicans winning the seats Obama has removed incumbents from: Illinois, Delaware, New York, and Colorado. As well as knocking off Harry Reid in Nevada and Blance Lincoln in Arkansas. (Note: I’m not making a prediction, I’m describing a best-case scenario.)  This would leave the GOP with 47 or 48 seats depending on how the Franken-Coleman think shakes out. Of course, thist best case scenario could get better if there are retirements on the Democratic side. Not everyone stays in the Senate forever and Democrats and other than new appointees, every Democrat up for election has at least two terms under their belt and might consider retirement for various reasons including just to go into lobbying.

There’s speculation at the end of the story that Cornyn may use the results of the NRSC Chairmanship to run for the presidency. If he does, great. But that’s not his focus right now. It’s on winning Senate seats. And if he is able to run for President, it’ll only be because he did a good job. I cheer for all potential 2012 efforts that right now are working to elect Republicans. Free and Strong America PAC, Huck PAC, do your thing and help us stem the Democratic tide.

For the first time since I can remember, I actually have confidence in the NRSC. I sent my first ever donation today.

I think too much thought is given to a wide net of people who will never come on board. As Reagan said, “A political party cannot be all things to all people.” Does this mean that socially liberal folks don’t have a place in the GOP?

No, what it does mean is that you can’t have the President of National Right to Life and the President of NARAL in the same party.  If you’re a pro-Choice person for whom the abortion issue is a really vital component of your vote. If you’re a homosexual for whom gay marriage is a paramount concern, really your party is the Democratic Party.

However if you’re a pro-choice person who really likes tax cuts, and is willing to live in a pro-life party or if you’re a homosexual who believes in the importance of the national defense, then fine, welcome aboard.

However, focusing on the issues of gay rights and homosexuality is ultimately a snub to existing voters and will bring in few voters. If I really care about having legal abortion, am I really going to join the party that wants the issue sent back to the states, or am I going to join the one that wants abortion on demand. If I really care about gay rights will I join the party of the federalism or the party that is owned by the gay rights movement. Trying to be the same as the other party, only offering less is a silly way to build.

Also as Big Tent Democrat of Talk Left has observed, “Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. It is a battle to be able to say what is the middle.”

In fact, the political middle is little more than shifting ooze and people blown about by the wind. To move to the center and stay there means letting the other party move the center further left.

The solution in a business sense is that the Republican Party needs to consider what it’s real product is for attracting not just voters, but turning people into party members and activists. The real product of the GOP is not its candidates, rather it is its ideas.

And what the GOP must again explain is not only why its ideas are right, but why they matter. Ultimately, Americans hold many political beliefs. I, for example would prefer the repeal of the 17th Amendment, but the issue will not decide my vote for any political office, because I don’t think the issue is important because it won’t happen.

Similarly, you have people who are opposed to legal abortion, but don’t vote the issue. They believe in school choice, but don’t vote the issue. They think Social Security Reform is important, but don’t vote the issue. Thus, the benefits must be sold, and there must be some payoff.

Some may not like such an ideological approach, but ultimately getting people to care in and believe in the issues Republicans espouse is the only way they can compete. Republicans have a much less secure base than Democrats. The Democrats have an army of permanent interests such as Labor Unions and Trial Lawyers who would support the Democrats if they nominated two serial killers for President and Vice-President.

The Democrats also control both secondary and post-secondary education in this country guaranteeing a supply of gullible young people with heads full of nonsense that are ready to support the most outlandish other candidates.

The Republicans have people who care about ideas, values, and policies. There is no union boss ripping money out of their paychecks. They are not mind-numbed immature people who were politically born yesterday. They are people who throw themselves into politics out of belief in certain principles. If those principles that brought them into politics are not being advanced, they have plenty else to do with their time and can take their time and energy elsewhere.

This last election should forever silence the voices that say idiotic things like, “Where else are they going to go?” The best result coming out of the 2008 election could be a Republican Party that actually understands and appreciates their base, rather than just using and abusing it.

Alex Knepper was quite thrilled by Michael Steele’s statement to CBN news regarding his membership in the Republican Leadership Council:

Wake up people. I mean, what are you going to do? Are you going to kick these folks out of the party? I have watched this party self disintegrate for the last four or five years. I’ve watched this party isolate itself from itself.

This may be a unique opportunity to build a relationship or a bridge between the conservatives and the moderates in our party and so she asked me to serve on her board and I said well this will be good. It’ll be a pro-life conservative voice on a board with a pro-choice leadership that is looking to elect moderates. We have to elect moderates in the party.

For all you little folks out there who think that you’ve got me on this: you don’t. My being on this board had nothing to do with lessening my conservative values or somehow appeasing them or compromising them. It had everything to do with reasserting them.

Let me give a conservative assessment: What Steele said here is the equivalent of John McCain’s GOPAC statement: “Calm down.” Ultimately, this doesn’t explain the objection. In the video, he compares his service on the board of the Republican Leadership Council to appearing on Bill Maher. Bill Maher isn’t a Republican moderate who aims to “reclaim the Republican Party.” Nor to go on Bill Maher does it require you partner up with Planned Parenthood and the Log Cabin Republicans.

Bottom line: If Steele is elected, he’s going to enter as RNC Chairman with a higher level of distrust from the base than other candidates for Chairmen. It may have inspired Alex, but Steele’s answer is a turn off to base conservatives who are already turned off.

