Despicable Newt

Romney’s win last night likely decided the Republican nomination. What I want to talk about today, however, is the damage being done to conservatism by the desperate and despicable creature that is Newt Gingrich. Specifically, he’s been smearing Romney and anyone he thinks supports Romney in ways which are causing long term harm to the cause of conservatism, and it’s time for conservatives to turn their backs on this troll.

Let’s start with Romney. Newt has been slandering Romney in ways that will make it very hard for Romney to beat Obama. Indeed, he’s engaged in a scorched earth policy premised on the idea that we better pick Newt or Newt will make sure Obama wins:

1. Newt has repeatedly called Romney a liar, dishonest and pathetic, when Newt’s actually the one who’s been lying. A reputation for dishonesty is nearly impossible for a politician to live down and harms everything they do because much in politics relies on trust.

2. Newt has made misleading attacks on Romney for investments made by the blind trust Romney is required to use to hold investments. These attacks are anti-capitalist, class warfare attacks and further suggest fraud or tax evasion on Romney’s part.

3. Newt promoted a ridiculous conspiracy theory involving Romney trying to unseat Allen West, suggesting that Romney seeks to destroy the Tea Party.

4. Newt has recycled Rick Perry’s vile “heartless” attack for Romney’s stance on deporting illegal immigrants, a stance shared by all conservatives.

5. And vilest of them all, Newt has tried to inflame religious bigotry while smearing Romney as anti-religion. Observe. Newt began this smear by suggesting that Romney hate religious freedom:

“I think Governor Romney is extraordinarily insensitive to religious freedom in America and the Obama administration is clearly engaged in a war on religion.”

He then told Fox News that Romney made a decision to cut Medicaid funding for health services which would benefit Jewish and Catholic facilities. This was an attempt to both claim Romney didn’t care about religion and to imply that Mormons could not be trusted to protect other religions. And if you think I’m overstating that, look at how he repeated this on CNN:

“You want a war on the Catholic Church by Obama? Guess what: Romney refused to allow Catholic hospitals to have conscience in their dealing with certain circumstances. . . . Romney cut off kosher food to elderly Jews on Medicare. Both of them [Romney and Obama] have the same lack of concern for religious liberty. . . I’m a little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every religion on the planet, I would like [Romney] to respect our religion.”

Note that Newt singles out a war on Catholics and Jews and then finishes with the suggestion that Romney is not a Christian and that he would protect other religions, but not Christianity. What Newt is doing here is playing on the religious bigotry of fundamentalists like Robert Jeffress who still view Mormonism as a non-Christian cult.

Gingrich then issued a truly despicable robocall claiming that Romney forced Holocaust survivors to eat non-kosher foods:

“As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill paying for kosher food for our seniors in nursing homes. Holocaust survivors, who for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher. Where is Mitt Romney’s compassion for our seniors? Tuesday you can end Mitt Romney’s hypocrisy on religious freedom, with a vote for Newt Gingrich. Paid for by Newt 2012.”

When confronted about this robocall, Newt denied having any knowledge of it and incredibly then said, “You might check and see whether the accusation is true.” Note the lack of condemnation of the call and, more interestingly, his adoption of the message.

This is all despicable and will not only dampen conservative support for Romney, but will hang around his neck in the general election and throughout his Presidency. These aren’t policy disputes, they are bigoted smears and slanders.

And it’s not just smears against Romney which are the problem. Indeed, Gingrich has been busy reinforcing generations of leftist attacks on the foundations of conservatism:

● His attacks on Romney’s wealth and investments and Wall Street bankers have been anti-capitalist.

● His attacks on Romney’s immigration policy play right into leftist claims that conservatives hate immigrants and are “heartless” on the issue.

● His attacks on Mormonism feed fundamentalists who oppose all but their own sects.

● His attacks on the Republican establishment, particularly his false description of them and the conspiratorial nature of his attempt to claim victimhood, widen the gap between Tea Partiers and the Republican party, again splitting natural allies.

