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Conservatives' choice on Election day

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 13:18
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As we have all seen over the past two decade, the Republican Party has failed us in its major responsibility to put forth conservative candidates for the presidency on the ballot. Now we can get into the specifics of why that has happened and even perhaps come up with a viable plan of reform, but the bottom line is, it is irrelevant if John McCain wins the upcoming election. You simply don't reform a winning political party.

So the real choice before politically experienced conservatives in this election is to further support the liberalization of the Republican Party by supporting the candidacy of John McCain, or not, and focus our electoral efforts in supporting our own Congressional, state and local conservatives candidates.

In this election, given these choices, not voting for McCain will be a vote for change in the Republican Party,  back to its conservative base.  Voting for John McCain will only serve to prolong the inevitable change the party must undergo when the general public realizes its made a mistake and starts looking around for the right answers.

Now I can tell you that I, as a conservative, don't like this choice any more than any other conservative, but those are the choices before us. We can either vote to prolong the conservative comeback by voting for Mccain, or we can hasten it's return by simply not voting on the presidential choices given to us.

Again, the ideological life of our party lies in our own hands. All we have to do to bring our conservative values back into the mainstream of public support and thus, the party back to its conservative roots, is to responsible not use it on election day for the office of the presidency.

ex animo

davidfarrar

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I like the basic thought, but

Submitted by philosopher on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 13:55.

one immediately then has to face the question of how you can lose the election in a way that empowers the elements in the GOP coalition that you want to empower, and disempower the ones you want disempowered.  The problem here -- and this isn't meant to reject the author's basic point -- is that simply not voting is a very thin signal.  Just think of how much to-ing and fro-ing there was after the 2006 elections, with everyone & his cousin trying to figure out what does it mean.   Keep in mind that surely one popular interpretation of such a loss will be: people liked what Obama was selling.  And every single faction of the current GOP coalition will claim that if only their interests had been better represented, then the results would have been different.  How is this interpretive ambiguity to be avoided?

Interpretive ambiguity is the prerogative of a democracy.

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 16:09.

Of course interpretive ambiguity is the prerogative of a democracy. It is how a democracy, as a people, learn. It is how democracy corrects itself when mistake are made, as they inevitably will.

I have not doubt that at first people will like what Obama is selling, but you and I both know it won't last.  Soon, when the real price tag comes due, people will seek other answers, again, the prerogative of a democracy.

As I have previously laid out in another post:  During Obama's first term, the Republican Party will have a strong minority in Congress, enough to forestall any real radical legislation or Supreme Court appointments, all the while attacking the incumbent liberal president, his policies, and his party, while we gather strength and numbers. Again, it is the prerogative of the party out of power.

However, the right must first be out of power before it can truly reunify itself, before it can cleanse itself. You don't clean house when you are winning.  Only this time it will be different. This time we have the Internet and mass one-on-one communication to address political ambiguity and directing its focus on this issues at hand. I feel compelled to point out here that the mass one-on-one communicative power of the Internet to which I speak, allows for far better communication in both directions, from the bottom, up and from the top, down.

Let me be clear, because of the commutative power of the Internet, a new day has dawned in deliberatory democracy, a commutative power capable of empowering the People within our party and our democracy.  All we have to do as conservatives is put the party in a position to use it

ex animo

davidfarrar

ah, got it

Submitted by philosopher on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 17:06.

I see the model you're working with now.  Here's what I thought was your proposal: have McCain lose, such that his loss is seen as revealing the faction(s) in the coalition that are to blame for recent woes, thereby disempowering them & enabling a more successful coalition.  But I think what you're suggesting is not that McCain's loss would in itself be part of the recoalitioning process, but that it would just make possible the space for that process to begin.  That makes more sense.

Yes, it would create the predicate for change,...

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 17:42.

...just when more and more conservative are, hopefully, realizing their twenty to thirty years of party loyalty hasn't brought them a conservative government , and, indeed, in many respects, has only served to increase government spending, government growth and less personal choices.

And while most here agree with such an assessment, many would simply like to draw circles around the problem rather than actually doing something about it. It would seem also many are still falling for the same false bargain the political elite consistently offer conservatives around election time: "Vote for our guy, 'cause if you don't, that damn, fool liberal is going to get into office and cause the country great harm. Now you wouldn't want that; would you?"

Well, I, for one, have had enough. I have spent the last fifteen years as an Executive Committee man for the party, trying to bring about conservative values to government through the party, only to arrive at John McCain.

I know what we must do -- not only to send an irrefutable message to our party leaders, but to start the long, slow, tedious process of educating the public as to why they voted wrong in 2008, so they can vote correctly in 2010 and 2012. We have not a moment to loose.

ex animo

davidfarrar

Disagree

Submitted by Zarco on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 18:11.

I disagree, rather fundamentally.  I certainly understand the point, and I don't agree with McCain 100%.  But here's why I disagree. 

I believe, as probably most around here do, that if Obama wins this election, great damage will be done to our country.  I don't need to persuade y'all there.  Entitlements, once in place, are nearly impossible to repeal.  It's like taking away SS or Medicare. 

Rooting against McCain, to the benefit of our party and the detriment of our country, strikes me as a bit...I hate to say it and I don't mean any offense to davidfarrar, who's shown himself to be quite thoughtful in his posts...but, unpatriotic. 

Our party will continue to shift.  I believe that it can shift exactly where we want it to go , and living through 4 (or 8) years of Obama is not necessary for that end. 

You can certainly disagree, if you like.

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 19:21.

But I, for one, would like to know if you believe the party has "shifted" in the direction you would support with the candidacy of John McCain?

ex animo

davidfarrar

Mind telling me

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 19:05.

why you believe that?

 I believe that it can shift exactly where we want it to go

 

It has spent the last dozen years shifting exactly where we don't want it to go, and a President McCain would be a continuation of its's movement to the left. What reason is there to think that it's going to shift in our direction?

 

Optimism I suppose

Submitted by Zarco on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 19:34.

I don't think it will take a loss in a presidential election to rally the base.  It will take more dumb ideas, like today's windfall profits tax, out of Democrats for people to realize the fallacy of big government.  Is McCain the most conservative member of our party?  No.  Are there good young conservatives like Tim Pawlenty, Mark Sanford, and Bobby Jindal on the brink of becoming party leaders?  Absolutely. 

There's reason for optimism despite shortcomings of Republicans over the past 8-10 years.  It's largely because of some of these mistakes that has turned the Republican party against itself.  That is what will drive it to change.  Will the change occur quicker if McCain loses?  Of course.  But it's not worth that sacrifice to me, and I'd like to hear why others are so willing to put the interests of our party over those of the country.

Do you really believe the windfall profits tax...

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 20:24.

...will be viewed by the voting public as a "bad" idea? Or how about reducting taxes on wage-earners by $1,000; do you think the voting public will view that as another dumb idea?

If McCain's brand of liberalism prevails at the ballot box, Tim Pawlenty's, Mark Sanford's, and Bobby Jindal's brand of conservatism will suddenly become a political libility.  I hope you are not politically naive enough to have to ask why.

Again, your political naivete is showing if you believe the party will change from its "mistakes" if McCain wins. The message that will go out to one and all is that John McCain's brand of neo-Republicanism is just the thing that is needed to end partisan bickering and get on with the business of good government. So far from resolving any of the "mistakes" the Republican Party has committed over the 8 to 10 years, more mistakes will be committed in the name  of liberalizing the party in the name of progress, as John McCain's victory will have defined it.

ex animo

davidfarrar