Contrary to Alex’s suggestion, the GOP hasn’t been running Tom Coburns in Massachusetts. Indeed there was a pretty strong grassroots effort online to support pro-choice Jim Ogonowski against Kitty Tsongasin 2007. Name the Arch-Conservative nominated in Connecticut or Massachusetts or Rhode Island that lost in a winnable district. In fact the NRSC spent millions of dollars to save the worthless hide of Liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee. The Republican Party has not been shy nominating moderates, including in areas where a conservative could win. Moderates have not won because of an increasing liberal tilt of their district. An example that Steele cited in his case for moderates, Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-MD) got defeated 6 years ago.  

—–

Two endorsements in the RNC Chairman race. Bill Bennett endorsed Michael Steele while Steve Forbes endorsed Ken Blackwell. The Bennett endorsement means squat. Bennett doesn’t command a large national movement, but is a lesser version of Michael Medved and occasional talk show guest. Steve Forbes has money and ran for President in a campaign that Blackwell played a key role in in 2000.

Let’s remember this. This will not be put to an online poll. Nor will anyone else be asked other than the members of the RNC regarding the fate of the candidates. Celebrity endorsements will mean squat. In both letters, no real appeal is made. I think supporters of Blackwell and Steele may be in for a shock when we get around to voting.

—–

Seperating fact from gripe with Saul Anuzis is kind of hard. The fact is that a lot of the home folks in Michigan are ticked off with him. A disgruntled Senate candidate send out a letter to RNC members dishing on Anuzis. When you cut through all the gossip, you’re left with some basic salient facts:

1) Since Saul Anuzis became Chairman, Michigan Republicans have lost 17 Republican-held State House seats, two incumbent Republican members of Congress, four Republican held University board seats, numerous open seats, and an incumbent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He has not won a single targeted race since becoming Chairman.

So why the heck is being considered for Chairman again? Even his much touted social networking and online skills are being attacked. While the person raising the argument  (Hat Tip: Townhall.) is biased (a big time booster for Mike Duncan) there’s some truth in it. I’ve got to tell you: I’m not impressed that the Michigan GOP has a You Tube channel with 3 videos all of which are about a year old. It’s a great idea to have a chairman from a traditionally Democratic State. It’s a terrible idea to have a chairman who pretty much has failed as a State Chairman. Why are we going to give him an opportunity to screw up on the national level, too?

—-

Chip Saltsman is sending signals to anyone who might be hesitant to support him because of his work for Huckabee:

“[The Huckabee campaign] is part of my resume but it doesn’t define me politically,” Saltsman explained. “I’m not sure if you look at my history that you’d think I was a Huckabee guy. You could just as easily say I’m a Bob Corker guy, a Lamar Alexander guy or a Frist guy.”

He also noted his strong leadership against his political mentor Governor Don Sundquist on the state income tax issue shortly after becoming chair of the Tennessee Republican Party as evidence that he is a man willing to go against politicians he may be associated with.

Saltsman certainly made no apologies for his association with Huckabee and spoke with pride of his “13 months” on the campaign but he did make sure to put a bit of distance between himself and the Huckabee message. Saltsman made it plain that he was a straight politics guy in his role as campaign manager — a hired hand — not the idea man.

“Mike Huckabee was responsible for the issues in that campaign, not me,” Saltsman said.

The RNC definitely doesn’t want a Chairman whose goal is to promote a Presidential Candidate and I think people with that concern will find Saltsman’s re-assuring. Saltsman biggest challenge is that he’s not a member of the RNC.

Many consider that a key requirement and if that’s the case Katon Dawson, Mike Duncan, and Saul Anuzis have to be considered frontrunners, but I wouldn’t count out Saltsman entirely.

Gary Bauer, while standing as a values voter leader based his endorsement on another issue. Who can social conservatives trust to stand for him?

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Sound like 2008? Actually, I’m talking about 1992.

In 2008, social conservatives find themselves once again the proverbial scapegoat for a failed George Bush Presidency. However, let’s not confuse people with the facts.

In 1992, the Religious Right did not make George H.W. Bush break his “Read my Lips” pledge. They didn’t cause the S&L scandal, or a recession.

Similarly in this term, the Religious Conservative movement didn’t cause an incompetent response to Katrina. While they did support the war in Iraq and back up national security conservatives in going into that country, and maintain solid support for our troops after the fact, they were not responsible for the bungled Pre-Surge strategy. Nor did they make Duke Cunningham take bribes or Mark Foley send creepy e-mails to minors.

Of course, the attacks in both 1992 and 2008 amount to little more than self-serving efforts by party leaders to deflect from their own miserable failures by blaming someone else. This is somewhat ironic, given the support nearly every Republican professes for personal responsibility. 

Some argue that George H.W. Bush lost because Pat Buchanan made a controversial speech three months before the election. This is cited as an explanation for why Bush Sr. got a lower percentage of the vote than Herbert Hoover did in 1932. Let’s forget little things like the state of the economy, the broken promises, and the fact that he struggled with “the vision thing.”

Religious Conservatives didn’t cause McCain’s downfall. They didn’t cause him to take an unprecedented three month gap between closing the deal on the GOP nomination and Obama winning the Democratic nomination and spend it flailing around aimlessly rather than presenting a compelling message to America.

Those who argue for de-emphasizing social conservatism, or moving away from these issues entirely, as a solution are showing they don’t even really understand what the problem is. They also are ignoring history.

After the 1994 Republican Victory, which was brought to Republicans in large part by the good work of the NRA and the Christian Coalition, the idea of a need to move away from Social Conservatism was tossed around quite a bit. There was even a move to strip the Republican Party of its pro-life platform that was advocated by some establishment leaders as a way to build the party. That was a bridge too far even for the Christian Coalition leader and future Abramoff scandal figure Ralph Reed and the plank stayed in.

