Bring A Lot of Water

I keep coming back to Michelle Malkin’s unfortunate choice of words when speaking to the Independence Institute.  I find what she said to be the epitome of stupidity.  She said about fiscal conservatives who wouldn’t bow to the dominance of social conservatism in the Republican Party that Republicans should “let them go their own way.”

Instead of trying to build the party, she is willing to see it dissolve down to an impotent core of social conservatives.  There is a lot of evidence that it has already done so.

Today, we examine a Fred Brown essay in the Denver Post and the comments appended to it, not so much for what Brown says, but for the data points it imparts.

Two of this breed are related to each other. Robert and Dottie Wham, husband and wife, are Republicans who represented southeast Denver and Arapahoe County in the legislature. They are fiscally conservative, but they also favor abortion rights, which puts them at odds with the newer crowd…

They voted for Obama, hoping he's the strong leader the country needs right now, but they're still cautious about what Bob Wham calls Obama's "Pied Piper" potential.

They'd love to see a strong Republican leader, someone from "that group of people who were the party in a different time," said Dottie Wham. "We were both born Republican," she said. "Let us back in again."

Then we move on to the comments:

Normally I wouldn't comment on such absurdity, but this article crosses the line into something more than mere leftist propaganda. McCain WAS the RINO's choice of choices. He was their perfect candidate; voting nearly half of the time with the Democrats and never missing a chance to rub noses with media 'elite'. What bothers me most is the on going push from media liberals and rinos that McCain's loss resulted from something other than what it was.

Another commenter writes:

Fred, RINOs are just Democrats with better haircuts. I'm hoping 9News doesn't pay too much for your political analysis if this is any example.

It is very clear that the past few elections have taught few, if any lessons to anyone.  Arapahoe County was solidly Republican in the 1980’s and early 1990’s when Dottie and Bob Wham were in office.  There aren’t many Republicans there any more.  They, like the Whams, have gone their own way.

Social conservatives want it both ways.  They want to dominate the party, shoving anyone with a voice who disagrees with them out the door.  They want to publicly and privately sneer at fiscal conservatives as RINOs.  Then at election time they want those same voters to come out and vote for them because they carry the “Republican” label.  Politicians, including social conservative politicians, always think voters are stupid, but time and again they have proven that they aren’t THAT stupid.

Until Social Conservatives begin to RESPECT and HONOR the views and political aspirations of Fiscal Conservatives with positions of leadership and an equal voice within the party, I fear that the Republican Party is doomed to a long period of wandering in the desert. 

It isn't going to happen soon, so my advice:  Bring a lot of water.

Comments

[Ben]

I would love to go back and see a transcript of Michelle Malkin's speech. Perhaps she said what you said, but my recollection she was as equally firm about fiscally conservative issues. So that you could just as easily have observed, "She said about social conservatives who wouldn’t bow to the dominance of fiscal conservatism in the Republican Party that Republicans should 'let them go their own way.'" But perhaps my recollection is wrong.

Anyway, Malkin is not a GOP official but an independent conservative commentator. You can take or leave her opinion.

[A Watcher]

I wish you would dig up the transcript, if you can. As you know, I didn't go. I almost got killed on Monument hill one winter and try to avoid the place in the dead of winter.

I am relying entirely on the quote provided by the Gazette, which I reproduced earlier at:

http://www.thecoloradoindex.com/the_colorado_index/2008/11/a-pure-party-is-a-small-party.html

It said:

At an Independence Institute banquet Nov. 13, syndicated conservative columnist and Colorado resident Michelle Malkin addressed the fact Republicans are divided over faith-based politics, such as the need to ban abortion. She encouraged conservatives to maintain their positions on social issues despite pressures to back down. She said conservatives could work through immigration disagreements.

And what of economics-only libertarians, who largely despise the party's opposition to gay marriage, abortion and fetal stem cell research? Malkin said "let them go their own way."

Normally, newspapers tape record stuff like this, so I thought it to be a solid, in context quote. A double check by you wouldn't hurt at all.