FR Friend Craig DeLuz sent in this thoughtful commentary, which I wanted to share with you…

21st Century Republicans or 20th Century Democrats?
by Craig DeLuz

“The Republican Party … is a broad party.  There is room in our tent for many views; indeed, the divergence of views is one of our strengths.  Let no one, however, interpret this to mean compromise of basic philosophy or that we will be all things to all people for political expediency.” – Ronald Reagan’s Address to the California Republican Assembly, April 1967

As we approach this weekend, a group of moderates (or liberals) within the California Republican Party have been e-mailing around a proposed platform that they claim will attract more voters to the Republican party, largely because it does not include positions on some of the more contentious social issues. They call it the 21st Century Platform. But, as we gather to vote on a new party platform, it is important to understand that there is a lot more at stake than some antiquated document that nobody reads. At the core of the debate this weekend is whether or not Republicans should jettison some of our more conservative positions on social issues in order to attract more moderate voters to our party.

I will be the first to agree that we need to win elections. However, tossing aside important core values, simply because they are inconvenient is not the way to win. Our party and our nation were founded on doing what is right, not what is popular. Imagine if at the drafting of the 1860 Republican Party Platform they decided, “You know we would stand a much better chance of winning in the South if we got rid of that whole ‘Abolition of Slavery’ plank of the platform.” I wonder what kind of party or even what kind of nation we would have today?

As Regan also said, “Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag.”  Our party platform is that profile. It is a statement of what we believe…What we are willing to fight for. Thus, it should be used as a measuring stick to determine just how high our candidates are willing to fly their “Republican” flag.

This is not to say that if you disagree with any part of the platform you are not a Republican. The fact is, no two people will ever agree on everything. However, if you are a true Republican, one should be able to judge your “Republicanism” by how closely you do align with our party values. In other words, we should at least be able to convict you of being a Republican base on how high you fly your flag. It appears that the “21st century republican” platform does nothing more than shorten that measuring stick in order to allow the more liberal members of our party to look more Republican.

Moreover, it is this lowering of the bar that has Republicans in office thinking that they can get away with increasing the minimum wage, proposing government mandated healthcare with a matching tax on employers, double taxing homeowners to pay for fire protection they already paid for, imposing environmental regulations for which the technology does not yet exist.  ARE THESE YOUR 21ST CENTURY REPUBLICANS?

Make no mistake, these “21st Century republicans” look more like 20th century Democrats when their records are compared to our current party platform. This backing away from our values has caused our base to deteriorate. Therefore, changing our values to make the tent even larger is not the key to electoral victory. I am reminded of a saying I once heard “Making the tent bigger will only attract more clowns.”

Rather, we must do a better job of actually living the values that have made our party great. Smaller government, lower taxes, family values, free enterprise, religious freedom and sanctity of human life; these are just a few of the values that we should be espousing and living as individuals and as a party.

Now is the time to walk the walk, not change the talk. America expects more from us Republicans than what we have given them over the last few years. So let us not offer them less.

Craig DeLuz has been a Republican activist for the last 14 years. He founded the Republican Ethnic Coalition of Sacramento and has served as president of the California Black Republican Council. Currently he serves as President of the Sacramento Republican Assembly and works as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.