However, the 1996 Republican ticket used the exact same strategy that some people are calling for today. The 1996 Republican Nominee, Bob Dole, had almost nothing to say about abortion, and effectively nothing after he crushed Pat Buchanan in the South Carolina primary. He left the door open to choosing a pro-Choice running mate until the day before the convention when he settled on Jack Kemp, who, while pro-life, was a fiscal conservative first and foremost.

Dole/Kemp, at their 1996 convention, avoided the “mistake” of the Bush ticket, which had staged a “Family Values night” with speeches from social conservative luminaries. I remember perusing the agenda of the 1996 convention and finding it was dominated almost entirely by moderates. Headliners included such moderates as Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Colin Powell, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and George Pataki. The keynote address was delivered by pro-Choice New York Congresswoman Susan Molinari. If a move to the center and away from social issues was going to produce a win, this was the way to do it.

But, it didn’t work. Dole’s campaign was a disaster. The 73-year old lost by nine points. Exit polls showed a smaller than usual turnout among religious conservatives.

My parents didn’t back Senator Dole, but opted for a conservative third party. They hadn’t voted in decades previously, but in 1992 after the GOP’s Family Values night, they went and registered to vote and cast their votes for Bush/Quayle, and carried literature for National Right to Life in 1992 and the Christian Coalition in 1994. 1996 represents an object lesson that you can’t take peoples’ vote for granted.

In the aftermath of another Presidential defeat, the failed blame and scapegoating game played by the Republican establishment that launched Bob Dole to defeat is at work once again, declaring war on a vital part of the Republican base. Will we learn from history’s errors, or will we, like fools, repeat them?

We had a Democratic Nominee who had groups like “Believers for Barack,” and spent tens of millions of dollars reaching out to religious voters, running ads on Christian radio stations, handing out fliers with pictures of the said candidate in a church in front of a big cross. The Democrat won against a Republican who was reluctant to talk about his faith. The conclusion: The Republicans need to become a more secular party.

The Republicans nominated the man who wrote McCain-Feingold, who opposed drilling in ANWR, who made a great point of his support for Embryonic Stem Cell Research, disassociated himself from Christian ministers who criticized Islam, and made bi-partisanship a centerpiece of his campaign. The Conclusion: Republicans need to nominate more moderate candidates.

The Democrats ran a candidate who rejected Hillarycare, promised tax cuts for 95% of Americans, pledged to reduce abortions, and cut government waste. The Conclusion: Conservatism is dead.

I’m bemused by the urge to blame Religious Conservatives, when the candidate endorsed in the by Republicans for Choice in the Republican Primaries was the Republican nominee.

Jonah Goldberg highlights a problem with this argument:

Economically conservative social liberals are the “jackalopes of American politics,” in the words of the National Review Institute’s Kate O’Beirne. The press keeps telling us they exist out there in huge numbers, but when you go looking for them, they refuse to emerge from the bushes.

Indeed. Meanwhile, Social Conservative voters are a reality that delivered tens of millions of votes to John McCain, despite some serious reservations. When it comes to ticking off faithful social conservatives, it’s not even a question of trading a bird in the hand, for two in the bush. It’s trading a bird in the hand for a Jackelope and a Unicorn in the bush.

There’s a fine line between audacity and arrogance and Obama seems to keep crossing it. From using a Wailing Wall apperance for political gain (Hat Tip: Right Wing News.) To removing the American flag from the tail of his plane to put his own logo on it.

House Republican Leader: John Boehner. The man with no plan or why House Republican leaders don’t want a second contract with America.

Jindal says no to being Veep.

A sweetheart deal for the DNC Host Committee.

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Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, 123beta, Maggie’s Notebook, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo,  Democrat=Socialist, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Braun applies a four-fold test to legislation, “Is it constitutional and a proper function of government? Is it morally correct? Is it something we really need? Is it something we can afford?”

Such common sense going back to Washington. It is much needed. I was glad to contribute a few dollars to the effort, and hopefully the Georgia Republican establishment will give up their efforts trying to remove such an outstanding leader.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Lincoln’s call for reconciliation with malice towards none and charity for all may have been a bit much and in some ways quite radical. It said to bind up the wounds and comfort the widows and orphans with no preference as to what side they were on. Confederate widows and union widows alike should be comforted. After all, we were one nation. Could Lincoln have lived out his great words of reconciliation? The world will never know. A little more than a month later, an assassin’s bullet not only ended the life of Lincoln, but our best chance for national reconciliation after the war.

After that, a radical Congress decided that rather than “malice towards none,” humiliating the South would be more in order, and so they kept much of the South under occupation up to a decade and disenfranchised Southern Whites. In 1876, this period ended and Southern Whites returned to power and blocked Black suffrage and Civil Rights. Again, the words of Lincoln were ignored.

To the great thankfulness of Americans anywhere, that period of government-sanctioned discrimination came to an end. From Jackie Robinson playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers to Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights March and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a great deal of success have been achieved towards ending discrimination in our land.

Yet, today we still see ideas of imposing racial quotas and making race a factor in areas such as college admissions. We see power players like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton continuing to have a voice in our national process through infamous “shakedown tactics” and their efforts to divide Americans against each other on the basis of race.

