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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

SALLY MORRIS: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON PROBATION

As we begin a New Year, let us in America begin a new chapter in our history and finally leave behind the fiscal disorder which has hampered us since the New Deal of the 1930’s.  This will be the path toward sanity and away from the certain self-destruction of a great nation and a way of life.  This new direction is what the American voters ordered on November 2.
The Republican Party and its leadership must – at least for now - be the vehicle for this rescue effort.  The weight of this responsibility cannot be escaped by the people we’ve sent to Washington and entrusted with this sacred mission.  They have a mandate.

The election has given many of us hope for our future.  Don’t just assume all will be well, however.  The bad news is that the “newbies” are going to be severely challenged by a deeply entrenched establishment.  The evils we are trying to overcome are not the exclusive domain of either major political party.

One look at the appointment of Congressman Fred Upton to Chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee by apparent Speaker-to-be John Boehner should reveal to everyone the rocky road ahead for serious Conservative reform.  Upton, you will recall, led the passage of the ban on incandescent light bulbs, thus forcing the American consumer to purchase the inferior and  harmful mercury light bulbs and depriving us of the choice Americans have always enjoyed in the marketplace AND AT THE SAME TIME DESTROYING MANUFACTURING.  In order to regain the good graces of the ascendant Boehner, Upton has recanted his earlier position and says he will now call for repeal of the legislation banning the bulbs, which he supported before.  Now, what kind of guy does this?  An upstanding man who believes he has a legitimate cause or a deeply held conviction?  Or just an opportunist who’s willing to sell out?  Either this man believed in his cause – rightly or wrongly – and supported the ban, or he just rode atop what he thought was the “tide”.  Do we need a man like this in a position of importance on a committee treating on the sensitive topics of energy and commerce?  I would think Upton had done enough in that area.  Out of – how many Republican Congressmen? – Boehner picked this man to head up Energy and Commerce.

I think we all know just where Congressman Upton stands and just exactly what kind of a bozo he is.  Now we are getting a better idea of just what John Boehner is.  It might be worth looking at unseating him as Prospective Speaker in view of this shocking lapse of judgment.  Just what can we expect in the future from Fred Upton?  Or John Boehner?  Could not Boehner have found someone else – maybe a newly elected member of Congress?  Maybe someone who might have personal expertise in this area, or maybe someone from an energy-producing state – someone who might just know something about it and/or potentially care?

This, sadly, seems to be symptomatic of the decay that has been working its way through the party’s system since Robert Taft lost his first presidential bid in 1940.  If this degeneration cannot be halted and reversed within the next two years we are gong to find ourselves in  new and uncharted territory, for we will have witnessed the demise of the Grand Old Party and find ourselves in the midst of a new re-alignment of our political leadership.

What I am speaking of is nothing short of a political earthquake.  We shall be well beyond “crisis’ at that point.  We might be said to be in a “crisis” right now, as of this writing – a crisis from which we might yet emerge victorious in the next two years.  If we do not, if we see what many fear will be a fat and sated Republican Party leadership ranging about in search of earmarks and making deals, misconstruing its role, misreading the mandate handed them by the American electorate - those among us who have been calling for a third party will then appear to be proven right.

If this happens it will indeed be a tragedy.  It will signify defeat through a kind of treachery, however benignly meant, of “false advertising”, or more bluntly – fraud,  Whoever leads the Republican resurgence must owe his loyalty not to senior Party hacks but to the citizens.

The Republican Party is truly on probation with America.  Conservatives have stayed the course. They have loyally supported Republican candidates and elected them to high office.  They did so for a reason.  They want real reform, not just a changing of the guard while the looting goes on behind closed doors.  The Republican Party asked for a chance to prove itself, in effect.  Now the leadership must do that.  

The way to provide leadership for reform is NOT to appoint people with a track record such as Fred Upton’s to chairmanships in the House or Senate.  We know all about Fred Upton.  Over a long career in the House he has entered 80-some votes consistent with the Green agenda.  The light bulb thing wasn’t a fluke.  Does John Boehner really believe Upton has had a change of heart?  Does he just think we will believe it and he can get away with it, or does he bank on the Americans who went to the polls in November losing interest now that the election is over?  Of the three, perhaps the worst would be the last.  No Republican leader should be allowed to believe that.  At this point, it would appear that John Boehner has little respect for the will of the American voter.  This could be disastrous in a Speaker of the House.

What we must all do for the next 24 months is watch what is going on; ask your Congressmen questions.  Keep track of how your guy votes – every day.  If we leave these people to their own devices until 2012 we will surely be disappointed.  The only thing we can do now is to be vigilant and to communicate – with each other and the media and with those we elected to office.  A good place to start might be with John Boehner and his appointments.  We need to become informed about the issues and the bills and what they include and we need to make a record of our representatives’ votes.  If we don’t agree with them let’s by all means ask them to explain themselves.  If we have an opinion, we’d better share it with them before a vote.  If we don’t have an opinion we ought to gather enough information to formulate one.

Tea party patriots need to quit wearing funny hats and tee shirts and waving cute and pithy signs.  Their job will now be to attend the less colorful, often mundane, but absolutely crucial, neighborhood caucuses and party meetings.  They must do whatever it takes to gain and keep control of the Republican Party.  The reform will not be instant or automatic.  It will be hard won and will require sustained effort and diligence.  This should be the people’s party, not the “establishment’s”.  In all fairness, no one who avoids this effort has any business criticizing the party OR its leaders.  

The fate of the Republican Party depends upon the leadership.  If the GOP falls because of rot in its leadership, we will have a great challenge to keep the Ship of State from capsizing. We must, and our Republican leaders must, look to this before we neglect our duties or they become slack and careless in theirs.  Our duty is to let them know that we are watching everything they do and say; that their status as our representatives depends upon their votes.

There will be many, many opportunities in the next two years, for these people to sell us out or to just forget about the principles we sent them to Washington to uphold.  It will be much easier in the short run for them to go along and get along, to just go with the flow and allow the establishment and staff to control them.  If they do this we are lost.  This is not a time for “compromise” or “bipartisanship”.  These, for the time being at least, should be dirty words to Conservatives elected to office.  This is, above all, a time for the Grand Old Party to stand up and stand for something.  Voters have demanded it and must now enforce compliance in this pact with leadership.  

We should try to avoid third parties in America – our form of government is well suited to two parties representing opposing views and policies.  A third party movement could be a disaster to Conservatives, but so, too, will be RINO control of the Republican Party.   Our job is to see that we don’t allow this to happen in the next two years.  The stakes are high.  

The good news is that we have a new team, that we prevailed to this point, in the groundswell election of 2010 – an historic election.  Our prospects are better as we begin 2011 than they have been for more than a decade.  We still have a Republic – if we can keep it!



Sally Morris is a member of Americans for Constitutional Government

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