United Liberty
Can the GOP Come Back?
Sat, 11/15/2008 - 7:26am | posted by Dr. John Killian
Think about it! Four years ago, the Republican Party held the White House and both houses of Congress. Now, the Democrats have won the Presidency by a sizable margin, gained additional seats in the majority Democratic House, and could possibly hold a sixty-vote majority in the Senate—large enough to end any Republican initiated filibuster.
First of all, consider the magnitude of the Republican loss. What support shifted from four years ago?
- For starters, turnout in Republican areas was, on average, five percent lower than the turnout in Democratic areas. Obviously, the typical Democratic voter was much more motivated to support their ticket than the typical Republican voter was moved to vote for John McCain. Some frustrated conservatives supported third party candidates. North Carolina was probably lost, due to conservatives voting for Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for President. Likely the GOP lost the Senate seat in Oregon, due to conservatives voting for the Constitution Party candidate. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss is forced into a Georgia runoff, due to conservative votes cast for the Libertarian Alan Buckley. Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman may end up losing to radical leftist comedian Al Franken, due to conservatives voting for Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley.
- Exit polls displayed that twenty percent of conservatives actually voted for Barack Obama. Consider that McCain was saddled with the record of a Republican administration who increased the national debt, increased the size of government, continued international involvement, and increased the role of government in the lives of citizens. Frankly, Republicans were not connecting with any claim of being conservative.
- While McCain was front and center for amnesty for illegal aliens, Obama quietly supported the same proposal. However, in the campaign, Obama spoke of dealing with employers who hired illegal aliens. Frankly, one had to read a scorecard to determine which candidate was more conservative.
- Working class Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and had voted Republican at the federal level, came home to vote Obama in droves. While the Republicans were pushing trade agreements which shipped manufacturing jobs overseas, Obama was talking about middle-class tax cuts and tax credits for families with students in college. For the first time in some years, a majority of Catholics voted Democratic for President. This came, in spite of Obama’s adamant pro-abortion position. The GOP failed to communicate to the core values of the Catholic voter.
- The voting public never fell for the foolish accusations on Obama—accusations which the public saw through by election day. Funny, we heard the constant rumor that Obama is a Muslim, but his first major appointment was the appointment of Rahm Israel Emmanuel as Chief of Staff. Emmanuel has dual citizenship with Israel and actually served in the Israeli Army. Last year, while in Israel, I enjoyed supper with a man with great political connections in Israel. This man expressed great fear of Obama, due to his family connections with Islam. However, after months of facing questions on the issue of his relation to Islam, Senator Obama has continually denied that he is a believing or practicing Muslim. During the election, I asked a Jewish friend if he feared Obama and his relation to Israel. My friend replied that Obama’s record in the US Senate displayed a friendliness to Israel. In fact, this Jewish political observer informed me that he found no difference on Israeli-related issues between either McCain or Obama.
- New voters went overwhelmingly for Obama. In particular, Obama ran well among black voters, Hispanic voters, and college-age voters who voted for the first time. Pro-Democratic organizations organized massive voter registration drives which reaped a harvest of votes for the Democratic ticket.
Secondly, what can Republicans do to come back in the 2010 mid-term elections?
- Republicans must re-double efforts at voter registration among friendly constituencies.
- Republicans must live up to their platform. When the McCain (yes, John McCain)-Kennedy (yes, Ted Kennedy) Amnesty bill for illegal aliens came to the floor of the US Senate, this bill had the support of President Bush and the Democratic leadership. But the people arose and demanded that this bill be defeated. The 2008 GOP platform calls for tougher action on immigration. Hopefully, the politicians will catch up with the people on this issue.
- Republicans must resist acted in favor of special interests, to the detriment of good policy. In recent months, the worst example of acting in favor of special interests, is the bailout plan on housing loans. Now, Congress is talking about a bailout of the automobile industry. The concept of federal bailouts smacks of fascism. Frankly, if John McCain had opposed this bailout, I believe that he could have separated himself from the Bush Administration, painted Obama (who also supported the bailout) as an insider politician, and won the election.
- Republicans often criticize the funding and support of Democrats by trial lawyers and labor unions. However, the average voter feels no compulsion to defend the rights of corporations to bully the average citizen. Frankly, most working class voters would feel more affinity to their labor union or a plantiff’s lawyer over a corporation that would value profits over people.
- Conservatives must re-build from the ground up. Frankly, I think the average conservative activist would do much better in working for a local candidate than in expending energy on an effort that is so money-driven, and where our individual efforts are as a pebble cast into the ocean.
The Republican Party does not deserve to be in contention. While in leadership, the GOP squandered great opportunities to cut the size of government. But the alternative is a Democratic Party beholden to liberal interests that will lead us into socialism and move us to abandon the moral principles that made America a great country.