● He undercut conservative attempts to reform Medicare and Social Security (the Chilean model), and on the flat tax.

Moreover, Newt’s surrogates are smearing anyone who disagrees. Ann Coulter, Jonah Goldberg, and George Will, all solid conservatives, have been labeled RINOs. Elliot Abrams, who pointed out that Newt is lying about supporting Reagan in the 1980s and produced copies of Newt’s attacks on Reagan from the Congressional Record, where Newt did things like call the Reagan Administration “a failed presidency,” was smeared by a Newt surrogate who suggested with no proof that Abrams was lying because he had been offered a job in the Romney administration. Another Newt surrogate smeared Matt Drudge, who does more to help conservatives than a million Newts combined, for “bias” and “being in the tank for Romney.” Etc.

In a world where liberals already smear conservatives in this manner, and thereby try to rob them of their credibility, conservatives should never give aid and comfort to liberal smears. Yet that is what Newt is doing. He is systematically burning key conservatives and conservative principles to the ground and insanely destroying the foundations of conservatism all in the name of his own aggrandizement.

Further, Newt told us last night exactly what kind of administration he would run if elected. He demanded that the Republicans in Congress give him things that cannot be delivered, i.e. a repeal of ObamaCare on the first day, and he made it clear he would lump Republicans and Democrats into the same group and fight them all if he didn’t get his way.

This troll must be stopped.

Finally, let me say a word about Herman Cain. Cain endorse Newt this week. I find this extremely disappointing. When Cain left the race, it was clear he would endorse Newt because he and Newt are friends. But Cain didn’t do that. Instead, he created this rather corny, but oddly genuine political theater of endorsing the people. This rekindled the Tea Party’s love for him and was enough that they picked him to give the Tea Party response to the State of the Union.

Implicit in all of this was that he would represent the views of the Tea Party. As such, he should have worked to make sure each of the candidates acknowledged the Tea Party and agreed to address its concerns. Endorsing Newt (or anyone) was a violation of trust. This was like being appointed commissioner of a sports league and then cheering for one team. Cain should not have done it and should apologize for it now. You’re better than that Herm.

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Minnesota Purge: Loyalty, Not Purity

The collapse of the snow-covered Metrodome is not the only interesting news to come out of Minnesota this weekend. The Minnesota Republican Party did something interesting as well, they banished 18 party members, including two former governors and a retired US Senator. I am generally opposed to purges, but I think this was an excellent move.

The reason the Minnesota Republican Party banished these 18 members was because they endorsed the third-party candidate for governor over the Republican candidate. The third-party candidate (Republican turned independent Tom Horner) won 12% of the vote, while Republican Tom Emmer lost to the Democrat by less than 9,000 votes. Thus it’s rather clear that this third party candidate cost the Republicans the governor’s mansion.

The reasons they endorsed the moderate were the standard ones given by RINOs: they claimed the party had gotten too conservative and they wanted to protect the party before it became a small fringe party, blah blah blah. And now they are shocked and dismayed that they were kicked out of the party and they pretend not to understand why this action was taken. Said one member, “The Republican Party leadership is being very vindictive to some persons who have been staunch Republicans throughout the years. Most people I talk to don’t get it.”

Well, let me explain this to our confused friends.

A political party must be a Big Tent if it is to achieve any sort of electoral success. The reason is simple, there are not enough voters who share the identical political views to form anywhere near a majority of the electorate. Indeed, if we polled all the readers of Commentarama, we would find that few (if any) shared all the same views, even though Commentarama readers are much more ideologically similar than the public at large. Now imagine trying to limit a political party only to people who agreed on all issues? It’s not possible. Thus, any successful political party must accept within its ranks a wide range of people, including both moderates and conservatives/liberals.

