Has The GOP Forgotten Its Conservative Base?
By Tony DiPasquale (05/06/04)
With the elections just a matter of months away, we are being inundated by a barrage of commercials telling us why we should or should not vote for Bush or Kerry. Meanwhile, political pundits on the right are continuously saying that Kerry has nothing positive to run on; that his campaign is nothing more than an all out attempt to drum-up the anti-Bush vote. Strangely enough, the republicans are using the very same tactic in an attempt to energize their base.
Ever since the overwhelmingly popular “Contract with America”, republicans have seemed to have forgotten what it was that put them into power in the first place. Apparently, they cannot take the scrutiny from the media that comes along with wagering a principled campaign. The funny part is most of the media outlets will attack them regardless of what they do, so why not stand for their core beliefs? They do still believe in the party platform don’t they?
Yet in every election since the ’94 campaign the Republican Party has been making excuses to their base, promising them that the future would be bright if only they would continue to support them. Remember we were first promised that if we gave them Congress, conservative principles would triumph. However this was not enough. So under Clinton we were told that if the Republican Party could win the White House, then we would really experience a move towards limited government. But it did not stop there. We were told that a larger majority would be needed in Congress in order to assure passage of new bills that would correspond with our beliefs.
So what is the talking point today coming out of Republican Headquarters? Why it is none other than “It is too important a period in our history to allow Kerry and the Democrats to win.” Does this sound like a positive platform? To me it sounds strangely similar to the anti-Bush campaign Kerry is waging. Well for one, I am fed up. Can anyone imagine a company telling you to continue to buy their products and eventually their service and quality will improve? Hardly. Yet this is exactly what we are being asked for. We are in essence paying for the republicans to be elected through campaign contributions and our coming out to support them at the ballot box.
If democrats were in power we would be in much worse shape you say? Well let us look at the record. During the current administration we have seen an expansion of the education department, a department that at one time was slated for elimination. Admittedly, we cannot win on everything. We must at times compromise. Ok, a little compromise is understandable, but that does not explain the rest of the spending that has gone on. How about the National Arts? We saw that expanded as well, but of course this is the program that has given us such wonderful works of art like those using human excrement. We could not possibly want to cut this funding. And what about Medicare? You could not pick up a newspaper during the tax cut debate and not find an article saying how we could not afford them, yet the Medicare expansion is projected to cost far more and few are objecting about its largess. Of course no discussion would be complete without the mention of the recent transportation bill. One that even the likes of Teddy Kennedy would have been too bashful to have asked for.
When will the Republican Party realize that in their pursuit to “buy” the votes of independents and moderate democrats, they are inevitably alienating their base?
The republican leadership would not even support good conservative candidates like McClintock and Toomey. Instead they chose to back the more “moderate” candidates.
The Republican Party has become similar to that of a cheating spouse. They tell you that they love you, that they have your best interests at heart, and then when you are not looking, they betray you. Because of this, I cannot in good conscience, vote republican. Sure there are some members such as Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul that deserve our continued support, but far too many need to be sent a message that we will not blindly support them. Now there are two ways to accomplish this: we can stay at home or we can vote for a third party candidate that supports our beliefs. The Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party are the two parties that stand out as coming closest to conservative views. If enough of the base were to support one or both of these parties it would send a clear message to the Republican Party that our votes are not to be taken for granted, that they must be earned.
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