The races which you indicate that were lost by Republicans due to those pesky third-party candidates were very close indeed. Your own comment was that GOP turnout was about 5% less than Democratic turnout. If those 5% come out and vote, then that’s roughly an extra 2% in those races for the GOP - at least 1.5%. Last I checked, the third-party candidates received less than that. I’d hardly blame Bob Barr, Ralph Nader or any of them for McCain’s loss.
As for the Minnesota Senate race, Dean Barkley received 10% of the “conservative” vote vs. 13% of the “liberal” vote. He received only 10% of the Republican vote vs. 13% of the Democrat vote. Check the exit polls. Based on those numbers, it looks like Barkley cost Franken the election more than he cost Coleman. In either way, I think Barkley would probably say he earned those votes himself and didn’t “steal” anything from anyone.
I think the conservatives in the Republican Party need to do a MUCH better job of articulating why smaller government is better for the average citizen. People have come to equate conservatism with corporatism, and unless this notion can be disspelled, conservatives will be out of power for some time to come. Furthermore, conservatives cannot just TALK about be non-corporatist, they need to BE non-corporatist. We can talk about “Joe the Plumber” until the cows (elephants?) come home, but paying lip service to Joe while handing out hundreds of billions to well connected corporate elites, looks and IS disengenuous.
True free market conservatism picks no favorites. It provides all with the opportunity to succeed, and yes, fail. It does not pass ponderous regulations and then exempt out those corporations that have the better lobbyists, putting most of the pain on the medium and small businesses. It does not create a tax system so complicated that the average small business nowner has to spend more time complying with tax laws than running his business or paying more money to an accountant that he can’t afford to help him comply while he runs the business. It doesn’t borrow and spend on unecessary wars to the point that the dollar becomes so worthless that basic commodities become luxury items (eggs and cheese, anyone?). It doesn’t create newer and larger entitlements that ultimately fall on the backs of people only trying to eek out a living. It doesn’t happily provide “supports” and “loans” and “guarantees” to businesses who can’t sell their products because, in order to increase corporate profits, they shipped the good paying jobs overseas - it tells those businesses, that they are free to do what they please with their jobs but they pay the consequences if they kill the consumer market for their own goods. I could go on, but you get the point.
All of the things above were not done by a Democrat in the White House. They were done by a “conservative” Republican, and that is the legacy that the true conservatives in this party must overcome. Heavy lifting, anyone?
Do you think that the Democrat victory had any thing to do with the fact that Obama was able to spend 7 1/2 times more than McCain.
I wonder how much of that came from foreign sources? I guess nobody will ever know.
If you believe in the power of advertising then you realize how effective that much money in excess of your opponents money can be. Only about 6 million votes going the other way would have resulted in a different outcome.
And then there is Acorn, and their drive to register illegal voters. That coupled with the Democrat Party”s reluctance to enact legislation to eliminate fraudulent voting all over the country counts for more than a few of those votes that would have made the differance.
Do I think the Republicans can come Back? It’s not likely with the fox in charge of the hen house. I feel the people of this country have already been disfranchised and short of the Obama administration grossly overplaying their hand it will be a generation (if ever) to change parties.
Should the GOP come back?
In the parsing of a speech Obama made, I appreciated the words of:
” Its not how big or small government is that’s important…..”.
I can’t remember the rest of the line; however I do believe those words to be “right on !”. Government’s primary role ought to be trying to keep all areas of endeavor (socially, economically, religiously etc….) ” fair & balanced “.
Fair & balanced playing field for all our citizens / states within the USA; as well as,
fair & balanced via “Fair Trade” not free trade among nations.
The problem with that, witchiaks, is the definition of “fair and balanced”. Everyone has a different perspective of what is or is not fair. We all have our own value systems - both economically and morally. If the government’s role is to decide what is “fair” and then legislate and execute upon such laws, then we are vesting our futures to the ruling class and their definition of “fair”.
Now, I would suspect that you will argue that that is why we have democracy. Our collective voice from the voting booth defers that authority to our rulers who then decide what is fair. This line of thinking has a fundamental flaw. It ultimately leads to mob rule, or perhaps you’d prefer tyranny of the majority. This provides incentive for politicians to define “fair” in such a way that 51% of the people are satisified with one definition of a “fair” over the opponent who is only able to pander to 49%.
This approach is called social democracy. It is not the system of government which put the United States in the position to be the best country in the world. Our system of government was designed on set of restricted powers which enabled the citizen class, not the ruling class, to flourish and create a great country.
Matt,
which set of restricted powers might you be referring to:
1. Articles of Confederation
2. Constitution
3. Bill of Rights
I’m thinking even the authors of the these fine documents were having difficulties defining that moving target called ” restricted powers” vs “individual freedoms”.
And i might add that the drafters were most certainly a mob before they agreed to be kinda “fair & balanced”.
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