Race for the Republican Nomination (Part 2 of 3): What We Demand
By Ken Falkenstein | Monday, September 12th, 2011 | Politics
Yesterday, in Part 1 of this series, I explained that after years of Republicans at the highest levels betraying our core conservative principles, the Republican base this year is insisting on certain specific qualities in our presidential nominee for 2012. Here are our specific demands:
1. We want a principled conservative who espouses conservative principles with passion and conviction.
2. We want our candidate to have a background of executive leadership that not only qualifies him for the presidency but instills confidence that he will be effective in advancing the conservative agenda.
3. We want our candidate to understand the Constitution, pledge to follow it, and advocate the wisdom of its limits on government.
4. We want our candidate to be able to articulate conservative principles in a way that makes those ideas not only understandable to the American people but appealing to them.
5. We want our candidate to recognize that we face extraordinary problems that can be met and overcome only through the bold and confident application of conservative ideas.
6. We want a candidate who believes that America is a great and good country because our founding principles are correct and wise.
In short, we want a candidate in whom we can place our confidence as the leader of our cause to reverse the programmatic statism of the past eighty years, repair the enormous damage left in its wake, and restore our country to greatness by applying our country’s historic and fundamental principles of limited government, individual rights, and personal responsibility.
The pundits tell us that Republican voters are unrealistic, that we are expecting perfection that can never be achieved.
The pundits are wrong: Republican voters do not expect perfection. We expect sincerity.
And we know it’s achievable because we have previously achieved it:
In 1980, we elected Ronald Reagan to the presidency. He won by espousing conservative principles as the solution to the mess left behind by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. He won on those ideas because the American people knew they could trust him: He had been advocating those ideas for decades as a public figure and as Governor of California. He implemented those principles by enacting an across-the-board tax cut that resulted in the longest peacetime economic expansion in history. And he pulled America out of its post-Vietnam and post-Watergate funk by consistently articulating his positive and optimistic vision of America as “a shining city on a hill” and, while leftists were predicting that our best days were behind us, assuring us that it was actually “morning in America.” Ronald Reagan wasn’t perfect, but he was sincere and effective, and he succeeded in restoring America.
After Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, proved not to be sincere and principled and led America into a recession by breaking his promise not to raise taxes, another great conservative leader emerged. Newt Gingrich had served as the Republican Minority Whip under Minority Leader Bob Michel, the latest in a long series of Republican leaders who had given up on ever winning a majority and were content to merely get along with the entrenched Democrat majority. Gingrich boldly declared that a Republican majority was achievable by nationalizing the congressional elections around a series of conservative ideas encapsulated into a Contract with America. And in 1994, the voters, fed up with check-kiting scandals and efforts by Democrats to socialize the health care system, responded by sweeping Republicans into power after forty years in the wilderness. In fact, when Newt Gingrich assumed the speakership in January 1995, only one of the 435 members of the House of Representatives had served in Congress the last time the Republicans had held the majority (Democrat John Dingell, who graciously swore in Gingrich as Speaker). Newt Gingrich wasn’t perfect (as subsequent events would prove), but he was sincere and effective, and his Republican majority succeeded in restoring America by forcing Democrat President Bill Clinton to cooperate with their conservative agenda, which resulted in years of the most vibrant economy in American history.
So, no, Republican voters are not being unrealistic in looking for a candidate who is a principled, sincere, qualified, dependable leader who can restore our country and inspire its people. Such leaders do exist and have arisen when their party and country needed them most. Republican voters know that we desperately need such a leader now and are not going to be content with anything less.
One, and only one candidate, has emerged in this election cycle who might meet the demands of the Republican base. That candidate is the subject of Part 3 of this series, coming tomorrow.
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About the author
Ken Falkenstein has been a staffer in the United States Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates. He has managed political campaigns. He was a military intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army in West Germany during the Cold War. He is currently a civil litigation attorney with Poole Mahoney, P.C. in Virginia Beach. But his concern for his kids' future is what most informs his writing.
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Comments
13 Responses to "Race for the Republican Nomination (Part 2 of 3): What We Demand"
Yes, I agree. Only one candidate has emerged that is willing to step into the ring of fire and tell the American people the truth about SS, just for starters. Rick Perry not only excites the base, but he has done quite well with the independents as well. He can and will make Obama a one term president.
Can’t wait to see and hear him speak on Wednesday at the luncheon.
Is Part 3 where Allen (Conservative.. lol!) gets the authors endorsement?
Maybe someone will ask Perry about his Texas leadership role, as a democrat, in Al Gore’s campaign for President?
Chameleons for President! JUST WHAT WE NEED. Yes, Perry is a “principled conservative.”
If the “base” is excited about him, the base is uninformed.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 2,143,887 times, shame on me.
