THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 29, February 10, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
INSIDE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, U.S.A.:
THE COMING CONSERVATIVE INSURRECTION
By Christopeher G. Adamo
In a CNSNews.com article, dated January 30, 2004, it was reported that a major struggle is presently developing within the Illinois GOP
for control of the party. Apparently, grassroots Conservatives are fed up with the Liberal shift that has occurred in the basic philosophy
of that state's Republican Party hierarchy in recent years.
According to Robert Bluey, a staff reporter for CNSnews.com, state Representative Terry Parke, one of those advocating major reform
in the party, stressed that the party should stand for such principles as “less government, lower taxes, a free enterprise system, and
family values.” The fact that Parke had to highlight the particular issues as being fundamentally Republican is itself a clear indicator of
a problem. In times past, it wasn’t necessary to make such a statement. People naturally assumed these ideals to be the bedrock of
Republican philosophy. Unfortunately, in recent years, under a distortion of Ronald Reagan's concept of “the big tent,” an element of
Liberalism has successfully infiltrated the Republican Party. Lately, standard procedure for Republicans has been to simply offer a
“light beer” version of whatever tenet or policy proposal in the Leftwing Liberal agenda the Democrats are currently attempting to
advance.
One target of grassroots Conservative criticism in Illinois is Bob
Kjellander, who is the Illinois Republican National Committeeman, and also
serves as the regional liaison for the Bush campaign. In response to one of
his critics, State Senator Steve Rauschenberger, Kjellander claims that
Rauschenberger employs a “rule or ruin mentality.” That phrase gives a clue
as to the real extent of problems facing the Republican Party, not only in
Illinois, but throughout America.
Bob Kjellander wasn’t the first to accuse Conservatives of intending to
“rule or ruin.” During the 1994 Wyoming Republican convention, Senator Alan
Simpson, in the convention's keynote speech, decried the groundswell of
moral Conservatism during those years as “a blight on the Republican Party,”
and excoriated its participants as seeking to “rule or ruin” the party.
Simpson, now retired from the U.S. Senate, has gone on to champion such
causes as the recruitment of homosexual Republican activists into the party
mainstream.
Elsewhere in the nation, similar unrest exists among grassroots
Conservatives who are having to come to grips with the fact that they have
been systematically disenfranchised from Republican Party politics for
several years, though many have been unwilling to admit to themselves that
such is the case. In the State of New Jersey, for instance, Conservative
Republicans, seeking to maintain “party unity,” rallied recalcitrant voters
to support ultra-Liberal feminist Christine Todd Whitman in an extremely
tight governor’s race in 1997. So concerted was the effort to bolster
Whitman’s sagging campaign that major Conservative figures came from outside
the state to lend their own credence to her cause.
Clearly, Whitman’s narrow margin of victory indicated that she could never
have succeeded without their help. But, for all their efforts, what
Conservatives received in response was nothing short of a complete betrayal
in 2001, when Brett Schundler could have benefited from Whitman’s help with
his own effort to win the governorship of the Garden State. Rather than
offering support, Whitman, along with other socalled "Moderates" in the New Jersey
Republican Party, systematically worked to sabotage Schundler’s election
efforts. In the end, his loss to Democrat Jim McGreevey highlighted the fact
that, invariably, it is “Moderates” who regularly shoot “party unity” in the
foot, while Conservatives are expected to do all of the bleeding.
As the presidential election season heats up, Republican strategists and
operatives across the nation should be inspiring and rallying the party
faithful by diligently working to advance the Conservative agenda that swept
them into office in the first place. In fact, they ought to have been doing
so for the past three years. Instead, too many appear to be fixated on a
course of “moderation” that will neither inspire the base, nor win the
hearts of the opposition. Historically, Conservatives have been reluctant to
break ranks and divide the party. But rather than rewarding that loyalty,
those on the inside seem intent on stretching it, perhaps beyond the
breaking point.
Ultimately, Conservatives regard the political debate to be, not about people,
but about principle. Those who misread Conservative allegiance as focusing
on personality are dangerously mistaken. A presidential election year is not
a good time for Moderates to force the issue. Republican politicians, who
continually seek to play it safe by sitting on the fence, had better recognize
just how rapidly the situation is approaching critical mass.
More on American Politics & Political Competition
Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer who lives in southeastern Wyoming and works in the field of industrial instrumentation.
He is actively involved in Wyoming's political process, serving as a delegate to successive Wyoming State Republican Conventions
and as a member of the Wyoming State Republican Central Committee. He has assisted Republican candidates for local and state
legislatures and for the United States Congress. His articles, which appear regularly in The Progressive Conservative, U.S.A.,
and on a number of other websites, reflect a major concern with the damage being done to Conservatism and Conservative causes by
the Liberal Leftist faction in the Republican Party as well as by the much larger and more powerful Liberal Leftist faction in the
Democratic Party. During the early and middle 1990s, Adamo was Editor of the Wyoming Christian Coalition's official news organ,
The Wyoming Christian.
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