But where do we draw the line? In other words, how can a party function if it allows dissenting views within its ranks? The answer is in the nature of the covenant that forms the political party. When a party is formed, its members agree that they may disagree with each other internally, e.g. in primary contests, but they will all accept the result of the decision-making process, e.g. the vote, and will support the chosen candidate, even if they disagree with some of the chosen candidate’s views. In this way, the views of different members may be taken into account as everyone has the chance to have their views heard. And if you can convince enough party members to support your position, then your position becomes the party position, and each election cycles gives you a new chance to make your case.

Yet some party members violate this pact. They will argue for a particular view or candidate, but when their view is not adopted, they betray the party and endorse a candidate from another party. This is bad faith, and these people are death to a party because they destroy the compact that gives the party meaning. In other words, they wipe out the very point of having a party, which is for similar-minded people (even though not-identically minded) to band together to achieve their common goals.

Moreover, while these people cloak themselves in talk of the Big Tent or expanding the party, they actually are advocating the smallest tent imaginable -- they are advocating a “my view or else” approach, which leaves no room for disparate views to work out their differences and find common ground. This is like Henry Ford saying that customers could have any color car they wanted, so long as they chose black. The offer of a choice is fraudulent.

Consequently, it is best to dump these people because they are not participating in good faith, and their staunch position will alienate others who are trying to behave in good faith and were willing to follow the compact. Additionally, these people are practicing a scorched earth form of politics that is disreputable and reflects purely upon the very party to which they feigned loyalty. Indeed, the other side is always happy to give these people a platform from which they can describe their supposed party as extremist, rotten and evil. . . something they happily do.

Thus, contrary to what these Minnesota banishees claim, they were not kicked out because the party was intolerant of moderates, they were kicked out because they were disloyal and their views are intolerant of other views.

Good riddance.

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Go, And Sin No More

A minor kerfuffle is developing over the unpleasant divorce of writer David Frum and the American Enterprise Institute. We've mentioned Frum a few times at this site. He is not everybody's conservative choice for writer of the year, but did he deserve to be kicked out of the AEI. Or for that matter, was he kicked out? Technically, he resigned, but we all know that can mean many things.

Frum is probably best-known for his stint at the Wall Street Journal and his "Diary" which was a regular feature at National Review, and was widely syndicated. Canadian by birth, he was active in American politics for many years prior to becoming a naturalized citizen in 2007. He became a well-published writer and pundit through the 80's and 90's, and in 2001-2002 he was a speech writer for president George Bush on economic policy. He remained a regular writer at National Review until deciding to launch his own political blog, NewMajority.com, in November of 2008. It was dedicated to drawing younger voters into the Republican Party. In late 2009, he re-named the blog FrumForum.com.

His resume is considerably larger than that, but it outlines him fairly well. The current flap is built around his tenure as a paid writer for the American Enterprise Institute, which lasted from 2003 to March 25, 2010. Frum had been a highly vocal critic of Republican strategy during the health care debate, and the final Democratic victory on the issue has caused some extremely contentious arguments among Republicans, particularly conservative Republicans. So in mid-March, AEI informed Frum that he would no longer be a paid contributor to their publications, but could stay on as an unpaid contributor. Frum declined the offer, and thus the argument over whether he was fired or resigned under pressure.

I suppose I could be considered a movement conservative, so I certainly have had my angry disagreements with many of Frum's writings. But I have also made it clear on this blog that I don't much care for lockstep conservatives who impose purity tests and discourage lively debate from within the conservative movement. AEI has long been a purveyor of divergent conservative viewpoints, and often hires academics who have been shunned by their leftist colleagues who require lockstep agreement of a different kind. This was no time to go weak in the knees on healthy differences of opinion, and I think it may very well serve the purposes of the left better than those of the right. Democrats are itching to exploit every seeming breakdown of the conservative movement, and they just got handed a propaganda tool.