Stirring up racial passions is a key strategy for many. We’ve seen this in the recent death of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) who was portrayed as little more than a racial bigot who opposed integration. The entirety of his life was dismissed by many including his tireless fight for freedom overseas during the cold war, his efforts on behalf of the unborn, and that in his later days he hired African Americans to many positions on his staff including James Meredith, a Civil Rights activist the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. At the time, Meredith was criticized for working for Jesse Helms. Meredith said he offered his services to every member of Congress, only Senator Helms replied.

The reasons that people opposed Civil Rights legislation varied from those who were truly virulent racists like Bull Connor to those who opposed it out of a sense of constitutional interpretation, and those who opposed it out of a desire to preserve the old order with little malice.

The same can be said of the Civil War. The vast majority of Confederate Soldiers didn’t own slaves. Most believed they were fighting for their state, which to them was their country. Yes, there were racists who fought in the Civil War (on both sides). But, there were other figures as well. Stonewall Jackson broke the law and taught slaves to read. Want to really add a whole new level of gray to our understanding of the confederacy? Then ponder that there were Black Soldiers who chose to fight in the Confederate Army.

These facts were little comfort to African Americans suffering under the degradation of segregation and “Separate but Equal.” However, it does matter today. Because the big difference between us and President Lincoln is that he realized his vanquished enemies were men and not monsters. Not only were they men, they were fellow Americans who needed to be brought back into this great country.

The second inaugural’s humility was noteworthy. It was a call for reconciliation, a confession that the sin of slavery was not the property of the South alone but that the North shared in the guilt. It was a call to become one nation. We honor these words at the Lincoln Memorial, but as song writer Randy Stonehill wrote, “We take our loftiest intentions, and engrave them all neatly in stone, and once they’re safely up there
we’d prefer that they just leave us alone.”

What are the results of 140 years of racial politics? A crisis of fatherlessness and failing educations systems that while harming people of all races, are particularly prevalent in the African American Community. We will either come together to address these common problems or we will perish.

1. To secure the sanctity of human life by affirming the dignity of and right to life for the disabled, the ill, the aged, the poor, the disadvantaged, and for the unborn from the moment of conception. Every person is made in the image of God and it is the responsibility and duty of all individuals and congregations to extend the hand of loving compassion to care for those in poverty and distress.

2. To secure our national interest in the institution of marriage and family by embracing the union of one man and one woman as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family.

3. To secure the fundamental rights of parents to the care, custody, and control of their children regarding their upbringing and education.

4. To secure the free exercise of religion for all people, including the freedom to acknowledge God through our public institutions and other modes of public expression, and the freedom of religious conscience without coercion by penalty or force of law.

5. To secure the moral dignity of each person, acknowledging that obscenity, pornography, and indecency debase our communities, harm our families, and undermine morality and respect, we promote enactment and enforcement of laws to protect decency and traditional morality.

6. To secure the right to own, possess and manage private property without arbitrary interference from government while acknowledging the necessity of maintaining a proper and balanced care and stewardship of the environment and natural resources for the health and safety of our families.

7. To secure the individual right of owning, possessing, and using firearms as central to the preservation of peace and liberty.

8. To secure a system of checks and balances between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches within both state and federal governments, so that no one branch – particularly the judiciary – usurps the authority of the other two, and to maintain the constitutional principles of federalism which divide power between the state and federal governments.

9. To secure our national sovereignty and domestic tranquility by maintaining a strong military; establishing and maintaining secure national borders; participating in international and diplomatic affairs without ceding authority to foreign powers that diminish or interfere with our unalienable rights; and being mindful of our history as a nation of immigrants, promoting immigration policies that observe the rule of law and are just, fair, swift, and foster national unity.

10. To secure a system of fair taxes that are not punitive against the institution of marriage or family and are not progressive in nature, and within a limited government framework to encourage economic opportunity, free enterprise, and free market competition.

Why is it necessary to re-affirm principles that most social conservatives already believe in? It’s necessary because it defines a key set of fundamental principles. If Cultural Conservatives stick to the ideas in this Declaration, future nominating contests will go better.

The last three times Republicans had an opportunity to pick a nominee, the cultural conservative movement botched it through petty squabbles and division between multiple candidates. The key reason: the inability to separate the important from the inconsequential. If one looks for perfection in politics on every little issue, you won’t find it. If you look for dedication to core principles that matter, you can actually get something done.

2012 or 2016 could find an entirely different result, with a more united and clear Cultural Conservative contingent.

Now, when one looks at how the secular left is getting the children of many Evangelicals to support their causes, we have to look at the issues both in the church and the conservative movement that are behind this. We’ve already talked about the lack of a systematic teaching of a biblical worldview and materialism.

Modern liberalism is a thoroughly post-modern philosophy that, at its core, denies absolute truth. Thus it becomes possible to hold the position that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, but should be legal, because that’s just my opinion, and you may have a different one. There’s a different truth for every person. No culture is better than another culture. No system is better than any other system. Our constitution is a living document subject to redefinition.

Christianity, on the other hand, affirms absolute truths about God, Christ, the World, and society. How can you mix Christianity and post-modernism in politics? It’s pretty easy if you’ve been doing it in church.

A Sensitive Topic

To say the subject of morals in the church is a sensitive topic would be an understatement. An element in many churches is legalistic, placing demands on people that scripture does not place. I was in one church where we were told not to drink root beer from brown glass bottles because people would think we were drinking alcohol. Never mind that even drinking alcohol is never strictly forbidden in the scriptures, though drunkenness is.

