Sunday, February 03, 2008

The Republican Soul

Has there ever been a major Presidential candidate more terminally constipated than Mitt Romney? If you answered Al Gore or John Kerry, you might be right, but do Republicans really want their own version of a poll-taking, script-reading, position-parsing, consultant-driven, image-building, hair-coloring, privileged-class pretzel of a candidate? Do Republicans really want a candidate who is capable of buying an election without ever demonstrating the willingness to fight for or finance any of the positions important to Republican voters? Apparently some Republican voters do, but so far, not most. Apparently almost all of talk radio does, but not me.

Character still matters to many Republican voters. We celebrate politicians who become life-protecting, tax-cutting, government-reducing, freedom-protecting, law-enforcing legislators, once they fight to reform government, not when they are trying to buy our vote in an election; especially a Presidential election.

The Republican Party is left with some very flawed candidates this Presidential election cycle. Our Party needs to be tweaked and our nominating process needs to be reformed before the next election cycle in 2012. This year we go to the general election with the candidate we’ve got. If Mitt Romney becomes the Republican nominee, the positions of the two major Parties will be different, but the soul of the two major Parties will be the same. Is that what we really want?