Subtitled, a comment which deserves a post.
On my mullings the other day about a Maryland General Assembly leadership fight I got a comment from Anne Arundel County political observer Jerry Shandrowsky. He noted:
You talk about demanding “some ideological purity among Republicans.” I think you really want blind partisanship.
Well, let's assume for this argument that the reason a political party comes into being is that the adherents share a particular philosophy. In American history there have been numerous political parties, with some being so narrowly tailored that they basically focused on one issue (like the Prohibition Party, which is still around but is far removed from its heyday a century ago.) But the most successful parties have a much broader palette of issues they address, normally guided by a desire for some sort of social change. As examples, the Communist Party wishes to install a Soviet-style collectivist system of government, the Libertarian Party places a value on personal freedom and tends to promote isolationism as an extension of that, and the Green Party stresses environmental issues. It goes without saying that I'm not down with every aspect of the GOP platform, which was last revised prior to the rise of the TEA Party movement. In turn, though, there arguably would not have been a TEA Party movement had it not been for the dramatic shift in governance after the 2008 election.
Certainly I've been disappointed with Republicans before, and toeing the party line is often difficult when their highest vote-getter is not where I am philosophically (see McCain, John or more locally Gilchrest, Wayne or Ehrlich, Bob.) At that point I have to concede the aspect of moving the ball forward and simply hope not to lose a whole lot of ground, weighing the electability factor in. But I really, really hate having to vote against someone.
Yet there can be exceptions. There have been times where I've strayed from the GOP reservation to vote for what I saw as a more conservative alternative - yes, I was a Perot voter and there was a scenario I could have voted for a conservative Democrat over a moderate Republican last year. (It didn't come to pass, though.)
So let's look at an ongoing process I'm still working on - that of selecting a 2012 Presidential candidate to support. I'm going issue-by-issue trying to find statements and other ways candidates have addressed issues important to me. None of them have been perfect, and it's interesting to note the wide variance in philosophies in the race. We have Republicans who veer left on a number of issues who are among the bottom-feeders. Others with a more libertarian streak score highly in some areas but fall well short in the area of foreign policy because I don't tend to be an isolationist.
What I'm finding is that those candidates who are TEA Party favorites tend to score the highest, which is why Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain are doing the best. (Bear in mind as well that I haven't graded Rick Perry, although I suspect he may fall somewhere in a group just below the top tier based on what I understand about his immigration stance - on the other hand he's not a favorite of the establishment and that will help him in my eyes.) These are candidates who believe in limited, Constitutional government where decisions are made away from Washington, D.C. Of course, promises may not bring results but at least this is a way to separate the wheat from the chaff and (in most cases) the records don't lie. (Obviously this makes a Cain candidacy somewhat of a crapshoot.)
Now consider what I said in my post about the Maryland General Assembly Republicans. Unlike the party leadership fight we had last December, where we had the debate over what philosophical direction the Maryland Republican Party needed to take and by proxy who would best lead them there, I didn't have the chance to look at what was being said by the candidates. In this case I could only look at the way those in the running voted, so I did.
Unlike that party leadership election, I don't have a ballot in the House GOP delegation's process. Certainly I can encourage Delegates to make the proper decision but they make the call.
Now distill the TEA Party philosophy I've exhibited in my Presidential choice down to the leadership race. There are two candidates for each position, and in both cases one has voted as I would quite a bit more often than the other. If I'm concerned about the direction the Republican Party takes, wouldn't I support those who vote in the manner I believe exhibits the philosophy of limited government the best? Why would I elect a leader I only agree with 50 to 70 percent of the time when I could have one I agree with 80 or 90 percent?
There's no doubt I'd like the Maryland Republican Party to be a strong and viable force in state politics, and it's my contention that we should be the conservative alternative to liberal, big-spending Democrats who love the nanny state. Leadership which can't be counted on to stand firm to principle is worse than no leadership at all, and that's the concern I expressed.
But when push comes to shove I'm a conservative first and a Republican second. I really hate it when I have to compromise because most of the time our side ends up losing valuable ground we had maintained prior to the compromise. Think of it as the reverse of "pushing back the frontiers of ignorance," as Walter E. Williams likes to say.
We need to take a page from the other side - they never stop trying to usurp our freedom. If they can't win an election, they'll use the judiciary system. If they can't pick the judge, their bureaucracy will govern by fiat. If their bureaucracy can't impose its will they'll mislead voters into electing them by prosing "hope and change" or to "drain the swamp." And so the vicious cycle continues.
I say it's time to reverse course. If you're on the edge of a cliff facing forward, you'd better believe "R" is a better alternative than "D."