The straw that broke the camel's back was Frum's position that Republicans were responsible for the passage of the leviathan health care bill by failing to negotiate with Democrats in good faith. From my viewpoint, that is nonsense on stilts, but is it really a sound reason for banishing a thoughtful conservative from AEI? Some powerful forces at AEI felt that Frum's position was tantamount to rubbing salt into an open wound. It doesn't help that Frum has also criticized certain conservative icons such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin. He has also stated that he believes Glen Beck to be "a political disaster for the Right." I don't know about a "disaster," but Beck has received plenty of criticism from other conservative quarters, and Beck is often way too over-the-top for my tastes. I don't want Fox to fire Beck, and I'm not too thrilled about AEI de-hiring Frum.

Frum often seems to have a better recognition of the changing demographics and current needs of the broad conservative movement than some old-fashioned conservatives. He gets the issue, but he does often come up with overly accomodationist solutions. He really does have the mistaken belief that Democrats will negotiate in good faith, which is a view that requires believing that the Democratic leadership is the realistic and practical liberal leadership of old. He also has a more moderate/libertarian view of social issues than the rock-ribbed conservatives. I find much of that refreshing, and as long as those views are aimed at getting government out of our private lives, I'm with him. But he is certainly more willing to cave in on cultural issues than I am. So what?

As writer John R. Guardino said on NewsRealBlog, "[Frum's] larger-scale point it seems to me, is unassailable: We conservatives and Republicans need to be far more sophisticated and savvy if ever we are to win politically and govern effectively." It's a point of view that should be given considerable thought, not automatic rejection. Look at the young Turks in the Republican Party. Do they look or sound like the old-timers? Yet they have strongly advanced the conservative position on nearly every issue. Consider Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Eric Cantor of Virginia during the health care debates. The old crocodiles of the Republican right had their sound parliamentary rules and their integrity, but these guys had that plus youth, energy, and the ability to rouse conservatives with their enthusiasm for freedom and their disdain for dishonest accounting. How excited do you get by Orin Hatch or Mitch McConnell? Sure, they were on the right side of the health care debate, but they were putting Americans to sleep. Enter Ryan and Cantor.

Frum has been attacked for his "cocktail party conservatism." Well, he fought tooth and nail for the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts. But using the criticism now being launched at him, he was a very important player in convincing president Bush to withdraw the nomination of crony Harriet Miers, whom Frum described as "far too fond of the Washington cocktail party." Frum has been accused of being too friendly with the moderate-liberal wing of the Republican Party. Sometimes, maybe. But Frum put his reputation on the line by taking on conservative icon Jack Kemp from the right on Kemp's big-government advancement of "enterprise zones." That hardly comprised a cave-in to the liberals, and certainly earned Frum some enmity from the Old Guard. Frum was a major player in pushing the Bush tax-cuts, but left when Bush seemed to have forgotten the other half of the Laffer curve--cutting expenditures.

Frum's greatest flaw, following his naive belief in Democratic good faith, is his inability to disagree with a Rush Limbaugh without sounding like an anti-Rushbo zealot. Frum forgets that he is in the political business, and Rush is in the political entertainment business. They complement each other, and shouldn't be enemies. As for AEI, why pick Frum to exile? The board of AEI still has two fellows who helped to write McCain-Feingold. They're still paid employees of AEI, so why get rid of Frum?

This may be something as simple as Frum picking the wrong fight at the wrong time in the wrong place. Many of his criticisms of the Republican handling of the health care fiasco have validity. Some don't. But he certainly didn't say anything revolutionary or outside mainstream conservative principles. The anger-level among conservative opponents of the health care bill is very high indeed, and somebody within the fold was likely to become a target of misplaced revenge. In this case, it appears to have been David Frum. I disagree with much of what Frum has to say, but I'll defend to the death his right to say it. AEI apparently won't.
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What Are Pro-Life Democrats?

