Bipartisan Embrace
There is a tendency among the Republican Party’s grass roots to pick a Presidential candidate by asking: “Who is the most conservative among the electable candidates?”
And that question is killing the Republic.
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Long ago I realized the proper question should be: “Who is the most electable among the truly conservative candidates?” because there’s no point in voting for anything else.
And I believe God himself has settled the controversy, conclusively, in every Presidential election for more than a quarter century.
If you’ve been acting like a responsible steward of your government authority (your vote, at the minimum) you have come to recognize that which candidates are deemed “electable” is not under your control, or the control of the electorate at large. The “list” is, to the contrary, served up to you, a finished product. It is determined by the complexity of internal (and mysterious to ‘most everyone) processes of the Republican Party operating in conjunction with the “mainstream” media. The Media, thanks to campaign finance regulations that restrict everyone else but leave them unfettered, are the gatekeepers of both name recognition and the positive or negative impression of public figures by the public at large. In other words, in almost every case, the “electability” of candidates, at the primary level, is determined by our political enemies: liberals, socialists, statists.
The decision to narrow our choices, eliminating all actual conservatives, in favor of Media-stream “electability” has resulted in larger government, a more liberal Republican Party, and Democrat victories. We are told that winning is the most important thing and that their (mostly name recognition, partially media-created image) polling determines electability. Every Candidate since Ronald Reagan was chosen based largely on this media/GOP pragmatic yardstick of “electablility.” What are the results?
There follows our grading of the the Electoral, Political, and Governing results. We are grading the GOP’s “electability” nominating choices in three categories:
- Electoral: Did the candidate win?
- Governmental: What happened to the country as a result of electing that President?
- Political: What happened in the Party and Movement as a result of the election?
The rankings, obviously and fairly, blame the ballot-box outcomes on the nomination choice. Any choice made primarily “to win” must be judged based on that criterion. But they go further and treat the governing results of the winner of the election as if they, too were the result of the nominating choice. Obviously, there are many other factors, but if the outcome of the election (who won) can be traced to the nomination choice (who ran) then at least to some degree, our nomination choice is responsible for the effects on governing of that outcome.
The Political grade, the effect of the nomination choice on the Party and Movement, has a validity many do not understand yet is probably the most important grade of all three.
It’s valid because a sitting President has profound influence on his political Party, effectively choosing its leaders and determining its direction. The Bush/Rove administration, for example, is probably the single reason for the ascendancy of pragmatic, Pro-Illegal Immigration Amnesty (“Comprehensive Immigration Reform”) leaders in Washington State like Tony Benegas, Lori Sotelo and National Committeewoman Fredi Simpson and the radical pro-amnesty positions of (current, as I write) Attorney General Rob McKenna.
It’s important because any race for political office, the Presidency included, is only a single battle in the war for Freedom. But the Movement, together with its expression in the Party, is the army of that war. Ronald Reagan was our oldest president at 77, but the Party turned 157 in February and the Movement is a living contiguous spiritual body that (by one landmark) turned 235 on July 4. The army of Freedom is more important in the long run than any single election race. It is possible to win an election battle at such great cost you lose the war and the GOP has come close to doing exactly that (1988 comes to mind). It is also possible to lose a battle in such a way that it results in the change of leadership necessary to win the war (1976 comes to mind).
The Electoral Grade is pass/fail (A or F) based simply on whether or not the “electable” Republican won the election. The other grades, Governmental and Political include the full range of possibilities from A through F.
Since each of these elections had “Media-stream electability” candidates, the results disclose, in my opinion, what God has demonstrated on the subject.
1988
Only George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole were deemed “electable” based on media-stream name recognition. Bush had built (and maintained) a national network of GOP liberals opposing Reagan for the Nomination in 1980 and used that and the media to win the nomination.
Electoral Grade: A
Bush won the election on the strength of his newly-minted conservative image as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President.
