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Conservatism and the GOP

Submitted by eBurke on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 08:28
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There has been some recent blog posts here that have talked about conservatism and the GOP being in dire straights. There is no doubt that the GOP is in bad shape. Public perception has plummeted along with self-identification. However, the mistake being made of conflating the GOP with conservatism is one that we should quickly clear up.

I, as a Republican operative, obviously have concerns for the Republican Party. However, I am a conservative first and the decline of the Republican Party is NOT a decline in conservatism. In the past forty years the word conservative has gone from being a dirty word to the plurality political identification of Americans.

There are a lot of blue collar, union Democrats who are conservatives. There are suburban Republicans that are liberals. Conservatism's goals and the GOP's goals are 90% of the time the same, but it is not the case that it is 100%. It is conservatism's best interest to have conservatives in both the Democratic and Republican parties. This is not in the best interest of the GOP. The GOP's best interest is accumulating all the voters as possible in their tent.

As we consider the "new" or "next" right it is important we realize that reviving the GOP is undoubtedly in the best interest of conservatism.

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Comments

Well Said...

Submitted by GardenStateCons... on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 09:09.

n/t

Seems to me

Submitted by karasoth on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 10:29.

the majority of these blogs ( for the love of god don't be calling them diaries.) is that the Republican party seems to not be acting like the republican party.

This is just plain political gibberish

Submitted by davidfarrar on Sun, 06/15/2008 - 09:39.

Does anybody else here at Next Right believe in this perspective?

While I agree:"...the decline of the Republican Party is NOT a decline in conservatism." If the Republican Party no longer represents the "conservative" view, that view will be politically invisible, and thus, the general electorate will not  be able to see the correct ideological path to follow once it becomes aware of its mistakes. This is precisely why wining this next election should NOT be the most important goal for conservatives. But for conservatives, winning the next six elections should be their MOST important goal.

The problem today is most political "operatives", i.e., political parties and their syophants, view winning the next election as the all-important goal. The RNC and the DNC, along with Barack Obama and John McCain certainly believe this. But for conservatives, winning the next six is the real goal. As long as we, conservatives, have to hold our nose to vote for the Republican presidential nominee, we are abandoning our primary political objective to the Republic, to the country and to its people.

ex animo

davidfarrar