Well, to start with, they're Democrats. I'm not belaboring the obvious. It is vital to remember that "pro-life Democrats" add numbers to the entire Democratic majority. Single-issue abortion opponents tend to forget that simple fact, and it cost them dearly. Bart Stupak just proved that in order to remain a loyal Democrat, he was willing to take the most ridiculous of promises from a lying president in exchange for his yes vote on a health care bill that will quickly begin funding abortions.

My home state was sold out by two Democrats who exchanged their votes for a temporary 25% increase in water allocation to their water-starved and jobs-starved Central Valley districts. Stupak sold out for a meaningless executive order which may not even come to pass. They can try to cover their cowardice with proclamations of "doing it for their constituents," but the real fact is they did it because they're Democrats. Look at Stupak carefully. If he hadn't taken his early anti-abortion funding stand, would any moderate to conservative citizen have considered voting for him? Did anybody notice that Stupak enthusiastically embraced the socialist takeover of American health care, except for the abortion funding?

This is the danger of single-issue myopia and support for anti-abortion candidates who belong to a party that is dedicated to the dismantling of the Constitution and government control of our lives. They will ultimately prove unable to shed their political loyalties completely, and will cave in when given even the thinnest thread to hang onto from their leaders. Stupak might just as well have said "you knew I was a snake before you brought me in."

My point here is that for conservatives, it is far safer to trust a moderately pro-choice Republican than a nominal anti-abortion Democrat. Anti-abortion Democrats will support the statist Democratic Party over almost anything, including their own alleged principles. Look at the history of Democrats who used anti-abortion rhetoric, only to toss it to the winds when political opportunity came their way. Start with the early Bill Clinton. As a governor in a state and region which was largely anti-abortion, he spoke out against abortion itself, not merely funding of abortion. But as he wended his way to the presidential nomination, he realized he needed the votes of the pro-abortion states, so he turned the anti-abortion rhetoric down nearly to zero. In that inimitable Clintonesque way, he ultimately took the ridiculous position that supporting federally-funded unrestricted abortion would make abortion "legal, safe and rare."

For those of you who think of Joseph Lieberman as your "favorite Democrat," remind yourselves of this. Joe Lieberman is a devout orthodox Jew. He bravely stood against his party on abortion because of his religious convictions. And he took more than one serious hit for it from within his own party. And then the siren song began to be played. "Joe, you could be vice-president of the United States. Just stop opposing abortion." And Joe did just that. After a few closed-door sessions, Joe found out that orthodox Jews don't actually oppose abortion, they support a woman's right to choose. Most of my orthodox and conservative Jewish friends were mystified, but then they hadn't just been offered the vice-presidency (or they weren't Democrats).

Some of the pro-life Democrats simply switched sides, with little explanation beyond their belief in socialized medicine as being more important than a few million unborn babies. This gang includes Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. In the past, such illustrious Democrats as Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy were originally pro-life, but found political expediency to override any objections they might have to abortion. And let us not forget Al Gore's vote for legislation that would have defined an unborn baby as a person protected under the 14th Amendment. He relented in fairly short order when the possibility of the presidency loomed before him.

Dennis Kucinich (believe it or not) was anti-abortion until he sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2004. Oops, switch. He still opposed abortion funding until he got a ride on Air Force One. Another notable, if less well-known switcheroo was that of Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio. He was a board member of Democrats for Life of America. He was elected largely on the single-issue votes and money of National Right to Life. He got caught lying when he introduced an "abortion reduction bill" that paid lip service to reducing abortion while providing vastly increased funding to the largest abortion provider in America--Planned Parenthood. He didn't even have the decency to resign from Democrats for Life of America, so they kicked him out. As Al Gore brilliantly announced a few years back, "a leopard can't change its [Democrat] stripes."

So why would a big government, Constitution-disdaining Democrat run as anti-abortion (or in some cases, anti-gun control)? The most common answer is that he or she really doesn't care that much about the issue, but it's hot-button in that district. A candidate could simply adopt that issue as his or her own, and dodge the other issues or waffle on them. Or maybe the candidate actually believes in the issue, but is so weak about it that a promise, any promise, no matter how weak, will convince the candidate to change his vote in exchange for some "greater good" (in Stupak's view, a foggy promise of a meaningless executive order overrides his objections to abortion so that he can get that socialized medicine he really wants).