Governmental Grade: D
Bush raised taxes, raised spending, promulgated unconstitutional regulation and ignited recession. He held the line on human life and split his Supreme Court Appointments: one far leftist, one conservative.
Political Grade: D
Bush appointed liberal Republicans and “moderate” Democrats to Bureaucracies across the nation, and promoted the liberal wing of the Party, his campaign allies from ’79-’80, to leadership.
1992
Only George H.W. Bush was deemed “electable.”
Electoral Grade: F
The GOP nomination of its (by-then-known-to-be) liberal incumbent delivered the nation to the Clintons.
Governmental Grade: D
The Clintons began a wholesale drive to “change the culture” (make us a Marxist Republic).
Political score: C
Because it was an electoral loss, the nomination didn’t hurt much politically. It awakened conservatives and didn’t empower the Bush liberal operatives in the Party.
1996
Only Bob Dole was considered “electable” on the Republican side. Pat Buchanan, the only actual conservative, was labeled an “isolationist.”
Electoral Grade: F
Bill Clinton was considered to be un-re-electable. His (& Hillary’s) wholesale drive to Marxism in his first term had led to the Congressional Republican Revolution Landslide of 1994 and his administration had been caught in extensive criminal activity. Dole, by careful “moderation” did what was considered impossible. He delivered the election to Clinton.
Governmental Grade: C
But the negatives of Clinton’s second term really only impacted judicial appointments and regulatory agencies, because of the previously achieved Republican Congress.
Political score: C
The Presidential loss weakened the hold of GOP liberals on the Party. But the dirty dealings in the nomination battle resulted in the loss of Pat Buchanan as an asset. (Locally, Buchanan supporters DOMINATED the Washington State GOP Convention and the GOP Left responded by scuttling Ellen Craswell’s Gubernatorial bid.)
2000
Only George W. Bush and John McCain were considered “electable.” Bush won the nomination by presenting himself as clearly to the right of McCain (not difficult) and the planting of the slander in the South Carolina primary that McCain had an illegitimate black “love child.”
Electoral Grade: A
Bush won the election with rhetoric that, at its peak, approached that of Ronald Reagan.
Governmental Grade: C
“W” raised spending, expanded government more than any previous administration in history (to that point), refused to protect the borders or enforce our sovereignty and raised the levels of unconstitutional regulatory intervention, but achieved a (small) tax cut and the best, overall, Supreme Court appointments in a century (the latter, largely the result of intense pressure from Conservatives).
Political Grade: D
His appointment of his talented but entirely unprincipled campaign guru, Karl Rove, to White House political director began the moral demolition of the Republican Party.
2004
Only incumbent George W. Bush was considered “electable” or considered.
Electoral Grade: A
He won re-election.
Governmental Grade: D
The continuation of the Bush borrow and spend regime culminated first in serious economic wreckage followed by the catastrophic Banker Bailout of 2008, a total Republican disaster.
Political Grade: F
As George W. Bush continued his generally well-meaning, but unconstitutional moderate agenda, his second term succeeded, first, in losing the hard-won Republican Congressional majority in 2006. Bush effectively delivered the Republican Party to the control of Karl Rove who completed the disassembly (that W’s father had begun ) of the Reagan Coalition. Rove demonized conservatives and skillfully replaced conservative principles with blind loyalty to leadership as the center of the Party. The most conservative speaker at the 2004 Republican National Convention was a Democrat. By the end of the Bush-Dole-Bush era (as I said in 2008; Part 4: One man two first names: a Republican Obituary?), we stood (and still stand) “…on the threshold of socialized medicine, of an open welcome to 100 million new Marxist-minded voters who don’t even speak English (and will cost existing taxpayers, at today’s rates, close to two TRILLION dollars A YEAR, every year), and of a dynasty of bureaucratic environmental communism literally destroying American industry and rescinding property rights as a sacrificial offering to ‘save the planet,’ BROUGHT TO YOU BY REPUBLICANS.”