Some elements demand pastors prescribe rules on courtship and schooling found nowhere in scripture. These preachers focus on cleansing the outside of the cup through external rules, rather than letting God work to change hearts. Many have been spiritually abused by such legalists and my heart goes out to these wounded souls.

Yet I’m reminded of the passage of the Screwtape Letters where Screwtape advises Wormwood to get Christians to focus on the exact opposite of their most pressing problem. Legalism is a minor problem compared to the church’s refusal to stand for biblical truth.

There is a maxim: “Where the scriptures speak, we will speak. Where the scriptures are silent, we will be silent.” Yet in many cases, where the scriptures speak, churches are silent. Issues such as divorce and cohabitation are rarely preached on from most pulpits. In a select few pulpits is the issue of abortion discussed.

Churches often appeal to Matthew 7’s command to, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” In the context of scripture, when one reads the whole passage, it’s clearly about hypocrisy. Religious post-modernists turn it into a requirement to abandon all moral judgment about many things scripture speaks to. In other words, they use it, ironically, as a pretext to judge as acceptable what the bible condemns as sin.

However, Christ not only tells us to judge righteous judgment (John 7:24), which is odd if we were to resign from all moral judgments, but also lays out a system of Church discipline in Matthew 18:15-17, and Paul lays this out further in 1 Corinthians 5.

Yet, Church discipline is never practiced in most churches for several reasons: 1) fear of losing members, 2) fear of lawsuits, and 3) if church discipline is practiced, the person can just go down the street and find another church that will completely ignore the applied discipline. And condemn the church to anyone who will listen, and that will again hurt the church’s precious reputation, membership numbers, and coffers.

Thus, many churches misuse Matthew 7 and committing adultery is treated no more seriously than drinking root beer from a brown glass bottle.

This is especially problematic in churches where homosexuality will be condemned, but other equally grave sins are left untouched from the pulpit. What the church does is show partiality, and to young evangelicals, the hypocrisy comes across crystal clear.

Rush to War

To close this look at the issues in the church that have led to some of these shifts among young Evangelicals, I think we need to turn the issue of war.

War is a tough issue. Scripture doesn’t bar America from defending itself. It behooves us to stand behind our soldiers with love, support, and plenty of prayer. They’re risking their lives in service to our country.

While I did not support the Iraq War going in, once our troops are committed, there’s only one acceptable course: victory. Defeat strengthens America’s enemies and bring us dishonor at home and abroad.

That said, some Christians on the right are far too quick to embrace war. War is sometimes necessary, but there are consequences: The cries of widows and orphans on all sides, the inevitable collateral damage, the destruction of property and the scattering of families, economic destruction, loss of national treasure, and loss of liberties. The law of unintended consequences also comes into play, as we saw manifested with the fall of Saddam bringing persecution to Iraqi Christians. Proper respect for human life and our freedom, as well as humility, requires that we ensure war is absolutely necessary before we enter into it.

We must also be sure we do not pursue war with the dangerous belief that democracy alone can make a good society. Remember, the democratic process gave us Hitler. Let us not attribute to voting transformative powers that should be attributed to God alone.

Standing by America’s troops as they go into battle is one thing. Being out front agitating for wars without thoughtfully considering the consequences sends the wrong message to young Evangelicals.

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Conservatives must steel themselves to prepare for hard times ahead.

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CNN is overly optimistic when they say:

The Robertson endorsement may also quash talk of a social conservative third party candidate if Giuliani wins the nomination.

Robertson hasn’t been the guy for religious conservatives in a long-time, at least not since the mid-1990s. Robertson’s a living historic figure when it comes to actual political movements. What this might fuel is those folks who say that Conservative Christian leaders aren’t as concerned about the issues that motivate grassroots folks as they are about their own power and prestige.

If I’m Jim Wallis and the religious left, or Barack Obama, I’m licking my chops right now. Expect an effort to paint all religious conservative leaders as being like Robertson in an attempt for the Left to seize religious conservative votes. Conservative Christians are going to be told that they’ve been used by politicians and leaders who don’t really give a rip about their concerns, the level of success that will be achieved with that tactic will in part be due to the grain of truth to the allegation.

I’m not the only who’s dismayed. Former Governor Mike Huckabee commented:

“Some people have become more process-focused than they are principle-focused,” Huckabee said when asked about the endorsements by Weyrich and Robertson. “So they look at it from the stance of who does it look like might be ahead of the game.”

Indeed. Some people have forgotten why they became involved in politics.

Says George Grant:

I have always found Robertson to be inscrutable. But, this really does take the cake.

D. James Kennedy, once prayed at the Republican National Convention, “Lord, deliver us from politicians–and give us statesmen.” To which I might add, “And Lord, deliver us from wanna-be televangelist kingmakers while you’re at it.”

Amen. And give us leaders the caliber of D. James Kennedy among religious conservatives to boot. Michelle at Reformed Chick Babbling is alarmed, writing:

It really shows that the war on terror has become the number one issue for Evangelicals like Robertson. I didn’t think that Rudy had a chance at this nomination and now I think he might just win.

It really does show where some Christian Conservatives will go. Because they fear Al Qaeda, they’ll back a man whose values are antithetical to the protection of the unborn and the sanctity of family. What amazing men of faith.

UPDATE:

Hugh Hewitt writes:

But it does have one great benefit to Rudy: The MSM has never, ever come close to understanding the evangelical voter. MSM thinks of the group as a sort of carnival of gap-toothed, snake-handling, rural post box owning weed chewers. They will assume that Robertson is a general with many divisions, and representative of a much more significant following than he has. Robertson’s endorsement will thus be reported as a breakthrough for Giuliani, and a reassurance to fence-sitters that the mayor’s got the momentum they were hoping to see.

