Conservatism and the Republican Party

The loss of the GOP in the 2008 Presidential Election, while simultaneously losing many seats, and control, in Congress as well, has the political minds of America trying to determine why such a thing would happen. Since November the pundits have been arguing over what will save the Republican Party from a death similar to that of the Whig Party's a hundred and fifty years ago. Amazingly, the great political scholars did not try to conjure up a story of a dying Democratic Party when the party of the jackass (err, uh, I mean, donkey) were losing, but for some reason this loss suffered by the Republicans have a lot of folks speculating that a death awaits the GOP on the horizon.

To the dismay of those that have been proclaiming that the reason for the Democratic victory in November was because the country is moving left, it turns out that not only is the nation mostly center-right, but that more people consider themselves as more conservative than before as opposed to people who say they are more liberal than they were before.

So much for the "nation moving left" theory.

Jay Bookman, a writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has come up with an even more laughable theory than the one about the U.S. moving to the left. Jay says the GOP has moved so far to the right, it is even too conservative for the people who consider themselves conservative.

Funny thing is, the Conservatives are proclaiming the exact opposite. The RNC showed preference to the moderate candidates in the presidential race, making the candidates that had more conservative opinions "book-ends" during the debates. The GOP leadership is obviously moderate, as well. In fact, the Republican Party has been moving in a leftward direction ever since the end of Ronald Reagan's second term.

If a moderate Republican Party is what it takes to win, then why did a moderate candidate like McCain lose? In fact, in many polls, Republican voters stated they voted for McCain more because Sarah Palin was his running mate, not because of McCain's policies - and guess what? Palin was the more conservative of the two.

The fact is, regardless of what the less understanding "Jay Bookmans" of the world may say, the Republican Party lost not because the GOP has driven itself so far to the extreme right that it alienated non-extreme conservatives, but because the GOP has been moving to the left, and more closely resembles the Democrats of half a century ago, than it does a party the conservatives of America would like to vote for. The Republican Party's platform has become something washed down and unable to stand for anything in particular. If the GOP had a largely conservative platform, the enthusiasm of being a Republican would return to conservatives that are currently feeling like a people without a party.

It seems that the Republicans have forgotten that the conservative platform favors reducing the size and role of the government, supports less government control over the economic rights of individuals and corporations, and believes that too much spending, and too much taxation is harmful to an economy.

If that is too conservative as a whole to some folks, then perhaps they belong in the Democratic Party.

Besides, saying that the GOP has moved too far to the right is ridiculous. That would be anarchy.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

by Douglas V. Gibbs

Conservatives Are Single-Largest Ideological Group - Gallup

Special Report: Ideologically, Where Is the U.S. Moving? - Gallup

GOP too conservative for a conservative country - Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jay Bookman