Copyright by James R. Carlson
So, its not the time to take a victory lap (I told you in time) but a time to reflect. The military calls it an After-Action Review (AAR) or Hot Wash; its time to get to the Lessons Learned concerning our performance in the last election cycle.
Chief among the lessons for the GOP in the last election cycle was a failure to focus on the Abortion issue. This failure could have prevented numerous races from being decided on behalf of the Republican candidates. But because we have it drum beat into us that we deal with social/moral issues later and the fiscal issues now, we failed to gain that portion of the electorate who represents the Swing Voter; hence, we lost a few elections we could have won!
It's time to get real. The RNC (Republican National Committee) has been at war with the GOP since the early 1990s. That’s about the time I began working as a volunteer within the local county Republican Party.* It was also about the time when Lee Atwater gave his famous dictum, “We are a Party big enough to include a FEW among us who might disagree with the rest of us.” Taking a page from Mr. Atwater, the RNC decided to take his words and rearrange them saying, ‘We are going to build a Big Tent large enough to include MANY people among us who will disagree with the rest of us.” This perversion of a comment by Ronald Reagan’s campaign chairman is the beginning of the war of the Left against people on the Right within the GOP. Social liberals (aka Moderates and Libertarians) are at war with social conservatives in the Republican Party. This is the war that persists today and which leads to electoral failures as we failed to focus our attention on abortion.
I recall directly being told that we should not deal with the social moral issues this year (1993) and that we should focus on the fiscal issues instead and leave the social issues to next year (1994?). Well, when the next year came along, I was told the same thing. I was told to leave the social issues to next year (1995) and focus on the fiscal issues in 1994. Ad infinitum, this mantra of the left within the GOP continued until I finally got it. The liberal left on social issues in the GOP will never focus on the social moral issues this year; they will always wait until next year. Got it?!
Well, the breaking point for me was when abortion was up for a vote in the U.S. Senate under the Obama era and when conservatives in the GOP were ready to defund the federal funding of abortion. This was met with opposition from the Libertarian/Moderate Left who decided that the social issues were more important than the fiscal conservative issues; they torpedoed the bill and we still have federal funding of abortions. Moderates and modern Libertarians are hypocrites on this and other social/moral issues and can be found continuing their war on conservative values any time they arise. They were more willing to sacrifice their fiscal responsibility so that they might rescue their social liberal ideology. This is how the internecine war in the GOP affects legislation in Washington, D.C., which has impacts elsewhere in elections.
So, to say that Moderates and modern Libertarians are acting on principle is a stretch so say the least. They are like all liberals who seek power and use principles only when it serves their needs. This was true many years ago with legislation on defunding abortion but it has shown itself again in the recent elections.
So, I ask, what does a social liberal/fiscal conservative Moderate or Libertarian in the GOP have in common with a social-moral conservative/fiscal Progressive Democrat? Nothing! The ‘Reagan Democrats’ are ignored by the Moderates and modern Libertarians; and the influence of the ‘Big Tent’ ideology is to defeat as many GOP races as possible! How can we win without the Independent/Swing vote? We can’t. And this is where the left in the GOP is doing great harm, along with their failures in Congress.
Most everyone knows that to win an election, you have to get out your Party base (roughly 33% of voters) and win a majority of the Independent/Swing vote (roughly 17%). This will get candidates to the level of 50% + 1, or a majority win. However, with the Moderates and modern Libertarians, we do not reach out to the Reagan Democrats (social/moral conservatives) who could have something in common with social-moral conservative/fiscal conservative Republicans. We are abandoning the Swing vote all because the left in the GOP is pushing a left-wing social agenda.
With the base vote and independent/swing vote, Republicans can win more elections instead of losing them; many that are on the edge of victory or defeat can become victorious. The left in the GOP is at war with the right in the GOP and we have to curtail their influence and get past their rhetoric if we are to succeed as a Party in the near and distant future.
If anything can be learned from the past election cycle, the GOP failed to focus attention on the abortion issue even though the Polls showed before the election that abortion was a hot topic. We failed to provide leadership on the issue of abortion, reach the conscience of a nation with principles that win (Right to Life, etc.), and we failed to garner the Swing vote that could have tipped the scales on several races locally and nationwide. All this because the GOP is stuck in quandary with the left-wing Moderates and modern Libertarians.
As noted in previous blogs, we have a winning idea that supports the Right to Life of Children and their Mothers. As noted in my book, published more than 20 years ago, we need to champion winning ideas that connect social moral values with fiscal/economic values.* Separating them out as required by the Moderates and modern Libertarians only means electoral failure.
*This blog is taken in part from a book that I wrote and was published for the Travis County Republican Party (TCRP) when I was their Communications Director. I sell this book in electronic form on Amazon.com. In it I show how campaigns can win with Social Moral/Fiscal Conservative values. These are lessons to be learned for all Conservatives in the GOP and are as timely now as they were when I first wrote the book. Get your copy and get past the blockade of liberalism in the GOP and win more elections all across this country as you provide leadership on those values that affect us all.
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