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Chilling thought for the day. Recall the election of 1948, when the Republican Party’s heavily-favored, moderate and uninspiring nominee lost to Truman in a race in which he was heavily favored to win. The tragedy is not that the Chicago Tribune got the headline wrong, but that the American people lost either way given the choice between a left-leaning Republican and a slightly right-leaning Democrat. To see how much we have learned from history, here is a pop quiz.
If you cannot answer any of the following questions, you are ill-prepared for 2012.
Leading up to the 1996 Presidential election, anytime Republicans were gathered, from Young Republicans to State Committees, anywhere in the Country, including Kansas, one candidate was the hands down favorite, usually with double the votes of the second pick. Who was the darling of the Republican Party in 1996?
(hint: Pat Buchanan was usually second)
In 1964, Barry Goldwater won a primary victory defeating among others, Governor George Romney. What book is credited with helping the Conservative Goldwater break the grip of the moderate wing that opposed him? Who was the second, and only other Republican in the last century to defy the statist wing of the Republican Party and wrest the Presidential nomination?
In her book A Choice Not an Echo (1964), Phyllis Schlafly names the dates, places and attendees of the meetings as she details how the Republican Presidential nominees are always hand-picked by a small, elite cadre’ thus relegating loyal Republican activists to “echoing” the pre-selection rather than exercising their birthright “choice”. The housewife-turned-activist Schlafly, was horrified to see the kingmakers actively manipulating the process in an attempt to steal the nomination away from the legitimate Republican popular candidate, Barry Goldwater. She rushed tens of thousands of copies of her book to Convention delegates who then stood with Goldwater to win the battle, if not the war.
Skeptics will wonder how it is possible that a selection of such magnitude could really be manipulated. If you are among them, ask yourself this question. How on earth did two candidates so universally unpopular in Republican circles as Bob Dole and John McCain manage to win their nominations?
In 1996, I joined most Republican activists in backing Senator Phil Gramm. That was not a hard choice. The Ph.D., economist, Texas blue dog Democrat, had ushered Reagan’s tax cuts through the Democrat controlled House into the waiting arms of the Republican Senate. In so doing, he helped turn our Country around. Realizing how his Party had become more Socialist than Democrat, he did an amazing thing. He resigned his seat and re-ran as a Republican. We loved him. You probably forgot about him. The kingmakers stole the 1996 nomination from him, and from us.
Why is this important now?
Governor Mit Romney stands eager to win the office his father never did. As a prolific candidate in leftist Massachusetts, he is on record vacillating on issues such as abortion and even the stature of Ted Kennedy. He is popular with the kingmakers. When the number 1 or 2 issue on voters’ minds is the repeal of Obama along with his Obamacare, conservatives are understandably cautious about the prospect of having as their nominee, the author of Romneycare. Schlafly warned of GOP candidates who echo the position choices of leftists. Hello?
So if Schlafly provided the tool to nominate Goldwater in 1964, and the sheer force of Ronald Reagan being, well, the Great One, allowed him to win the nomination in 1980, the Tea Party movement holds the key to beating the kingmakers in 2012.
Defeating the moderates in 2012 will require two things. First, the disparate groups will have to settle on one candidate, and do so fast. Second, they will have to work together, united and coordinated, grooming activists at all levels including the Tea Party Youth, Tea Party Students and Tea Party Centenarians. Hey, pull out all the stops! Right?
Certainly the midterm elections crushed the Obama-Reid-Pelosi oligarchy and slowed our great Country from a breakneck pace toward Socialism back down to mere creeping Socialism. There is so much to repair not just from Obama but even from the past Republican years. We need a nominee committed to nothing less than full restoration of our Constitutional Republic. Any hint of the stench of neo-conservative statism is unacceptable. As the pendulum swings, we appear to be returning from the leftward most swing of Obamafascism on a trajectory far back to the Founding Fathers’ perfect, small government vision. It is our watch. Let us pick the right nominee-fast, and pull out all the stops in that pendulum’s path to liberty!