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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Michael Reagan :: Townhall.com Columnist
Quo Vadis, GOP?
by Michael Reagan
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Before the Republican Party even begins to think about curing what ails it, members have to recognize the fact that the party is Balkanized.

We are never going to win elections if we remain broken up into separate factions, sometimes barely speaking to one another. Bizarre as it seems, each group within this Balkanization of the GOP is united in the belief that Ronald Reagan is its standard bearer.

This, they tell us, is the man they want to follow. Ronald Reagan was not someone who found ways to disagree with you, but spent most of his life trying to find ways to agree with you.

He always sought to find a common ground -- to move the party and the country forward. A lot of Republicans quote his statement that we must not let the bad be the enemy of the good. But today's Republican Party is wedded to allowing the bad to be the enemy of the good.

As a result, we don't win elections. I may agree with you on taxation, for example. Or I may agree with you on immigration. If I disagree with you on abortion, however, I may just stay home on Election Day, or not vote for you; I might even vote for your opponent.

As a result, we end up electing the candidate who disagrees with us on taxation, a person who disagrees with us on immigration, and also disagrees with us on abortion and everything else. We excuse this exercise in irrationality by claiming we want to make a statement.

It's the same thing with immigration. I agree with you on abortion, I agree with you on taxation, I agree with you on the war in Iraq, but I disagree with you on immigration. So I'm going to stay home on Election Day and help our opponents -- who disagree with us on everything else -- win.

That sound you hear in the background is my dad rolling over in his grave.

This is Balkanization at its worst. The Republican Party is broken up into a lot of large pockets nursing our own prejudices and our own grudges, and unwilling to accept the other guy's opinion if he doesn't agree with us on every issue 100 percent of the time. So we break up into factions, allowing a single issue to divide us when we agree on everything else. Continued...
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About The Author
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of Ronald Reagan, is heard daily by over 5 million listeners via his nationally syndicated talk radio program, “The Michael Reagan Show.”

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Reply # 1
Date: Nov 25, 2008 - 9:34 PM EST
America is suffering
America is suffering unlawful deception from the Alinsky group.
Group u$urp$ power on January 20th—the constitution violated.
The United States Supreme Court alone can relieve this outrage.

example: Bogus Selective Service System FOIA Registration?
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2008/11/exclusive_d id_n.html
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Reply # 2
Date: Nov 22, 2008 - 8:43 PM EST
LC, like I said, I am an American first,
whereas you are obviously a Republican first and an American somewhere down the list.

Your ignorance of Chuck Baldwin means you are uninformed, not that I voted foolishly.

LC: Barack & joe "make McCain look like an ultra conservative." No - they're together on the environment, economics, taxes, and big government.

LC: "We could have fixed the problems AFTER the election." No- as long as the base keeps voting for liberals, the GOP will keep nominating them. Had McCain won with the support of the base after repeatedly stabbing us in the back, he would have NO REASON to listen to us. The problems would NOT have been fixed by letter writing or whatever your futile plan may have been. Or did you have a plan?


LC: "... victims of partial birth abortion and the BAIPA babies... Supreme Court"

Hmmm. I care deeply about ALL victims of abortion. Progress on abortion requires the overturning of Roe-V-Wade, which requires at least one more good justice. McCain would have gotten us exactly nowhere on that.

The Dems control the Senate, and would not have confirmed a constitutionalist justice. The best we could hope for would be another Kennedy, and that's just not good enough. We need another Alito, Roberts, Thomas or Scalia - not an unreliable Souter or O'Conner.

I wouldn't trust McCain to nominate a good justice anyway - they'd just invalidate his campaign finance reform. McCain has also been wishy-washy on abortion - said in 1999 that he likes Roe-V-Wade.


If you really care about the unborn and the constitution, etc, stop voting for people who won't do anything about it. Conservatives lost this election in February when McCain clinched the nomination. If we had all voted for Barr or Baldwin, the GOP wouldn't dare nominate another liberal for a generation.


If it makes you feel any better... I voted for my GOP Senator, Jeff Sessions, and McCain won AL by 20% without my help.
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