Heh.

Jindal, the Republican 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday’s election outright and avoid a November 17 runoff…

When he takes office in January, Jindal will become the nation’s youngest governor in office. He pledged to fight corruption and rid the state of those “feeding at the public trough,” revisiting a campaign theme.

“They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go,” he said, adding that he would call the Legislature into special session to address ethics reform.

After decades of corrupt leadership from machine bosses, Louisiana is on the cusp of a revolution in government. Bobby Jindal will try to bring a government that’s more efficient, honest, and wiser. If he succeeds, he will create a model of reform states across the nation.

At this hour, people are already Whispering the name of Bobby Jindal as the Republican Candidate for President or Vice-President. This is, of course, premature. First, he must govern Louisiana and prove the ability to take ideas and make them into reality. In the end, though, the idea of Bobby Jindal failing doesn’t seem to occur to most of us. Other than a 2005 run for Governor, there’s little Louisiana’s young governor hasn’t succeeded at.

In the end,

Fire is vital to the maintenance of life on Earth. Yet, fire can be dangerous when not properly controlled. As any camper will tell you, attempts to start a fire without the necessary ingredients is often useless.

Anger, like fire is an important part of our political process. Anger motivates people to seek justice, right wrongs, and correct problems. With no anger, our politics would be left in stagnation. We would be indifferent to injustice and we’d still have things like slavery. Anger’s not a bad starting point.

However, in politics anger alone can be a destructive force, when not balanced by a positive vision or not balanced by specific action to address the actual problem. Such as has been the case in the outrage over the immigration debate.

We find a lot of people upset over what Congress has tried to do about immigration but we’ve been short on constructive solutions. Some have given the solution of merely taking their ball and going home, refusing to vote to punish the Republicans as if increasing the number of Democrats will solve the underlying problem of illegal immigration.

Conservatives face a challenge in the 21st Century. We have thousands of Conservative leaders with different philosophies and no clue on how they’re going to term their long-term goals into reality. We’re like a football team with thousands of quarterbacks, each playing without a game plan throwing footballs in random directions and hoping for a touchdown.

Until then, the Conservative movement is at risk of following the Liberals into a fog of negativism. The greatest question that must be asked about governmental failures and problems is, “What are we going to do about it?” When that question predominates the Conservative movement, then we can become a constructive force for change rather than a nest of undirected anger and rage.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.-2 Chronicles 7:14

This verse has been a favorite standby for years. Yet, it’s only recently that I’ve realized how much America needs it today. The thought of “healing our land” can often be viewed in terms of draughts, diseases, war, or economic suffering at home.

Our nation needs healing in a more profound way. In the course of our political debates, we’ve become two nations. One secular, humanistic, and hostile to religious faith outside the four walls of the Church. The other is theistic, or at least tolerant of a religious role in public life. One sees the greatest threat to our nation in the Bush Administration and the PATRIOT ACT, while the other sees the greatest threat in terrorists who seek to kill us.

My columns are most often advocating the view of the latter America. One thing haunts me in quiet moments. “A House divided against itself cannot stand.” Originally said by Christ and then quoted by Lincoln three years before the Civil War, the words echo in our political debates.

In years past, I’ve written of the need for common ground, but it hasn’t been forthcoming. Indeed, the gap between the two sides of the culture war swells by the day. And those who’ve stood as moderates are reaching the point when they must choose which side they’re on.

I’m not foolish enough to claim that in year’s past we all got along. Indeed, politics has been a contentious business, but never before in our nation’s history has the divide been so vast, so bitter, and so intractable.

Those who care about this divide often propose compromises, but when it comes to great cultural struggles, compromises are band aids that solve nothing, because the underlying problem still remains. A compromise over abortion or gay marriage would as little solve our cultural war as the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 solved the issue of slavery.

Indeed, I would say there is no human effort that will long keep our nation safe from civil strife. From the harsh words posted on the Internet today, we will see even harsher deeds in years to come. We will fondly remember the days when physical assaults in politics were newsworthy. Dark clouds hover on the horizon, which have afflicted other lands. I see no aid in human wisdom, no hope in politicians who, election after election, promise to bring us together.

Five years ago, for a few days in the Autumn of 2001, we stood together, united by the most basic of instincts—survival and grief. Yet, it couldn’t last. We require far more to survive as a nation than short-term trauma or shared geography. We need to become a people once again.

But how does that happen? I see no way to resolve the differences. Certainly, there are ways to win the Culture War, but the bad thing about winning is you’re stuck living with the losers.

This has brought my mind back to 2. Chronicles 7:14. It is here we can find hope. Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention said, “I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that “except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel:”

At this time in our country’s history, my greatest prayer has become that God would turn and heal our divided land and make us one nation once again.

If you’re anything like me, about this time of year, your e-mail and letter boxes start getting filled with urgent letters asking you to save the country. Of course, we did that in 2000, 2002, and 2004 already, so what’s one more time?

In all seriousness every election in America is built up as a political Armageddon, as if the future of the country hinges on the results. Can we cut the hyperbole? America has survived such disasters as Jimmy Carter. It can be said that overall we may have ended up better off with Carter winning in ‘76. Had Gerald Ford succeeded in beating Carter, the GOP would never have gained control of the Senate and Reagan would never have brought a Revolution to Washington. Political control will ebb and flow. Its part of the game. In football, a team doesn’t panic because another gets control of the ball, as long as they’ve got a solid gameplan.