Perry is running as “smooth-talking Ron Paul with a nice hairdo.” As soon as he is elected, his principles will be nowhere to be found, just like Bush I, Bush II, and even Obama.
Ken,
Excellent series and I can’t wait to read Part 3. However, the problem in nominating a Republican who meets the criteria you outline is that it will be very difficult for him to garner the moderate Independent votes needed to win. (The “waverers” as my good friend valentinus calls them. I love it when liberals or conservatives characterize moderates as “indecisive.”) The problem is precisely what you pointed out with the election of Reagan. A reliable conservative like him can only get the “waverer” vote when they are fed up with a string of corrupt and inept chief executives like Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Are we there yet after Bush 43 and Obama? Only time will tell, but right now the only candidate who out-polls Obama is Mr. Generic Republican. The Independents want a change from Obama, but they apparently haven’t seen the one they will vote for yet, with the possible exception of Mitt Romney and he will never get the support of the conservative base, anymore than Nelson Rockefeller ever could.
Perry is the anointed candidate of the powers that be. When are we going to support an individual who is not just another puppet?
Besides, Perry already proved he is a pretender when he caved on the TSA issue in Texas. Talk is cheap.
NAR,
Just out of curiosity, how did “the powers that be” push Perry to the top of the polls? Unlike the Iowa Straw Ballot, you can’t buy the Gallup Poll. I’m not a fan of Rick Perry, but your conspiracy theory just doesn’t pass the Giggle Test.
HisRoc,
I used the term “waverers” not in the sense of indecisive but as people between the bases and willing in principle to vote for either base’s candidates should they appeal; i.e. waver irregularly to one side or the other. They may have a rigid set of criteria that cut across the two parties (for example anti abortion but pro govt spending or pro abortion and strong national security etc.) “Independents” is somewhat misleading since some independents are really members of the respective bases who don’t feel the parties are good enough to belong to. For example Sean Hannity is a registered Conservative rather than Republican I believe. The base I consider unwavering in their allegiance. They may not turn out to vote but they won’t turn out to vote for the opposition candidate.
I agree there must be a better term than “waverer” but I can’t think of it at the moment
HisRoc says The Independents want a change from Obama, but they apparently haven’t seen the one they will vote for yet, with the possible exception of Mitt Romney and he will never get the support of the conservative base, anymore than Nelson Rockefeller ever could.
It is necessary to remember that Romney Was supported by the conservatives in 2008 so I don’t think the situation is quite comparable with Rockefeller. You hit the nail on the head with your point about Reagan. Conservatives now feel that the voters will go for a more conservative candidate than was possible in 2008 so they have shifted the goalposts a bit. Still, I don’t think they will throw Romney overboard particularly if he selects a Tea Party type for Veep.
valentinus,
Sorry, I couldn’t resist poking a finger in your eye.
Dogmatic idealists of both ends of the spectrum find swing voters disconcerting. But it is not so much that we have rigid criteria that cut across both major parties, we just don’t have any fixed litmus tests upon which a candidate can be arbitrarily rejected. We don’t waver so much as we compromise. In the worst cases, we “hold our nose and vote.” Idealists view that as being unprincipled. We view their intransigence as being uncritical.
As for Romney picking a Tea Party type for VP, that didn’t work out so well for John McCain in 2008. He convinced a host of Independents with the selection of Caribou Barbie that he was unqualified to be President. If Romney picked Michele Bachmann, then he would suffer the same fate.
BTW, Ken deserves the credit for the point about Reagan. He was absolutely right. Reagan couldn’t win the nomination in 1976, much less the general election. After four years of Carter, he was a shoo-in for both. The question is will the Republican base choose to lose while holding to their principles or choose to nominate a candidate who can beat a sitting President? Rick Perry is no Ronald Reagan.
Didn’t mean Bachmann.
I was just mostly agreeing with your view that many middlemarchers (grin)” have quite decided views on things. Some people Are politically indecisive or muddled but they probably comprise 3 or 4% of the electorate not the 40% who self describe as neither liberal or conservative.
I do disagree that “independents” compromise any more than the base does at election time. It’s just that their compromises occur between parties rather than within parties. (in many elections the distance within the party is as great as the distance between the two candidates. I’m sure the base subjectively feels that they are compromising more because they have a predisposition not to. It is less of an issue with voters not tied to either base and they are just able to embrace it rather than hide it.
You didn’t mean Bachmann? OMG, I hope that you’re not thinking about someone along the lines of Christine O’Donnell or Allen West! Of course, Joe Miller is available and he doesn’t even need his own computer. He just uses everyone else computers when they are out for lunch.
Ha Ha. Christine O’Donnell is ok but give me Elizabeth Montgomery. When I say tea party type I mean some qualified candidate the Tea Party folks (really the conservative base)would view favorably for VP e.g. Rubio, McDonnell, DeMint, Jindal etc. (or at least I think they would).
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