It's Time to Rediscover our Soul

I watched the Republican debate from South Carolina on Tuesday night, as I am sure many of you did also. The thing that I noticed again and again and again is the fact that our party has 10 people up on stage, and none of them can serve as a Republican President.

• John McCain has reinvented himself more times than I care to comment upon. Back in 2000, he was on the Straight Talk Express, and doing all of these ostensibly conservative things. Then, post-2000, he decided that abridging the First Amendment was a good idea with McCain-Feingold, voted against the tax cuts, and found religion on taxes and spending after decided to run a second time.
  
  
• Mitt Romney is the President you cast from central casting. He has the look to be President. He has been a successful businessman. But McCain's quip about changing his views depending on the year and what office he is seeking is no laughing matter. The truth is that he has changed his views on a variety of positions. His Massachusetts health care plan, while market based, still smacks of government intervention.
  
  
• I admire the leadership Rudy Giuliani showed on 9/11. I admire the fact that he has the courage of his convictions to say that he disagrees with the majority of the party on the issue of abortion. But combine that with his views on guns and there isn't much difference between him and Southern Democrats.
  
  
• Mike Huckabee is the one second-tier guy who seems to be gaining traction, particularly with social conservatives and his line about John Edwards in a beauty shop. But there are serous concerns with his record on taxes and he seems to lack the ability to translate his status into supporters and cash...actually kinda reminds me of another former Governor of Arkansas and where he was at this point in 1991.
  
  
• Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, and Duncan Hunter are all solid conservatives who have serious bonafides on issues of life, spending, and security respectively. Roll them into one candidate, and you have a serious contender. Separately, you have three candidates who have problems raising money and profile.
  
  
• Tom Tancredo is a gaffe-prone one-trick pony who has the same money and profile problem as the above.
  
  
• Tommy Thompson is a serious Presidential contender....from the year 2000. He deferred and is running eight-years too late. He seems to be out of touch on the major issues of our time and cannot keep his foot out of his own mouth.
  
  
• And the less we say about Ron Paul the better at this point.

It's no wonder that myself and many other solid conservatives are sitting out at this point, and many of them are waiting to see if this guy or this guy finally jump into the fray.

The problem is not just contained with the Presidential candidates. The problem permeates every level of Congressional leadership. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Bush Administration and Republican leadership have caved on the issue of illegal immigration, giving illegal immigrants amnesty and agreeing to build only 300 miles of border fence (instead of the already Congressionally mandated 900 miles) in exchange for who knows what exactly. And it doesn't even matter what they get in return. The fact of the matter is that the leadership abandoned not only the base, but the majority of the people in this country who want to see tougher sanctions put on illegal immigrants who want to see illegal immigration dealt with in a manner that does not allow for amnesty.

But it doesn't end there. It extends to so much more:

• The defense of indicted members of Congress from certain aspects of investigation, including Democrat Willie Jefferson.
  
  
• As documented by Erick Erickson, the House leadership's insistence on putting Congressman Ken Calvert on the Appropriations Committee.
  
  
• The attempt by the administration and Congress to use the Federal Communications Commission as a blunt force weapon to shut down speech that religious conservatives find disagreeable.

And I could go on and on like this.

The problem with all of these examples is that Republican leadership constantly avoids leading by the examples that gave reason for the electorate to entrust Republican politicians with positions of leadership for so many years; to cut taxes, reduce the size of government, to emphasize personal responsibility and protect our national security. We cannot continue as a party to expect the American people to entrust us with the confidence and entrust us to lead our ship of state if our party cannot be entrusted to stand up for its first principles.

We cannot identify ourselves as the party of fiscal responsibility if our leadership cannot stand up against earmarks and cannot stand up against wasteful spending. Over a year later, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska continues to obfuscate attempts to reform the earmark process in order to save his "Bridge to Nowhere" that will cost millions of dollars for the purpose of patronage to accomplish little in the national interest.

We cannot identify ourselves as the party of national security if we continually and consistently violate the first principles of our laws and our society by continuing to allow for a nearly unregulated flow of illegal immigrants to cross our southern border.

We cannot identify ourselves as the party of smaller government if leaders wish to use a federal regulatory body to impugn upon the First Amendment rights of those who use our airwaves. We cannot identify ourselves as people who protect free speech by continually attempting to curb it. Nor can we identify ourselves as the party of personal responsibility when we say it is the role of government to mandate what can be said over the airwaves "to protect the children" as opposed to putting that responsibility where it belongs with the parents of these same children.

And it is harder and harder to justify other portions of our party platform without running into hypocrisy. Why does our party say that it is important that the Second Amendment be protected on one hand while simultaneously infringing upon the First.

It is time that our party reject those issues that divide us as conservatives, and unite around those core issues that bring together all wings of the Republican Party. We must bill willing to embrace fiscal responsibility, particularly when it comes to eliminating pork barrel projects. We must be willing to reduce the size of government in order to ensure to contain government only in the areas where it belongs. We must protect our national security, in order to protect us from foreign nations and from the presence of illegal aliens. And we must ensure that we are committed to upholding all of our Constitutional rights.

I fear that Republican leadership has too focused on power and electability to focus on political principles. That is what we must find a way to stop.

We must rediscover the soul of the Republican Party, while we still can...