We need a long-term strategy for political victory that goes beyond short term frustrations to reach towards long-term Conservative goals. The way I see it Long Term Conservative (LongCon) strategy is going to require the following:

First, Conservative control of the GOP must be fought for. A top priority is taking control of county and state Republican organizations from the precinct level up. If you can’t control the GOP in your city, there’s no way you’re going to make a dent nationally.

There also needs to be people who are willing to take some for the team. This means being willing to lose some elections, particularly in the primaries. Getting your clock cleaned in a primary or general election is no fun, but is sometimes helpful.

Lets say you challenge your Congressman in the primary and you lose. During the course of the primary you manage to provide an opportunity for volunteers to get experience working on campaigns and you also get to educate voters on Conservative values and make the case for freedom. You may lose the primary, but in the process set the stage for future Conservative victory. Without Conservatives who were willing to fight a losing battle, there would have been no 1994 Republican Revolution.

At all levels, defeating the teacher’s unions must be job one. Through Charter Schools, School Choice, and the Homeschooling movement, we must wrest control over the education of America’s children from leftist ideologues.

Long Cons must also be builders. Conservatives must develop alternatives to the liberal entertainment media that affirm traditional values while producing a quality product, in addition to continuing to improve the Conservative news media.

It is important as well that all Conservatives have their financial houses in order and give generously of their resources towards organizations that will make our country better. We must support organizations that strengthen families such as Family Life and Focus on the Family, support the efforts of local Rescue Missions to provide a hand-up to people in poverty, and stand behind churches that stand behind the Bible. Strong families, strong churches, and strong communities are the greatest enemy of the American left.

Its going to take a lot of work, money, and commitment for Conservative victory to be achieved. Its not a matter of years, but decades. Yet those who have vision, who are willing to endure the mocking of friends and the hatred of enemies have the opportunity to change the course of our nation’s history.

As we look towards the future, the Conservative movement is divided. I think every Conservative wants to see our nation with more freedom, strong national security, low taxes, and society that honors our most fundamental values.

Its just how we get to that result that we disagree on. Some say the answer is putting up moderates, anybody that can beat the Democrats. Their philosophy can be summed up in three word, “Just win, Baby.” It’s the philosophy of the National Republican Senator Campaign Committee which is attacking the Conservative running against Senator Lincoln Chaffee (who refused to even vote to re-elect President Bush) in the Republican Primary. Win at all costs! They want that intoxicating buzz on election day that’s more powerful than any liquor.

But what did you win? A tap on the brake of a car heading over a cliff. More Rs than Ds, in the Senate, goody for us. We’ve forgotten the words of that great statesman, “He who serves his country best, serves his party best.” We’ve got it reversed.

We need to stand up for what’s right. We need politicians who will tell the truth without fear or equivocation. Great things can happen. Leading up to the arrival of Ronald Reagan in Washington, people had worked hard for many years to build a coalition, to speak to the most basic American values that had been pushed aside by American liberalism and ’60s permissiveness.

Yet, people remember the great Reagan Revolution of 1980, and the Republicans storming the halls of power in 1994, but they don’t remember 1964. They don’t remember the years of heartbreak that Conservatives went through leading up to the ’80s. We want to avoid even the risk of losing. The mind of many Conservatives goes no further than the next election. We want victory, no matter how pyrrhic, and we want it now.

Yet, great things are not accomplished without risk and sacrifice. The Founding Fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom. Those who reject the path of least resistance and seek to call our nation to its highest and best will pay a price.

I think of Brandi Swindell (http://www.brandiswindell.org) whose running for the Boise City Council. She has been subjected to the most vile attacks on her person. She has been called “princess of the Religious Nazi Wing of the Republican Party,” some people on a local internet forum have even made sick, altered photos of her.

As a former candidate and as an activist, I’ll tell you politics in America is a lousy business. Campaigning door to door, you’re viewed with suspicion. The moment you enter a political race, to the cynical you become part of the subhuman class, politician, and they can and treat you however they want.

It doesn’t matter how good of a person you’ve been, no matter where you live, there are people who’ve got pens that write arsenic. They will savage you and level the most unfair allegations that they can get away with. They’ll paint you as the devil himself.

Working on campaigns that lose (or worse yet, you win but it gets tossed out by an activist judge) you feel like its all vanity. You’re wasting your time, you’re wasting your life on a bunch of people who love ignorance and will never listen. You get to the point where you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, you can’t even see it’s a tunnel, darkness just shrouds everything you do.

You die a little every losing election night, whether you’re the candidate or not. You think of other things you’d rather do, anything you’d rather do than this. Losing leaves a sour taste in your mouth. You feel this profound sense of failure. Maybe you cry and you second guess everything you did in the campaign.

Today, we want to be comfortable, we want to be well-liked. We want that broad, easier path, but as Christ told us, that leads to destruction. America today needs people of courage and integrity who are willing to be candidates and work on campaigns, win or lose. They are willing to put up with the indignity of it all for one reason.

They see more than tomorrow, they see more than next November. They see what the future can be. They see America as worth sacrificing for, worth committing to. They know as Thomas Paine once wrote, that “it is dearness only that gives everything its value.” They’ll take their lumps, but they’ll keep coming back. They won’t give up and they won’t give in. And by carrying themselves with class and dignity through it all, these are the people who will change our nation.

THYS: In many ways, Ogonowski is a typical Northeastern Republican. He rails against taxes, but supports legal abortion. At a forum in the chapel at Phillips Academy in Andover last week, he explained why he wants to keep troops in Iraq.

