The Next Great Conservative Movement

by Maggie Gallagher - June 11th, 2008 - Townhall.com

How low can the GOP brand go? What will the next great conservative movement look like?

Former House Republican leader Tom Delay told the editors of The Washington Times a hard truth: "The conservatives refuse to accept that the left is cleaning their clock, and until you hit some bottom, whatever that is, to where it says, 'Well, maybe we ought to do something different,' little or nothing's going to change."

There are several great implied questions in this article. First, what is the difference between what it means to be conservative versus Republican? Second, what is the role of Judeo-Christian values in a nation that promises freedom of religion? Next, how does a nation retain individual freedom when unions control our government? Next, how can free enterprise compete with government funded liberalism which pours money into the anti-free enterprise party? Finally, how can a society survive when it allows teachers to subvert its basic principals?

These questions about individual freedom and our future are not trivial, and yet each of nearly a half dozen political groups in the GOP are arguing about a dozen other issues of minor importance, while the issue of individual freedom remains secondary.

I am astonished that our party remains so complacent. However a great example of our diversion into trivia happened at the North Carolina Republican Convention. Kim Cotten, Chairman of the North Carolina Young Republicans tried to make a point that we need to fund our candidates and our party if we wish to be successful. The reaction of the party leadership, and the reaction of one of the posters on my blog yesterday, was not to the goals of what she was trying to accomplish. A minor process of who to send one of the two checks was attacked.

Anyone but an idiot who understood the technical issues could have easily suggested the simple change to fix Kim's proposal. However attacking her for the mis-statement of process became vastly more important to these people than addressing the reality that Republicans have stopped contributing funds to fight for our future in a meaningful way.

Are we raving lunatics?

Several articles and editorials this morning are starting to focus on the reality that Barack Obama is probably going to be our next President. That is of great concern to anyone who cares about individual freedom. Yet another poster on my blog from yesterday was talking about Ron Paul's right to create a furor at the national Republican Convention over the idea that the IRS is not legal. Forget the reality that absolutely no chance exists to change this. It is an internal issue of our nation about the structure of taxation leading to an internal issue of our party about how to select delegates. At the same time we have external wars that require our attention that are fundamental to our existence in the world. We are at war with Islamo-fascism, global socialism and Aztlantism. Could anyone really think the internal issues should be the focus of our discussions at this point in time?

We are never going to change the direction of this nation with the Republican Party fighting over anything but the issues directly related to individual freedom. Unfortunately I do not see that happening yet. I am concerned that it will not happen in time.

We are underfunded and Republicans do not care. In such an environment, disaster in November looms at every level of our ticket.