In addition, as illustrated by multiple examples above, any Democrat who wants to rise to a level above the local district had better be ready to make major compromises on the single or double issues that originally got him or her elected. No truly pro-life Democrat candidate is going anywhere unless willing to abandon pro-life or the pretense of pro-life at some point. Anyone who votes for a pro-life (or pro-gun) Democrat is automatically voting for the overall liberal/socialist agenda of the Democratic Party. And for their efforts, they're likely to see their Democratic representative cave in on their single issue when the going gets tough. Nothing could prove that better than the vote last Sunday.

Turning the coin over, you will now see why I tend to believe that a moderate pro-choice Republican is preferable to a seemingly pro-life Democrat. Certainly our preference is for pro-life, conservative Republicans. But there's that single-issue problem again. (Cautionary note: I never include RINOs in my definition of "moderates," but for purposes of this discussion, they might even be included). Just as voting for a Democrat includes voting for the Democratic agenda, so voting for a Republican includes voting for the Republican agenda.

As a majority party, the party agenda becomes evermore important. In another time, with a Republican majority and a Republican President, the Stupaks in Congress might not have been nearly so willing to abandon their stated principles. But some Republican moderates (and possibly even some RINOs) might be convinced to change their views when the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader of the Senate, and the President are all Republicans with the ability to pass out those goodies that the Democrats now control. Numbers count, and only when the two majority Congressional caucuses are in the "R" column can those goodies be dispensed and those political futures secured.

Just as abortion is a credo which all aspiring Democrats must embrace, so is anti-late term abortion in the Republican Party. Ditto for federal funding of abortions. So have general Republican principles on important issues ever affected the votes or political campaigns of Republicans? Mitt Romney is one example. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney took a nominal pro-choice stand. But he wanted to be the president of the United States. Oops, switch. He had no chance of national Republican support for his candidacy if he stuck to his pro-choice rhetoric. (Side note: Romney now has another albatross around his neck. The just-passed Senate health care reconciliation bill is nearly identical to the Massachusetts plan that Romney supported. He's got some 'splaining to do on that as well).

Rudy Giuliani was pure RINO when it came to partial-birth abortion. Right up until he was bitten by the presidential bug. Although he still hasn't become pro-life, he now condemns partial-birth abortion. His exact words when he first made the switch are telling. When asked during his presidential run how he would feel if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Giuliani replied: "It'd be OK." In 1996, Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia ran as pro-choice. Today he is pro-life, and campaigns for fellow Republicans who are also pro-life. And while he was at it, Isakson turned anti-gay marriage and pro-gun ownership.

So look at it this way. A pro-life Republican has no incentive whatsoever under a Democratic or Republican administration to change his views. A pro-life Democrat does when the Democrats are in control. A moderate pro-choice Republican might have a reason to switch in a Republican Congress, but none have any incentive at all to support federal funding in any form. Whatever their personal views, pro-life Democrats have an incentive to vote pro-choice in a Democratic majority, and pro-choice Republicans would have an incentive to vote pro-life in a Republican majority. Numbers count.

Any pro-life Democrat will ultimately be forced by circumstances into supporting the Party's overwhelmingly pro-choice candidates. Any pro-choice Republican will ultimately be forced by circumstances into supporting the Party's overwhelmingly anti-abortion on demand candidates. Those who seriously and consistently oppose the general Party principles and beliefs will find themselves without support from their own party, and either out of office or switching parties. The Democrats have known and imposed this reality for many years. The current Republican leadership is learning, fast.

