Residual Forces

Hugh Hewitt has a good post up that appears to be an email from Florida. It talks about the potential fracturing of the GOP over the Presidential race. This was a key portion that needs to be spread wide and far to all levels of the party. (emphasis mine)

Much of the disarray comes from the take-no-prisoners attitude of Evangelical Republicans who impose litmus tests on abortion, gay marriage, etc and proclaim that only candidates who meet their specifications will be supported.  Rush Limbaugh recently added fuel to this fire by proclaiming that he might not support any Republican candidate because all were insufficiently conservative. John McCain’s recent success lends credence to Limbaugh’s prediction that the Party might split over the nomination.

At a recent Republican Committee meeting here in Orange County, I asked if there was room in the Party for me, a conservative Christian who believes in the separation of church and state.  The clear answer, disguised in evasive language, was ‘no.’ If that view is widely held among Republicans, we need a new conservative party.

What is needed is a Republican Party that recognizes differences of opinion on a wide variety of issues but concentrates on the 80% of the issues that draw broad support.  The Democrats coalesce around populist issues like universal healthcare, government funded social security, taxing the rich, taxing more, and supporting the middle class. Don’t Republicans have a set of common values that can produce principles that not only unite the Party but appeal to a broad base of voters?  The problem is, no one talks about the areas of agreement: everyone emphasizes the differences.

So how does a McCain or Romney put the band back together again with out shouting down those with differing opinions? For many whose path I have crossed, Romney former support of abortion is an absolute disqualifier.  For others Huckabee’s Pastor in Chief campaigning breaches the imaginary separation of Church and state. And movement conservatives of limited government zeal see McCain as a foe to the cause due to his Senate career.

So how do we unite with out losing our principles?

For many of us, we use a weighted scale to grade the candidates. Energy and Al Gorish policies are much more important than others. So reaching 80% of agreement is impossible, unless we throw out our opinions on the biggest issue facing America for generations to come, minus the war on terror.  The energy policies being pushed by McCain, Hckabee, and to a lesser point Romney are little different than the Democrats. The way we see it, we lose either way. America that we grew up in, will be gone forever if we now ban everything that gave us the advantage that let America rise to the top. The only way America will remain great and free is to remain free with the ability to set ourselves apart from the rest of the world.

yeah, yeah, the war. Great, get them to put changing energy policy back in the fridge and focus on security issues, and I will gladly stop worrying about the Al Gorification of America.