The purpose of a political party is not electing its own party members to a majority of public policymaking positions. The purpose of a political party is to see the policies that are espoused by that party enacted at the various levels of government. In the case of the Republican Party, it means that there is a serious challenge ahead of the GOP where Washington, D.C. is concerned. With a 
Republican President and GOP majorities in both houses of Congress, we have seen unprecedented growth in the size and scope of the federal government. So while the electoral mission of the Republican Party has been a success, Republicans are failing in the most important area — bringing our core vision of limited government and individual responsibility into public policy. On the contrary, while the Republican Party continues to wrap itself in the messaging that elected Ronald Reagan, the cold, hard reality is that the GOP has presided over largesse.
What is the solution? Well, one solution is for the Republican Party and its ancillary committees (The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee) to start to pay attention to which Republicans are rebuking the major planks of the GOP platform. There needs to be a paradigm shift so that party registration does not mean the party supports your re-election. Or maybe better said — if a candidate for Congress, incumbent or no, had best be loyal to their party is they want their party’s loyalty to them. It’s a two-way street.
I can think of no better example of a Republican circular firing squad than this week’s debacle in Rhode Island. Look at the incumbent Republican – Lincoln Chafee. He supports pork spending like it’s going out of style, opposes repeal of the death tax, won’t sign a no-new-taxes pledge, supports hiking wage mandates on employers, has voted for price controls, opposes school choice, voted for that horrific McCain-Feingold campaign muck bill, and the list goes on. Let’s see — he voted against confirming Justice Sam Alito, and he publicly acknowledges writing in President Bush’s father’s name on his ballot rather than voting for the President. Every time there is a major initiative put over to the Senate from the House, Chafee balks. He really is not a Republican in anything but party registration. When we talk about why we cannot seem to get major items like tax relief and real spending reform onto the President’s desk – this guy is a major part of the problem.
**There is more – click the link**
September 14th, 2006 at 12:00 am
“The purpose of a political party is to see the policies that are espoused by that party enacted at the various levels of government.”
Two sentences into your commentary Jon and I can tell you, and I would not be alone, that if that is the purpose of our Republican Party, then the Party has failed at all levels.
It’s nice when Republicans will rally to the side of someone who stands for Republican values, but all to often the cult mentality takes over and makes villians out of anyone who dares suggest trying to hold GOPigs (nice term, BTW) to account for being whores for big government, illegal immigration, etc. It’s not just the legislators like the Lincoln Chafees or Jerry Lewises and David Dreiers or Keith Richmans or Abel Maldonados, its the chief executives that sign crap legislation into law and then expect every Republican to turn out and vote out of cult loyalty.
And yes, that means for us, Schwarzenegger and Bush.
It is the Party that uses both those men as rallying points to Republicans about why they need to vote GOP to support less government, blah blah blah, but the same Party, as you say Jon, fought tooth and nail against Steve Laffey and for Chafee, and tried to prop up liberal Republican Steve Huffman over conservative Randy Graf in that open House seat in AZ. Thank God the good guys there prevailed.
And surely I need remind no one of the screwjob orchestrated in 2002 by Bush-appointed CRP putz Gerry Parsky who himself controlled (not the elected CRP chairman) and doled out thousands not to the statewide GOP candidates with the best chance of winning (McClintock, Simon) but to the ones with the most liberal streaks, who also managed to tally the lowest vote totals.
Its not just our loser officeholders, its the loser Party leadership, too that perpetuates these problems.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Dear Jon,
Thank you for your website. I think you are keeping everyone in California informed about the political issues of the day. Excellent job!
With that said, this latest attack on Senator Chafee is beyond the pale. The zealotry exhibited by those on the far right when it concerns the re-election of Senator Chafee begins to border on the absurd and, at worst, the hypocritical.
Let’s take your accusation that the senator is a supporter of “pork spending like its going out of style.” Under the leadership of the radical right wing of the party, both in the House and the Senate, and under a president who is anything but a moderate Republican, your guys have increased discretionary non-military spending (read social spending) at a level that only rivals Lyndon Johnson. This compares to President Reagan who downsized non-military spending by 1.4% per annum and President Clinton where it increase by 2.1% per annum. Under President Bush and the radical right wing, government non-military government spending went up by 4.8% per annum.
The numbers get worse when you look at government spending when you compare it to the size of the economy. Under Clinton, government spending as a portion of the entire economy fell from 21.4% to 18.5%. Under our “conservative Republican” leadership in the Congress and the White House, it went up from 18.5% to 20.3% in 2005. Nice job guys.
Linc Chafee did vote against the president on tax cuts, just like John McCain. I think they were both wrong. The tax cuts are one of the few Bush policies that I can support. But, let’s not rush and make such a simplistic judgment on their vote against the president’s tax cut. Their intention was not to raise government spending, but was to support a sound conservative value, it’s called a balanced budget. Remember that idea… I know that our Vice President thinks that deficits don’t matter, but, for those of us who are not Keynesians, they do!
So enough of the attacks that Chafee is a big pork spender…
Onto foreign policy. Yes, he does not support the president’s foreign policy. Again, though, his foreign policy viewpoint is grounded on solid conservative principles. Conservatives were realist in the arena of exterior relations. Conservatives did not join foreign adventures to plant the seeds of democracy around the world. It was the liberal wing that did that…remember President Wilson. When did it become the conservative thing to do to presume that we could begin to act as an empire? I am not saying Bush is wrong, but don’t say that Chafee is not a conservative or a Republican because he does not support foreign adventurism. If the real accusation is that Chafee does not rubber stamp everything the White House sends down the road, then yes, he is guilty as charged. He is a United States Senator—not some party hack.
Warm regards,
Eric Siddall
September 14th, 2006 at 12:00 am
The purpose of a political party is not electing its own party members to a majority of public policymaking positions. The purpose of a political party is to see the policies that are espoused by that party enacted at the various levels of government.
Well said Jon.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I receive frequent contributions’ solicitations from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. My stock answer is “I refuse to contribute because of your support of Lincoln Chafee”. Every Republican should act the same way. Let us starve the NRSC!