As Adam Graham, a writer on PajamasMedia has said very well: "The goal of pro-life activists shouldn't be to elect dishonest and self-serving Republicans who only see the light after feeling the heat. The goal should be to elect sincere, committed statesmen who take a pro-life stance. However, to avoid the waste of money, credibility and patience brought about by pro-life sunshine soldiers like [Democrats] Bart Stupak, Ben Nelson and Tim Ryan, pro-lifers would do best to invest their efforts in the Republican Party only."

I'll close this post with a quote from Shakespeare aimed directly at the Bart Stupaks of this world: "How many cowards whose hearts are all as false as stairs of sand wear yet upon their chins the beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, who have inward searched, have livers white as milk." (The Merchant of Venice).
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As Pure As The Driven Snow

Have you ever picked up newly-driven snow, and compared it to a sheet of white paper? If not, you'd be surprised how impure driven snow really is. I purposely chose the picture to point that out. Ivory Snow took its name from that driven snow. It had a very famous series of ads and commercials featuring one Marilyn Chambers. Very pretty, very pure, and Marilyn was considered very pure herself, right up until it turned out she was a porn-flick star.

OK, you say. He's gone nuts and has started fixating on porn stars and laundry detergent. This is a fringe, right-wing sleaze site after all. Sorry to disappoint, but that's not at all where I'm going with this post. The Republican National Committee recently rejected a "purity test" for vetting future candidates, and I applaud their decision. Though many will think it's a rejection of conservative viewpoints, or of Ronald Reagan's rule-of-thumb, I assure you that the RINOs haven't regained their control of the Republican National Committee.

Political naifs, all with good intentions I'm sure, tried to impose a purity test (in the form of but not the substance of Reagan's "80% rule") on the Republican Party, and the people who knew better defeated the move. Sometimes, cooler heads need to prevail, and those who believe that purity tests will ever work are going to do severe damage to the Republican Party. It is more than acceptable for genuine causes outside the party to have their own internal rules, and to attempt to make them part of the platform of major political parties. It is equally important to recognize that real politics and successful political parties are built in part on reasonable compromises.

Even the great Ronald Reagan himself espoused the "Eleventh Commandment (thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Repubican)," but couldn't always be "pure" enough to adhere to it. He was donwright dismissive of Nelson Rockefeller and the "old guard" of the Republican Party. As for the "eighty percent rule," he routinely ignored it when political necessity called for it. He knew that guidelines and platforms are general rules of thumb, made most effective by their observance, but occasionally by their exceptions.

Ronald Reagan had a marvelous way of understanding conventional wisdom, and he most certainly understood the principle that "the perfect is the enemy of the good." A party platform which opposes abortion, for instance, should guide the candidate. But if that same candidate then found it necessary to argue for returning the issue to the power of the states, getting it out of the federal arena, he would appear to be deviating from the platform. But in fact, he would be setting the stage for abolishing abortion or greatly restricting it since the public will is clearly to eliminate "abortion on demand." That is more likely to happen at the state level than the federal. Has that candidate "abandoned principle," or actually advanced it with a sensible political compromise? In other words, is he pure enough on abortion?

Liberals in the mainstream media were quick to pick up on this misunderstanding of the issue. They essentially accused Reagan of political hypocrisy and the proponents of the purity move as ignorant fools. They got the best of both worlds--attack a great president and mock the right at the same time. But as Mr. Reagan said, "the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so." So why hand them the ammunition to shoot us with?

Unfortunately, the same can be said of some of our conservative friends. The Tea Party movement has its own agenda, much of which I agree with. But until it has a platform of its own and an agreed-upon leadership, I don't want it to control the Republican Party now, or perhaps ever. The very nature of the movement is a wonderful example of the people getting their message out to the politicians. But the moment it starts to attempt to dominate the actual political parties, I begin to have my doubts that it is still a popular movement with many points of view, most of which are common sense, conservative, or both. It will at that point have become a form of political party of its own, and that road leads to disaster for the Republican Party in particular, and the nation in general. You can't win the game if you lose sight of the ball.

