Tonight maybe as many as 130,000 Iowans will gather in 1,714 precincts to hear from the candidates from the GOP nominees (or in almost every case, their surrogates), to debate among themselves, and ultimately to cast secret ballots for their candidate of choice.   As this takes place, I find myself as a Republican activist and (at times) leader for nearly a quarter-century wondering what has happened to my party.  I joined the Republican Party because I am a conservative.  I’m a Republican because mine is a party that believes in God, and in moral absolutes.  I am a Republican because my party believes in the principle of natural law, and in the genius of our United States Constitution — a vision for a limited role for government in order to maximize liberty, freedom, risk and reward for all Americans.  I am a Republican because to study the advance of “progressivism” and the increasing size and scope of government in this country, at every level, we are facing a crisis of epic proportions, and I believe the GOP can put forward candidates who will fight to push back against the expansion – in the same dogmatic, obsessive ways that liberals seek to expand it.  I could go on, but this isn’t a “Why I am a Republican” column.

2012 could represent the fourth election cycle in a row where the top of the GOP ticket may be occupied by a Republican candidate who falls significantly short of the kind of nominee I would like to see our party putting forward.  Here in California, in 2006 and in 2010 we had Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman, respectively at the top of our ticket.  While both are personally affable people, the former was bizarrely passionate about all of the wrong things (global warming extremism, socialized healthcare, himself) and the latter appeared to be remarkably dispassionate about everything.  Neither of these nominees for Governor were conservatives — both where moderate.   Whitman, was moderate not only in her ideology, but in her temperament.  In 2008 my party put forward as its nominee Senator John McCain.  McCain’s passion was seemingly contained to those issues around which you could wrap the American flag — mainly foreign policy.  But his record, especially on domestic issues, was literally all over the board.  I stared in stunned disbelief first as my nominee for President rushed to the Capitol to support a massive taxpayer bailout of Wall Street — and as he basically called for the nationalization of home mortgages in a televised debate.  McCain lacked a defining ideology and consistency and you would want from your President.

So as we go into the 2012 election cycle, and the formal process of selecting a Republican nominee for President begins tonight — this conservative is very wary of the potential outcome.  Let me inject into this column that months ago I endorsed Rick Perry, and while I remain hopeful that he will have a strong enough performance in Iowa to carry him forward, the story of his meteoric rise and fall is one for the history books.  I should also throw down that any of our Republican candidates would be a vast improvement over President Obama.  That having been said, it seems like conservatives are prepared to divide their votes in so many ways that another moderate establishment fixture, Mitt Romney, may become our nominee by default (the master-debater has benefitted from the slips, falls and gaffs of the other candidates).  If Romney is the nominee, once again we will be putting forward a non-ideologue as our standard bearer.  Our Republican agenda, if successful,  will not be about returning freedom and liberty to the people, and the need to go after the federal government with a buzz saw.  No, look for Mitt’s standard “we need to run government like a business” prose to come forward.  And let’s not be confused Romney’s ability, in “campaign mode” to produce some fiery rhetoric.  Romney is an experience political actor who knows how to appeal to an audience.  My lamentation relative to Mitt Romney is that while his election would, by definition, mean the end of the Obama Era, it will also represent missed a real opportunity to put a conservative ideologue in the White House.

Let me be clear, the politics of the federal government favor incrementalism —  a running game as it were.  The Constitution was set up so that it really does take a lot of effort to make major changes in our government and its policies.    If we are going to turn this ship around, and start to move American back towards a liberty and freedom oriented society, where the government is truly limited once again, it is going to take a President with the vision, courage and ideological drive to lead our party into this battle.  Say what you will about Romney — but you cannot people the title of “ideologue” on him without being disingenuous.    There are a lot of dynamics that have led us to where we are right now — including Congressman Ron Paul’s effectiveness at connecting with so many voters who have just simply had it with the growth of government under governance from both parties and former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s positive debate performances that obscured his personal moral and ethical lapses until he rose in the polls, to a few also-rans who aspire less to win the White House and more to land a Fox News gig.

At some point conservatives are going to have to figure out how to unify behind a candidate.  In the meantime it looks like I am going to have to mentally gear up to support yet another GOP nominee who may be moderate in both ideology and temperament.  I am preparing to put a new bumper sticker on my car:  “Our oatmeal is better than your rat poison.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 10:09 am and is filed under Blog Posts.