Dakota Beacon

Last week another mushy moderate Republican bit the dust.

It would appear that the 2010 Tea Party protest against the moderate Republican establishment (RINOs -- Republicans in name only) continues unabated. Dick Lugar, Indiana senator for 36 years, lost his bid for another six year term. He was defeated by Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock in the state Republican primary with (drum roll, please) Tea Party support.

And why not? At heart, most people are conservative. They may not say so, but that is how they behave and live their lives.

Nay sayers pooh-pooh Mourdock’s landslide win over Lugar (60% to 40%) claiming Mourdock can’t win in November. That may be wishful thinking on the part of Democrats and their media toadies.

This is all reminiscent of long-time Republican Senator Robert F. Bennett’s defeat in Utah’s 2010 primary election. It also brings to mind others who rose or fell in 2010. Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist was too moderate a Republican for the electorate and he eventually lost to Conservative Marco Rubio.

Voters don’t necessarily elect candidates to “get things done.” “Getting things done” is clichéd rhetoric; it is more of a problem than a solution. Elected officials keep “getting things done” at voters‘ expense. Whether for appearance sake or to buy votes by bringing home the bacon, “getting things done” is one of the reasons we’re in the sorry economic quandary we find ourselves today. Americans are never safer than when congress is in recess.

Lugar was part of a group of Republican politicians who assume too much. The longer they stay in office, the more moderate they become in their drift toward liberalism.

There comes a time when elected officials develop a sense of entitlement, as if the voters owe it to the incumbents’ seniority to re-elect them. At that point, the incumbent supports measures in order to remain popular with peers on the inside rather than the electorate at home.

That’s what happened to Dick Lugar. He voted with Democrats once too often supporting anti-gun laws, higher gas taxes and bigger government. He even spoke in support of Obama during the 2008 campaign. To him, government was the center of the universe and that was his undoing.

Conservatives don’t compete in elections to win and then compromise with the people who lost. People generally, and by nature, are conservative but Lugar was not. That’s how the Tea Party protest was able to sweep him out of office.

Lugar reached across the aisle and voted with the Democrats time and again. Why are Republicans so willing to reach across the aisle in acts of bipartisanship while the Democrats seldom do? When was the last time Senator Harry Reid or Representative Nancy Pelosi led their party into bipartisan compromise with Republicans when Democrats controlled their respective houses?

Three cheers for partisanship. Thank goodness the conservatives who took the House of Representatives in 2010 stood their ground on principle. Winners don’t compromise with losers. That’s not why they were elected. The losers are more than welcome to compromise with the winners in a spirit of bipartisanship.

Only look to Europe to see the results that true conservatives warned about for dozens of years -- ruination brought about by liberal socialist policies. Why would anyone want to compromise with socialists and liberals and progressives and leftists? Socialism and its fellow travelers must force their doctrines on the public. Freedom, on the other hand, does not impose. It is the natural yearning of all human beings.

Unless America changes course, and she surely must, she risks Europe’s fate.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).