What happened to the Conservative Party?

This is a little longer than my usual Op/Ed, however I have a lot to say on the subject so please indulge me.  I originally wrote this article several years ago and decided to dust it off and edit it slightly to bring it up to date in light of today’s pre-mid-term setting.  Essentially, if they haven’t already, I want my readers to start considering where we are with conservative choices, if any, and why I think the ‘conservative party’ has let us down, and what we can maybe do about it.  It’s also a reminder to you and me why I adopted a conservative ideology in the first place.

When I was in my formative years in the Boston area, I used to hear my adult neighbors and relatives talk about lots of stuff.  Back in those days, all I was allowed to do was listen, because they used to say things like, “children should be seen and not heard,” etc.  I always despised such comments, however I did listen to the conversations, albeit often forced to do so from a different room. 

The point is, I heard many sides of a lot of issues, and the guy that probably made the most impact on me from what I was able to hear and follow up on was my Uncle Al.  Al was the youngest of my mother’s siblings; he was a tough, rugged, take no prisoners, shot and a beer kinda guy that smoked camel cigarettes, and lots of them.  Al was also a former US Marine, and he was a conservative thinking Republican through and through.  He was a real man, a man’s man, and while he never knew it, because we just weren’t allowed to talk about such things, I loved and respected him probably more than any other male authority in my youth. 

Uncle Al is long gone now, but when he spoke, his words almost always rang true to me and he embodied what I believed the Republican Party was and ought to be; that being the clear thinking party of conservatives that wanted what was best for everyone in the country, and where everyone wanted what was best for the country.  Some years later, I came across written platforms of each party which spelled out precisely how the sides stood on every major issue, be it domestic, foreign, or whatever.  Those platforms have expanded and been modified over the years as new issues have arisen, but the essence has always remained the same.  That is to say, the stated Republican Platforms have always been common sense, logical, and workable as opposed to the Democrat Platforms always looking very touchy/feely with no real substance. 

I’m a free thinker, so I can’t and won’t say that I’ve always agreed with the Republican Platform 100%, however, I do agree with the vast majority of it and very little of the enslaving social programs that the Democrat Platform has or does offer based upon those overheard conversations of years past.  As a result, I have always voted for Republican candidates in just about every election, because I thought that if they called themselves a Republican it meant that they agreed with and stood for that conservative party platform.  I also thought that both parties respected the Constitution; and that might have been, one day, a long time ago, in a faraway place.

But this is now, and I’ve grown up and gotten very involved.  Until this past December when I recognized that as a newspaper publisher, there existed a perceived conflict of interest; I had been an elected, active member of the Palm Beach County, Florida REC.  I attended those meetings and lots of others ad nauseum and never missed one; I also became and continue to be very active with the 912 Movement and The Tea Party, lots of people know me and what I stand for, and every one of them will tell you that I love America and what it stands for. 

Like so many of my friends and associates, I’ve been on the buses to DC and marched up the Mall, I’ve met with candidates and leaders, attended and led meetings, knocked on doors for candidates, wore out lots of shoe leather for the conservative cause, and I got to be a co-host on The Craig Henne Radio Show 3 mornings a week and occasionally still on The Bella Dangelo Show.  

I was even honored during the last election cycle, by virtue of being a member of the press, to moderate a US Senatorial Forum in Daytona, and a whole lot more candidate forums in South Florida after that.  In short, I’ve been doing my best in the cause to get the message out and try to put things back the way the Founders intended.

However, during the 2012 cycle, the party I was faithful to repeated its performance of 2008 by selecting and pushing a ‘moderate’ candidate over much more conservative candidates within its ranks, and that was in spite of We the People, (many of us in the GOP) screaming, marching, writing letters, running for office, getting involved, spending time away from loved ones, and doing all of this stuff, so that the party with the conservative platform….THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, would look among its ranks and come up with a leader that understands and believes in the platform and Constitution.  

Instead, the money guys in the local REC’s, the state party wheels, and all of the power brokers just sat in the proverbial smoke filled rooms, sipping cocktails, patting the white cats in their laps, and laughed at not only We the People, but also the party worker bees that do most of the heavy lifting.  We got the same old, same old, whether We the People liked it or not.  

We desperately need and asked for a man or woman like Ronald Reagan, or dare I say George Washington; someone with grit in their teeth and fire in their belly, that is more concerned with righting the ship than smiling and getting re-elected.  Instead, they tried to force feed us Mitt Romney, a mostly liberal guy from Massachusetts that they called a moderate; although I felt that Paul Ryan was a good running mate.  

Let me inject here that I think most people are confused by the blurry term ‘moderate,’ and think it means somewhere in the middle.  In my view, if one is a Republican ‘moderate,’ it means they’ve gone soft on the platform, and if they’re a Democrat, they’re either lying or they’ve really woken up to their own failed policies.  

