I enjoy Glenn Beck’s commentary a great deal and agree with him more than any other commenter on television, but he’s wrong about the political parties. Likewise, the “libertarian” who sent me an anonymous e-mail last night calling me a Republican shill does not understand me at all.
I’m far from a tool or devotee of the Republican Party establishment, but I am a Republican. I don’t agree with Michael Steele on everything and I certainly didn’t agree with President Bush on everything. Just check this blog for complaints about George W. Bush’s handling of the mortgage crisis long before TARP came around. The party is broken as are many of its major players. But the way to fix it is not by walking away.
When a tree fell on our home a few years ago destroying our roof and some of the trusses, we didn’t abandon the house and try to build again from scratch. When your teenager rebels, acts like a fool and gives you countless sleepless nights, you don’t try to put them up for adoption or kick them out on the streets. When things are broken, we don’t just throw them away. Maybe that’s the mentality we’ve learned over years of excess, but its not the American way.
Our government is broken and our country is ill. But other than the IRS and the tax code, it’s not time to throw the baby out with the bath water. We don’t need to start this great experiment over again.
The problem is people get disheartened with their leaders or disenfranchised by the figureheads and then they shut down or walk away. But this isn’t a restaurant that gave you bad service, there’s not another one to choose from around the block. The way you fix things is from within. And that’s what Conservatives and Libertarians need to do if they want to save the Republic.
I’m more Libertarian or Conservative than Republican. Heck, call me a Federalist if you want. But if I abandon the party because they peed in my cornflakes last year, what can I do to change them? Do you think my voice is louder on the outside or from within? At some point you have to pick your team and make a stand. The coach might need to be changed, the back office might need some adjustments and the quarterback might just plain suck. But that doesn’t mean you jump ship for the division rivals. What the Liberals understand is that a collective voice is louder… so work within the system, change the collective and *then* amplify your voice.
Conservatives, Libertarians and others who understand our Constitution and the responsibilities within didn’t do that last year. We had a fractured primary and a fractured party, and the results are ever so clear. In fact, we failed much earlier than that. We didn’t hold our leaders accountable, didn’t keep our voices loud, and the Contract with America and Conservative Revolution floundered as soon as we took our eye off the ball. We failed to stay connected and keep our politicians honest… and the contrasts between our guys and the left faded away.
Want to make a point to the Republican Party? Redirect your contributions to candidates that live by your values and govern by your principles Then tell the party why. Tell them that as an organization they aren’t living up to your ideals so you had to bypass them with your support. Money talks, and if enough people did that, the weight of the entire party would move. And if you get involved with the people that hold your values, you can propel them to office, pushing your guys to the top and your ideals with them.
Are many Washington Republicans corrupt, misguided or completely and utterly lost? You bet they are. They may be beyond repair, but the party is not. Take a stand, get involved, and make your voice heard. Unless you want to secure even greater powers for the liberal left, the last thing you should do is break away. If you do, you can bet voices like Meghan and John McCain will reshape the party and then the American political system will continually offer the same choice that the 2008 election gave us… Liberal or Socialist. Either way, if those are the choices, we lose. But if we work to change the party from within, we can conform it to the voices that matter to us like Ronald Reagan, Fred Thompson, Mark Sanford or even Glenn Beck.
Anyone whose ever done business with me knows my favorite saying is tried and true. It’s easier to keep a customer than find a new one. The same holds for the party, and the same holds for us. Stay involved and it would easier for the party to conform back to our ideals than to find someone to replace us. Likewise, it would be easier for us to move the party on principles than start something new.
The party may be about power. But if we become the party than the we have the power. Isn’t that what the founders intended in the first place?
This is the best blog post I have read in a long time!!!
This is exactly how I feel!
I agree the GOP needs to be fixed but not thrown away!
I would love to link to this article on my blog… If you have a problem with that please email me!
Feel free to link to it. Thanks Kristen.
I’ve been telling the RNC I’m not sending them any money and why I’m not sending them any money for years.
An Open letter to the Republican National Committee
They don’t listen.
Hershblogger – Eventually the have to listen, otherwise the recent defeats will turn into the ultimate demise of the party. They have to listen or we must all band together and throw the bums out, replacing them with people that will.
BTW, great post you linked there. Too bad the same arguments you made in 2005 can still be made about so many Republicans today.
This is a excellent post but I ‘m afraid I have to disagree with the premise. Let the Republican party die if it must.
I left the party in 1992 when I had the audacity to disagree with President Bush 41 on his breaking his no new taxes pledge and was told I was not being a ” GOOD REPUBLICAN”. I try to be a good AMERICAN and I don’t give two S@#$% about party affiliation. Vote for the person not the party and you will never go wrong.
The Republican party in it’s leadership offices are run by statists who are absolutely baffled by the TEA party rallies that happened all over the country and they should be ashamed. If you talk to enough of them off the record most of them have the same opinion of the grassroots movement that Keith Olberman and Janene Garofolo do, just a bunch of rednecks who are mad. I actually had one GOP Michigan worker tell me that the people in the rallies are at fault for President Obama’s spending because they ” Didn’t donate enough to GOP candidates” ” Where were these people before the election?” this one party worker asked.
With friends like this who needs democrats?
Stop donating to anything other than direct candidates and let the national GOP die. We will be dissapointed in the short term but hopefully a new party will arise in the future to help correct the mistakes that both parties have allowed to happen the past 20 years
Great post!You articulated your thoughts on the Party issue so well.