PENCE FOR PRESIDENT

 

 

 

Rudy Takala
November 16, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

“We didn't just lose our majority. I believe we lost our way."

So said Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) in announcing he would run for minority leader of the House Republicans. He is the only prominent member of government who realizes this, and who, like many of us, has foreseen it for years. Pence heads the Republican Study Committee (RSC), a group of over 110 House Republicans who promote, among other things, “a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government.” The other Republicans in the House obviously don’t agree with that idea.

Pence’s statement that Republicans didn’t just lose their majority was accurate. It would be even more precise to state that conservatives certainly didn’t lose the election. I have no regret for the senators who were lost on November 7th. None seemed to be particularly conservative out of principle. Mike DeWine of Ohio was an F- senator on immigration, according to many pro-legal immigration groups. Rick Santorum, for those who remember, in 2004 endorsed the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual Senator Arlen Specter in a primary against Pat Toomey, who is now president of the Club for Growth. Specter won by about 16,000 votes out of a million cast. If anything, Santorum did simply what he thought would help him win.

Perhaps most tellingly, it has also become news that Lincoln Chafee, the senator from Rhode Island, is considering switching his party affiliation from Republican to something else, possibly Democrat. He’s explained that he stayed with the Republicans because it helped to get more pork dollars spent on his state.

The only elected Republican outside of Pence who seems to notice the change that conservatives want to see is John McCain. As usual, he’s a step ahead of his colleagues in figuring out what people want to hear. Of course, he also has a track record of outlawing free speech and working with Lieberman to outlaw gun ownership (2001). In contrast, Pence opposed No Child Left Behind, Bush’s plan to nationalize education. He opposed, with 24 other conservatives in the House, including Pat Toomey, Bush’s socialist Medicare plan. Pence has a 7% lifetime rating from the ACLU. McCain has a 29% rating. You figure out which one is the conservative.

While I don’t agree with Pence’s entire record (I’d estimate 7% of it), I know that his mistakes are principled. He believes in what he votes for, and doesn’t act simply for the sake of getting elected. He doesn’t abuse his power to promote himself.

Conservatives never lost their majority. I am still a conservative. But I am glad that Democrats won in 2006. Two more years of a unified government would have resulted in more spending, increased debt, and higher deficits. So long as Republican politicians are too irresponsible to govern on their own, they must have mitigating guidance. Unfortunately, the only alternative available is the Democrats. So long as Republicans act like liberals, conservatives will continue to reject them. If we wanted liberals, we would vote for Democrats.

Now that many Republican liberals have been felled, liberalism in the Republican Party has been weakened, and it is possible to deal it another serious blow. We can do it now – or we can allow liberalism to fester, and it will be a McCain-Gingrich ticket in 2008. In that case it will be a liberal socialist who believes in government interventionism running with a morally depraved Machiavellian pragmatist. Such men will not inspire a vote against Barack Obama, and liberalism will again be the downfall of the Republican Party. If people want liberalism, they are not going to vote for Republicans. It is unfortunate that certain Republicans continue to claim it works that way.

I suspect the problem is not that Republicans really believe they’ll get more votes for acting like Democrats. The problem is that many Republicans really are liberals – they just don’t want to admit it, and they use the excuse that liberalism makes them popular as cover.

Mike Pence – or at least the philosophy of liberty that he embodies – is the last best hope for the freedom and individualism that America’s founders once sought to bestow upon their posterity. Call your member of Congress at 202-225-3121 and let them know you want Pence for minority leader. Without him, the Republican Party is useless. In that case, you can let your Republican Congressmen know you’re on to the fact that, like Chafee, they’re just in it for the money – your money.

You can visit the Website at Penceforminorityleader.com. Another Website, one that reminds me why I became interested in politics, is Pence08.com. It is time to stop disgracing Reagan’s memory by associating it with the sleaze of the current Republican establishment, and to reassert the authority of conservatism.

© 2006 Rudy Takala - All Rights Reserved