Reagan was never able to get his social welfare cuts to go along with tax cuts. As a result, and facing a Democratic Congress, he did the best he could. It produced a new deficit, but it also produced the greatest peacetime boom in the economy in American history. Still, to emphasize my point, it didn't mean he didn't understand the Laffer Curve (the so-called trickle-down theory), he was just unable to get any of it done without compromise. Obama's "trickle-up" agenda shows what happens when a President doesn't understand the Laffer Curve and has large Democratic majorities to advance the damage done by his policies. Unlike Reagan (and contrary to his own words), he is unwilling to compromise. Speech: "I'll listen to the Republicans." Private message to the Democrats: "Ignore the Republicans, full speed ahead."

We have discussed the future of the Republican Party on this site almost since its beginning. One of the things we have suggested multiple times is that a political party needs a platform that it can stand on which doesn't build its own termites into the wood. Tea Party members, staunch conservatives, moderates and candidates can all rally around a platform that states the general principles of the party without agreeing that each candidate (or the party itself) must adhere 100% to rigid rules that prohibit reasonable compromise. A platform that is more "wish list" than bludgeon is called for. That leaves the local parties and movement activists free to hold their local candidates' feet to the fire without attempting to make it a "one size fits all" rigid purity test.

I guarantee you that the Republicans in Topeka have an entirely different view of purity from those in San Diego. A national purity test will accomplish chaos and/or defeat. An eighty-percent rule cannot be either firm or national, unless one small segment of the electorate gets control of the party, and that is a guarantee of defeat. Acceptance of general principles does not squelch our ability to continue to try to convince the majority of the rightness of our own specific agendas. A party that is perfectly pure by the standards of a small minority will remain a small vocal minority party while contemporaneously damaging the ability of the movement activists to get their agendas listened to over the broad spectrum of the American electorate. Each time the Republican Party goes down to defeat as the result of purity tests, it enables the RINOs to point fingers and say "see, conservative views just cost us another election."

Even Andrew Price and I don't agree on everything, and we couldn't produce a "purity test" that both could adhere to. But we agree on general conservative principles, and the necessity of the Republican Party to show national unity in the face of the leftist goals of the Democrats. Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964 was a prime example of what I'm talking about. His principles were excellent, but his unwillingness to bend on anything the traditional Republicans proposed resulted in a landslide defeat and the re-emergence of the Nixon/Rockefeller/Ford wing of the party.

Ronald Reagan agreed with Goldwater's agenda, but changed the game entirely by including moderates and moderate-liberals in his efforts. He warned that the Ford presidency was the direct result of conservatives being too rigid. The hangover from Goldwater still kept him from defeating Ford in the primaries, but he won the ultimate victory after four years of Carter. Goldwater ideology combined with Reagan willingness to compromise produced a Republican landslide for the presidency by Reagan's second term. Reagan remained throughout the remainder of his life a conservative, but he was not "a lamb without blemish or spot." Anyone who believes that Reagan was a purist has a bad case of selective memory loss.

When viewing the political candidates and parties we will be faced with in the next two election cycles, I remind every conservative of the Bibilical admonition: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." St. Paul and St. Peter couldn't even agree on whether gentiles could ever become Christians because they were not Jews. So which of those two saints fails the "purity test?" And if one of them fails, does that mean his words should not be listened to, or that his stature should be reduced by the proportion of his failure?

For all these reasons, and many more, I believe the Republican National Committee made exactly the right decision. Now it's time for them to start preparing those general principles which will evolve into the national Republican platform. If the principles are too liberal, they will fail. If the principles are moderate-conservative, they will succeed. But if they are entirely "pure," it will be a disaster of epic proportions. The left knows that and encourages it, even as it derides purity in order to whip up the ultraconservatives and Tea Party members. It's time for conservatives to wake up to the same reality.

The next time you view the driven snow, enjoy its beauty, but don't count on its purity.
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