In 2008, many Republicans expressed dismay that John McCain was the presidential nominee. I personally liked John McCain, but preferred Rudy Giuliani. The day after John McCain won the nomination, I delivered a simple yet stern message to the supporters of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani.
Fall…into…line!
In 2010, that message is even more vital.
I don’t want to read one more article about a mythical GOP Civil War. We had one in 1992 when Ross Perot destroyed the Reagan Coalition due to a personal animus toward George Herbert Walker Bush. In 2010, the Tea Party did not go rogue. They went mainstream. They won in Republican primaries. They are Republican candidates.
I detest ideological purity. I care about winning and governing. It is time to fall into line like good, loyal, Republican soldiers.
In Delaware, I probably would have backed Mike Castle. He was a safe, consensus choice. I would not have supported the Tea Party backed candidates in Nevada or Delaware.
I have since gotten to know Sharron Angle personally, and find her to be a lovely human being.
In California and Maryland I did back the Tea Party candidates, and was crushed when Chuck DeVore and Jim Rutledge lost.
I have no love for Carly Fiorina or Dr. Wargotz. Yet like DeVore and Rutledge, I am falling in line behind them with zero strings attached. The goal is to defeat the Twin Barbara terrors Boxer and Mikulski.
In Connecticut, I most likely would not have backed WWE lady Linda McMahon. I am firmly behind her with no reservations whatsoever.
I do not blindly support Republicans or conservatives. I could never support Pat Buchanan, David Duke, Robert Novak (who thankfully kept his bile confined to his media job) or anybody else who bared anti-Semitic fangs or any other kind of racism. Ron Paul is a non-starter. He might not be an anti-Semite, but he is no friend of Israel. Also, his anti-war positions and isolationism fit comfortably into the leftist lunatic wing of the Democratic Party.
This brings me to Kentucky, the one major race where I really have to swallow hard. I have studied Rand Paul. His Israel position is much better than his father. He is totally right on economics and totally wrong on foreign policy. As a presidential candidate like his father was, this is a non-starter. As a senate candidate, he can win the election and then normal conservatives can ductape his mouth when he tries to talk about matters of foreign policy.
The bottom line is that we have our nominees. They went through Republican primaries and won fairly and squarely. Every race is winnable in this climate, and that includes Christin O’Donnell. Remember Ronald Reagan was too old and conservative to defeat Jimmy Carter.
Let the left try to savage Republicans and conservatives. That is what they do.
We cannot and must not turn inward and let the left win.
We Republicans are a family. So whether our nominees are to the right of Christine O’Donnell or to the left Meg Whitman, I love them.
Whether one supports the Conservative Party or the Tea Party, the mainstream right of center party in America is the Republican Party. The primaries are over. Do not vote third party or stay home.
Vote Republican, whether it be governors and senators or judges and city council candidates.
Do not vote blind. Learn about the candidates. Study them closely. There is not one Republican running for any major race that should be a deal breaker.
So to anybody in America who us right of center, 2010 could be our best election since 1994. The left is a mess. Nobody can bring us down except us.
Don’t let that happen.
Republicans must do one and only one thing. Be loyal soldiers. Moderates must support conservatives when they are the nominees and vice versa. It is too late for Delaware to choose a more moderate candidate or California to choose a more conservative one. Our nominees are just fine the way they are.
Republicans everywhere, do one thing and do it immediately.
Fall…into…line!
eric
“In 2010, the Tea Party did not go rogue. They went mainstream.”
Is this what you’re saying at Tea Party rallies?
JMJ
Look, the Tea Party purged anyone they could from the mainstream. If anything, now that they realize they had that power, they wish they had purged more. Yes, in those races where the choice is a Dem and mainstream Republican, the Tea Partiers will hold their noses and vote GOP, just as liberals hold their noses and vote Dem when they have no other choice. In those races where there is a third party Libertarian or conservative, don’t be the least bit surprised to see the Tea partiers vote for that candidate, and in some races this will cause the GOP candidate to lose. The Tea Partiers are not mainstream Republicans, and certainly not Wall Street Republicans. They are more Religious Right, more libertarian, far more protectionist and isolationist, and more just generally more extremelist conservative than the mainstream GOP.
For example: the GOP talks a good talk about immigration but has no real intention to stop it. If anything, they pander to the anti-immigration vote only in order to make life worse for the immigrants and so therefore make their labor cheaper and more abusable. The Tea Party wants nothing to do with that. They want the immigration stopped and reversed.
The GOP talks a good talk about abortion and such, but has no intention of taking that issue off the table. The Tea Partiers want abortion stopped for real.
The GOP wants to tweak entitlements – the Tea Party wants them ended (at least those entitlements they don’t get).
The GOP wants to tweak the tax code – the Tea Party wants a full repeal of the 16th Amendment.
The GOP wants to maintain an ostensibly defense imperialism – the Tea Party wants out of the world’s problems.
It goes on and on. I would not expect these people to just fall in line. The GOP has been saying one thing and doing another for far too long now. The uncomfortable alliance of social conservatism and classical economic liberralism, between nationalists and internationalists, statists and libertarians, was never going to last forever. These people are really world’s apart. The GOP has kept these groups together by ignoring their core concerns, diverting them with uniting enemies. These enemies are showing themselves to be less and less the real enemies everyday. The GOP and movement to the right in general wrecked this country over the past 30 years. After this election the Tea Partiers will quickly learn that the mainstream GOP has once again fooled them. The greater the victory for the Republican party this year, the greater their losses will be in the future.
JMJ