My Winter of Discontent
By Randall Nunn (01/22/07)
Like many conservatives, I was disheatened by the Republican losses in the last election. The reason why the results of these elections were especially dismaying was that the Bush administration and the Republican Party squandered the opportunity handed them when they gained control of both houses of Congress and the White House. When leadership is given such a position of strength and fails to act, the rank and file need to take action and replace the leadership or ignore those whose terms have yet to expire and work toward securing their replacement with true conservatives.
The positions and policies (or lack thereof) of the Bush administration and the Republican Party led to a disaster at the polls--not because the media bamboozled the voters but because too few Republicans advocated policies that the voters expected after the 2004 elections. Fortunately, the margins in the House and the Senate after the elections are close enough that conservatives can recapture the initiative in 2008 with dedication and hard work. But control of Congress will not be recaptured by supporting the likes of Chafee, Hagel, Specter, Snowe and Collins, just to name a few, but by electing senators and representatives who strongly support conservative positions and the protection and advancement of this country's security, both military and economic.
The Bush administration has shown itself to be weak and ineffective in most areas of domestic policy. Social security reform had not been achieved nor has tax reform. Immigration policy is a disaster and a source of great dissatisfaction to much of the Republican base. The administration has lost John Bolton at the U.N., has failed to push through conservative judicial nominees and had done little to rein in excessive government spending. Only in foreign policy and the war on terror has the administration been somewhat successful and most conservatives continue to support the Bush administration on these issues. But even the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism suffer due to the inability to effectively articulate the policies and the reasons for the policies.
One of the clearest examples of the disconnect between the Bush administration and today's Republican Party on the one hand and the average voter in the Republican base on the other is the great and obvious difference between the message of Republican fund raising organizations in their solicitations and the actions of our Republican senators and congressmen on the floor. When a fund raiser calls and seeks funds to guard against success of various initiatives pushed by liberals, the prospective donor is often perplexed and angered by the inconsistency of asking for money when many of the recipients are advocating those same policies or pandering to various groups aligned with the Democratic Party. I, for one, will not contribute in the future to any fund raising organization that doles out contributions to all who wear the Republican label, regardless of their lack of support for important conservative issues.
The current "front runners" for the Republican presidential nomination leave me little encouragement. Most are liberal in their positions on domestic social issues, although they try to present themselves as conservatives, and seem to lack strong convictions on anything other than their desire for higher office. Only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appears to have the intellect, ability to articulate his positions on issues and an understanding of history and the electorate that could appeal to the voters in this country, the majority of whom are conservative. Of course, the mainstream media and many of the pundits would be driven to apoplexy by the thought of Gingrich as president, but the country has grown tired of the mainstream media and now may be time to take them on. As another great American once said, if not us, then who, and if not now, when?
Randall H. Nunn
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