Given that in Massachusetts, one is considered a moderate or a conservative if they are not quite as liberal as Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Barney Frank, or Deval Patrick. All of whom are Democrats for sure, but just look at Scott Brown; he may be a Republican, but a conservative he is not.  I’m sorry, but in my book, that old platform keeps coming back to mind; Mitt didn’t and doesn’t stand on it, and neither do most Republicans.

At the end of the day, the Republican party, with the only too willing help of the combined media, have shot holes in those few men and women that do hold true to the original platform; belief in the Constitution, faith in God, and solid conservative values. 

They wrongfully ripped Sarah Palin apart long ago, (SNL had a blast painting her the fool) guys like Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo couldn’t even get off the ground if they’d wanted to, while a few weak and laughable lemmings such as Gary Johnson actually got some early media play, and somehow, unbelievably, his name was actually still on the ballot when I voted in Florida.  Really, that milquetoast dishrag that didn’t and doesn’t understand that islam wants to do us in was on a ballot?!  Geez, I think the republican party needs to do some serious pre-screening.

But now, looking forward, I am really getting bent out of shape because there was a candidate who for the most part, (while not perfect) embodied and believes in the platform that I used to think that all Republicans believed in. 

Senator Rick Santorum, a conservative Republican! Young, bright, good family man, Christian, (a hush falls over the readers) hard working guy from solid immigrant stock; his grandfather came here legally, asked for nothing, and assimilated into the American Fabric. He handled himself well in the debates, he’s wasn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves and call a spade a spade, and he talks the talk of We the People that have been screaming for a real common sense conservative.  

Instead of supporting him, the power brokers in the party and media pretended he didn’t exist, even though his message resonated and he did well in some of the primaries, and actually gave Mitt a run for his money for a while.  

The excuses ranged from the nonsense that he was ‘unelectable,’ didn’t have enough fire in his belly, etc.  In the end, the real reason they didn’t get behind him is that the GOP has sold us out.  That’s right; the old platform doesn’t mean a thing anymore as it barely amounts to a loose guideline these days.  

For the most part, our under 40’s youth, (a lot of whom sit in seats of power) have been fed a pile of socialist, liberal, mush for so long by the pot smoking, acid dropping, aging hippies from the 60’s who have infested the educational system, that they don’t know what real conservatism is.  They were never taught what the Founders really had in mind; they don’t know or care what the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence have to say.  They don’t understand that the country really was founded and based upon Christian fundamentals with religious freedom.  There’s a ton of history to support this to include the writings of The Federalist Papers and the stuff of one of the few legitimate historians of our day, Mr. David Barton. 

All most of our young know about is the latest video game titillation, who won American Idol or Dancing With the Stars, which movie star has ‘come out,’ and all the other pop culture nonsense that has lulled them to sleep.  Ask any High School or College Student even the most basic of questions about our founding and you’ll likely either get a bunch of blank stares or be baffled by some very under educated and ignorant answers.  

It’s not their fault though. It’s mine, and yours, and all of our collective faults for allowing the liberal left to chip away at the fabric of our beautiful society and dumb our youth down so badly that what is right is now called wrong, and what is wrong is now called right.

Fellow Americans; Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and whatever else you may call yourself, if you’re over 40, take a good look around and ask yourself what the hell happened?  If you’re under 40, talk to us that are over 40, read some real history, get a grasp on the reality that this was and could still be a great nation that was founded on solid Christian Foundations, by some really brilliant men and women.  They may have dressed kind of funny by today’s standards, but they were never the less brilliant, and with His help, they built just a great country, I say the greatest the world has ever known.

We need to and can fix this experimental thing called America.  Simply put, we need to realize that it is just like anything else that gets broken; we need to get back to basics and repair it using the same materials it was built with.  Just as a building made of concrete and steel, gilded with marble and glass cannot be repaired with popsicle sticks and Paper Mache, gilded with linoleum and plastic, a country built on a Christian foundation, solid work ethic, and conservative principles cannot be repaired with secular ideology, dependence upon others, and socialism.

We can't let the parties, the media, and academics with their leftist, revisionist agendas get away with this.  At every level of government, demand they give us real fundamental, conservative choices that unashamedly call out to God for guidance.  

Demand that our leaders employ the same common sense to our governmental affairs that we must use in our own homes.  If we don’t and we lose this great country, how can we look our children and grandchildren in the face and tell them we didn’t do anything when we knew what was coming and had the chance to do something?  

Several months after the election, I had the chance to hear Senator Santorum speak at a private gathering and he had a lot to say.  One line he said that I’ll never forget was, “you can’t beat your opponent by becoming your opponent.”  He was correct; we can’t beat the left if we don’t remain right.