Blogs For Victory

Scott Ramussen has some trenchant comments about the DC GOP and the political scene in general:

To be relevant in politics, you need either formal power or a lot of people willing to follow your lead. The governing Republicans in the nation’s capital have lost both on their continuing path to irrelevance.

The disconnect between D.C. Republicans and Republicans throughout the country has been growing for nearly 20 years, but it became more intense and noticeable during the waning years of the Bush administration.

Perhaps the final straw was the $700 billion bank bailout plan pushed through Congress last fall despite strong voter opposition. For all the furor unleashed this spring by congressional Republicans about President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan, the Bush-era bailouts last fall were approved with virtually no advance notice and no guidelines as to how the money would be spent. Looking back, most voters and nearly eight-out-of-10 Republicans now believe the bailouts were a bad idea.

The April 15 “tea party” protests, viewed favorably by 51% of Americans, were fueled as much by anger at the bailouts as anything else. Many Inside-the-Beltway Republicans chose to distance themselves from the events, and many tea party participants were happy to express their anger at both Beltway Republicans and Democrats…

…The gap between Beltway Republicans and the Republican base is part of a wider gap between the Mainstream and the Political Class. On many issues, the gap between Mainstream Americans and the Political Class is bigger than the gap between Mainstream Republicans and Mainstream Democrats.

But Political Class Democrats control Congress and the White House while their GOP counterparts have little in the way of power and influence to overcome the disconnect with their base. One immediate result of this is that senior senators like Arlen Specter and John McCain now are facing primary challenges. Other challenges may follow. It used to be possible for Republicans in Washington to argue that they needed someone like Specter or McCain to hang on to the majority but no longer.

Look for the Republican Party to sink further into irrelevancy as long as its key players insist on hanging around Congress or K Street for their ideas. The future for the GOP is beyond the Beltway.

It is, as the great Ronald Reagan once pointed out, a time for choosing. In that year of 1964, Reagan pointed out the stark differences between the conservative, Republican worldview and the position of the liberal Democrats and their “less-of-the-same, go-along-to-get-along” Republican fellow travelers. The net result of that election was, of course, a complete wipe-out of conservative, Republican ideals at the polls. I mean, our defeat that year was positively embarrassing. But it was ok – we eventually carried those exact principles into the White House and by them saved America, preserved liberty and destroyed the USSR. We conservatives are now faced with a the same opponents Reagan faced – those liberal Democrats and their “can-I-be-your-friend-Barack” RINO fellow travelers. We can only beat them by reaffirming the core principles of conservative Republicanism and then fighting like mad – as the Gipper did – to enact them into law.

There are some good men and women in the Congressional GOP – but they seem too cowed by those members of the caucus who want to get along with our opponents. As I noted earlier, it seems that Orrin Hatch (R?-UT) wants to scratch Toomey from the GOP lists in Pennsylvania and find a “Beltway-Approved” candidate to take on Arlen Specter. Toomey is the man who would have rid us of Specter in 2004 except Specter prevailed upon the GOP – including President Bush – to back him to the hilt. Toomey is the instrument by which we exposed Specter for what he really is and got him out of the party. Toomey is the clear favorite of the Pennsylvania GOP…and Hatch is at least implying that if Toomey is the GOP nominee, the Beltway GOP won’t back him. What kind of nonsense is that?

The kind of nonsense the powerful are used to imposing on us. They are instructing us not to get too above ourselves and, also, that if we want to win we need to find people who will stab us in the back after the election is over. This is Beltway logic – but it is betrayal of the people of the conservative, Republican movement who pour out their sweat and treasure in the hopes that the leftist tide will be turned back for good. There is no point in winning if “winning” means enacting Democrat-lite policies. Democrats like Democrat policies, and that is fine – let them run on them and, if they win, enact them into law…more power to them and God bless them all…but we’re conservative Republicans and we want to not only run on conservative, Republican principles, we want to govern on them, when we win. Anyone who can’t be part of this had better hit the road, as far as I’m concerned. We don’t need people who don’t have the heart to fight.

Do keep in mind that conservative, Republican principles cover a lot of ground – there is, indeed, the Big Tent of Ronald Reagan…but this Big Tent does have some rules, among them are that taxes shall be low, budgets shall be balanced, gun ownership shall be an individual right, worship shall be free, national defense shall remain strong, the people shall rule themselves in their local communities, the judges shall be strict constructionists…you can be pro-choice and be part of the movement. Heck, you can be in favor of abortion, gay marriage and environmentalist whackoism and still be part of the movement…as long as you don’t want to force the States and the people to keep abortion legal, enact gay marriage and be green if they don’t have a mind to do so in their States and local communities. What you can’t be is someone allegedly pro-life, anti-gay marriage, anti-environmentalist who then goes and cuts us off at the knees by voting for some ridiculous tax and spend liberalism, or who votes to approve a judge who wants to impose liberalism via judicial fiat, or who allows himself to be stampeded by MSM shouting into some unwise, but fashionable, course of action. Better ten Giulianis in the Senate than one Specter.

The Beltway GOP had better sit up and take notice – Specter is just the first RINO we’re forcing out. The rest will go, too, unless they mend their ways right quick. We’re not asking anyone to abandon what they consider core principle – heck, we’d be insulted if anyone asked us to do that – but if you claim to subscribe to a principle then you’d better darn well do so, whatever the immediate, personal, political consequences. And if your core principles don’t extend to limited government, individual liberty, local control and the rest then there is a party for you – it is called the Democrat party. Get on board, or get out; that is the stark choice for all RINOs.