2008
The only candidates considered “electable” were Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, all three of them demonstrably hostile to American Founding Principles. McCain (appropriately enough, under the circumstances) seized the nomination by cheating.
Electoral Grade: F
McCain went on to rival Bob 
Dole’s feat in ’96 by losing the Presidency to a radically pro-death Marxist Community Organizer. It pretty much takes a full-fledged RINO to lose a Presidential race to someone that far left. Showing a dramatic flair for defeat, he suspended campaigning 41 days before election day to demonstrate, glaringly, unequivocally, that he was a fiscal leftist by passing the BILLION DOLLAR BAD BANKER BAILOUT, making the Bush economic crisis a full-fledged disaster.
Political Grade: D Securing McCain’s nomination essentially turned the Party Establishment to organized crime. In Washington State, for example, it required the illegal shutting down and control of national delegate nominations at the State Convention, violating, in order, Roberts Rules of order, State Republican Party Rules, National Republican Party Convention Rules, and State Law. And that’s just one instance. The only redeeming factor was the loss. The only reason the Party and the nation have any hope of freedom left is because John McCain is not the one who brought us to the depression that would have followed his election as surely as it did Obama’s.
Governmental Grade: F
Barack Hussein Obama’s abject submission to the forces of collectivist tyranny has surpassed all that preceded it as the worst Presidential administration in history. Coming on the heels of the Bush fiscal liberalism, it has brought the nation to the brink of financial collapse. Those who labored to force McCain’s nomination on us are directly responsible.
Conclusions
I. OVERALL ELECTORAL Grades of “electability” candidates: net Zero. Based on the numbers, alone, choosing a Media-Stream “electable” candidate is as likely to lead to a defeat as it is a victory. But it’s worse than the numbers show.
The one victory of Bush 1 was based on Reagan’s legacy and coattails. People thought he would continue what Reagan started. The two victories of Bush 2 were with Reagan’s stolen image. In both cases, the imaging was a deception. Neither Bush shared the Reagan belief in smaller government that they projected to get elected. Hardly a ringing endorsement of their own actual viability had they told the truth.
II. The “Governing Grades” (D,D,C,C,D,F) rate the effect of the nomination on the direction and acts of U.S. Government in the term of the presidency for which the nomination was made. Republican Party candidates chosen for “electability” literally reversed the Reagan Revolution, making government bigger, more intrusive, more regulatory and less constitutional.
III. The “Political Grades,” (D,C,C,D,F,D) rate the effect of the nomination choice on the complex internal power process within the GOP and the spiritual war for the public’s mind. They tell a tale of disaster. In 1988, George Herbert Walker Bush inherited a Party with the momentum of two successive landslide Presidential elections, unprecedented Peace and Prosperity in the nation, our enemies in collapse, and the public cheering smaller government. In 2008 with 6 straight “electable” candidates under its belt, the GOP was a Party that had just lost majorities across the nation and in Congress, offered War and Recession to the nation, our enemies in ascendency, worldwide, and the electorate cheering a Marxist Community Organizer’s penumbra of “Hope” and “Change.”
Looking even closer, we notice that the nation, the Party and Conservative Movement have all done better when one of these candidates loses than when he wins.
Any defense of the proposition that “any Republican” we can elect is better than a Democrat is identical in logic to the Obama argument over his stimulus spending. Even though the results were the opposite of what was promised, Obama says it would have been “worse” had we not had his programs. And even though the results of “electable” Republicans are the opposite of what they promise (“smaller” government), they tell us it “would have been worse” if the Democrat had been elected. The best test of this hypothesis is comparing Bush to Clinton.
The nation and the Republican Party did MUCH better during the presidential term following “electable” Bob Dole’s loss than after “electable” G.W. Bush’s victory.
One reason they’re “electable” is voters themselves are dumbed-down and brainwashed by the mainstream media. There seem to be fewer independent thinkers out there.