Why should I be a Republican?
By wet rat Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Why should I be a Republican?
It is often said that many Democrat voters still think they are voting for JFK and FDR. After this past campaign, I am beginning to wonder if I have hit an age where I am stuck in the past, thinking I am casting votes for Ronald Reagan.
(read more...)
I keep hearing about how New Hampshire is quickly moving leftward. That may be the case, but this year it was the Democrats who picked up the “No sales tax, no income tax” mantra. All they had to do is play the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s musings about raising the gas tax to pay for increasing state budgets and they won the credibility war.
However, the Democrats were not building their case from scratch. During the last great school funding debate in the legislature, I remember the Republican majority leader of one chamber favoring creating a sales tax. In the other chamber, the Republican majority leader favored an income tax. That’s about all I remember, as I was living across the border in Massachusetts, and so I was not paying very close attention. However I remember that the Democratic governor back then kept up the mantra “No sales tax, no income tax.”
Now this is all a matter of perception; the Democrats here have always pushed for bigger, more intrusive state government, but the Republicans have refused to take a stand against it. No Republican really wanted to go near that third rail of education funding; instead everyone just wanted to play numbers juggling games to put off the inevitable for another day. I would not be surprised if some Republican politicians here are delighted that the Democrats won, as now they can push through an income tax without taking the heat. I’m not sure that there are many Republican leaders here who really believe their own rhetoric about the “New Hampshire advantage.” That is a shame.
Meanwhile, just like in Washington, the Republicans tried to preserve their incumbency by playing patronage games and using offensive campaign tactics. It is plain wrong that we should need Democrats to crack down on no-bid contracts. It is plain wrong that the GOP would open itself up to charges of breaking telecommunications laws only months after some of their former leaders went to jail for hiring a telemarketing firm to overload the Democrats’ switchboard.
It is plain wrong that the GOP would trust their fundraising calls to a firm whose telemarketers cannot even speak clear English. It is plain wrong that the GOP would ignore warnings of a possibly tight race and then try to make up for it by leaving ten copies of the same recorded attack ad on my voice mail every day for a week. And who was the genius who thought up Bass’s “congressmen should put their names on their earmarks” proposal. Congressmen love to put their names on their earmarks so that they can show off their pork. We want checks on the earmarking in the first place, you dope!
So right now I am a Republican because I still have some hope that over the next two to four years, someone will emerge to rebuild the party. Right now I don’t have any names, because nobody has stepped forward to take on the task. However, I am not inclined to live in the past either. The clock is ticking.
If you are more than a voter, then it matters. If you get involved in primary campaigns, then it matters. If you run for school board, then it matters. If you are inclined to seek election to a party committee, then it matters.
The thing is that one can be a leader without being the leader. For example, one can be a local leader in the GOP. However, it is very hard to be a conservative leader at the local level, when the folks above you are not interested in selling a conservative message. It is even worse when they are trying to purge the party of conservatives. (I have not seen much of that in NH, but I have been on the receiving end of that elsewhere.)
If you are a Conservative, you are not by definition required to be a Republican. Make Republicans earn your vote by advocating and acting on Conservative principles. Only by holding the GOP accountable will we ensure they don't end up trying to be bigger spenders and bigger lovers of government intrusions than the Dems.