Typical New England Republicans? So great. Conservatives hand over money, Ogonowski gets elected to Congress and joins the Republican Main Street Coalition. Just what I want to spend my money on.

Yeah, New England Republicanism. The type of thing that gave us Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Jim Jeffords, and Lincoln Chafee. Yuck. Give me a break. Ogonowski seems like a great guy compared to his opponent, but at this point I don’t frankly give a hoot.

Ruffini should stop asking conservatives to support liberal Republicans like Tom Kean, Jr. and Ogonowski.

I always expected him to leave the Republican Party—the only question was when. It is still hard to understand why the National Republican Party leaders didn’t comprehend that, or couldn’t see it coming. And then you have to wonder again why they spent so much time and effort on someone who was going to desert them anyway.

People have asked me if I feel vindicated. I feel sad. I just wish he had been honest with himself, the voters of Rhode Island, his supporters and especially all the donors across this great country of ours.

Leaving would have been the honorable thing, but Lincoln Chafee wanted to be Senator and as far left as he was in the GOP, he was probably too far to the right to win the Democratic nomination, and so Chafee did a post-election switch where he could gain some seniority as a Democrat and those of you who gave to the NRSC paid to make that happen thanks to the irresponsibility of Liddy Dole.

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week. The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by.The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader.

The group will also suggest scrapping Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of the nation’s success in favour of a model that measures people’s happiness drawn up up by Friends of the Earth.

Under the proposals, a cap could be set on the energy use of each electrical appliance, and those exceeding limits could be banned from sale in the UK.

Yech. We can safely say that the grip of statism is secure on the British state and that Britons will soon be completely subjugated to the almighty state. It’s sad really. To survive the frontal attack of Nazism and Communism, only to yield freedom to a PC nannystate

For a while, I have contemplated writing this column but haven’t had the full sensibility to do it yet. I began submitting columns online at age seventeen, back in the year 2002. I began the process with the hubris of a budding pundit and kept the habit until now, with a declining sense of the value of this kind of writing. Now I am twenty-one and about 21 percent half-educated.

I now know at least this: I don’t know enough to be weekly offering my opinions as though possessed of some eminence. There is a thousand times more sense in one of Seneca’s ancient moral sketches or Joseph Addison’s essays three hundred years ago than in the freshest columns I could put forth on any topic. Wisdom is better nurtured in the memorization of Solomon’s Proverbs than the attempt to produce new proverbs for the age of YouTube and iPod. The Bible is better for the soul than the morning newspaper…

Regret is not the word for lessons learned. I have learned that punditry, for all of its good sense every now and then, is not my calling.

I may write again, soon, but without regularity. And without the hastiness that is the temperament of the internet.

Well, the Bible is better for the soul than the newspaper for sure. But as the man said, “I read the Bible and the New York Times, so I know what both sides are doing.”

Hans has learned to be a class act gentleman and a credit to the scouts and his family. He’ll be missed and I’ll look forward to seeing what’s next for him.

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1. John Cox is dedicated to the reduction of government spending and reforming the way Washington works. He believes in reigning in an out-of-control federal government. He also advocates passing the Balanced Budget Amendment to the Federal Constitution and a line item veto.

2. He understands we cannot reward those who break our nation’s laws and that we also shouldn’t create a permanent underclass in our country. He’ll say no to amnesty and to a guest worker program.

3. He’s 100% pro-life and pro-family.

4. As a CPA and investment professional, he understands the mess our nation’s tax and social security systems is in. He believes we need to get rid of the IRS with a Fair Tax and bring needed reform to Social Security.

5. John Cox has leadership experience in the private sector as a businessman who helped turn around a failing company in the ‘90s, served as president of his parish’s school, and a member of his public school council. He understands that all wisdom does not come from government. Given the utter arrogance of our politicians in Washington, this is a needed change.

6. He’s not a part of the political establishment. Both sides have created a mess, and I believe electing an outsider like Mr. Cox can be key to cleaning it up.

7. He’s shown himself a serious candidate. He’s invested his own money to start this campaign and to get his message out. He now has dedicated grassroots coordinators in thirty states, and it is more than a year until the first caucus. He has grasped the idea that those who wait until 2007 to start thinking about a run for the White House will not succeed.

He has placed the future of this campaign in the hands of the American people. It will be the American people who will decide whether to provide the financial support necessary to conduct a successful campaign. It will be the American people who will decide whether to vote for Mr. Cox. The candidacy of John Cox will rest on the reaction of the American people, not the dictates of party bosses.

Additional Thoughts

Some will consider this a pointless exercise. I can hear commenters typing already, “John Cox can’t win.” Of course many of these same folks were typing just a few short months ago, “George Allen can’t possibly lose in Virginia.”

I’m not going to claim that John Cox will have a cakewalk to the Presidency, or even that he’ll win. Unlike other political commentators, I make no claim as a clairvoyant. I don’t know what will happen in the next fifteen months or so. All I know to do is to support the candidate who best represents my values and beliefs, while leaving the results in the Hands of God.

We are only guaranteed to fail when we refuse to try. John Cox is building a grassroots organization to fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party in every state in the Union. He has committed to the cause of conservatism, and conservatives should respond in kind, by joining this effort to create a better Country for ourselves and our posterity.

Trackposted to Rightwing Guy, Perri Nelson’s Website, , third world county, The Random Yak, Planck’s Constant, Stuck On Stupid, The Bullwinkle Blog, Dumb Ox News, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.