The American Spectator

Feature

Sorting It Out

By W. James Antle, III from the December 2008-January 2009 issue

(Page 8 of 8)

For the past eight years, Republican Party leaders conducted an experiment. For many decades, at least since the New Deal, Democrats used taxpayers’ money and the coercive power of government to support organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party and to build loyalty to the party. Could Republicans do the same? Could they pass a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and buy the support of seniors? Could they get Latino votes by supporting amnesty for illegal aliens, and farmers’ votes by subsidizing agribusiness, and parents’ votes by federalizing education? Could they use thousands of pork-barrel projects to protect Republican officeholders? Could they build the party by rewarding friendly faith-based groups with taxpayers’ money, and by getting K Street lobbying firms to hire Republicans, and by bailing out the Bush administration’s friends on Wall Street?

Could they out-Democrat the Democrats?

The results of the experiment are in. The results are: Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, President-elect Obama.

Every Republican leader who helped conduct this experiment, at every level in the party and in the government, must go.

Those leaders must be replaced with principled conservatives--with new leaders who are in touch with the conservative values of most Americans:

· A Rasmussen poll released October 3, 2008, found that voters, by 59% to 28%, agreed with the assertion in Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

· A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll released October 10 asked: “In general, do you think government involvement is usually the solution or the problem?” By 53% to 17%, people selected “problem” over “solution.” When they were asked “Do you think this is a good time for higher taxes and larger government or is this a good time for lower taxes and smaller government?” respondents selected lower taxes and smaller government by 76% to 13%.

· Washington Post polls conducted October 19-21 showed self-identified conservatives outnumbering self-identified liberals by roughly seven-to-four.

If we are to rebuild the conservative movement and, someday soon, achieve our dream of conservative government, we must build a new corps of conservative leaders--leaders from every segment of society, young (for the most part), and skilled in using traditional media as well as new and alternative media to organize conservatives and to promote conservative ideas.

Along with new leaders, we need a new approach to issues, an approach that applies conservative principles to problems facing grassroots Americans in the 21^st century.

The Republican Party’s current leadership is incapable of serving as an effective opposition to the Democrats. Conservatives must assume that role.

Richard A. Viguerie is the chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

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