Radiofree West Hartford - LET'S STRIKE THE BIG TENT by Tim Siggia

LET'S STRIKE THE BIG TENT

By Tim Siggia

June 18, 2005

"Soldiering has one great trap. To be a good soldier, you must love the army. To be a good commander, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love."

-- Robert E. Lee to James Longstreet in the movie, Gettysburg

Here in Connecticut, preparations are already underway for the mid-term election of 2006, as the upcoming candidates, mostly incumbent Democrats, have already dispatched mass mail-outs to the party faithful. These mid-term elections tend to be exciting times for liberals -- because they know that no matter what the outcome, a liberal will either assume or retain office -- and frustrating times for conservatives, who know only too well that it is only with the greatest of difficulty that the words "conservative" and "Connecticut" can be said in the same sentence.

Governor M. Jodi Rell, successor to the resigned John Rowland, will be seeking the Governor's chair in her own right, and so far, at least, faces little threat of a serious challenge. After all, she's raised taxes in a state which for several years now has held the dubious honor of having the longest wait for Tax Freedom Day, and she has signed same-sex civil unions, which are gay marriages in everything but name, into law, to the tumultuous joy of liberals throughout this notoriously left-leaning state. Oh, and yes, she's a Republican -- more specifically, the only kind of Republican tolerated here in Liberal Land: a RINO. Republican In Name Only.

RINOs are the Achilles heel of the Republican Party, particularly because they are a uniquely Republican phenomenon. They have no counterpart in the Democratic Party. (Zell Miller's retired now, so we can't count him.) So, while the Democratic Party is owned and operated top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top by liberals -- and only by liberals -- the Republican Party is chronically hamstrung by so-called Republicans who think like Democrats, act like Democrats, and almost invariably vote with the Democrats -- all resulting in a made-to-order situation for the Democrats. Though Democrats are now the minority party by every definition, they know that the presence of the RINOs in Republican ranks tends to nullify whatever numerical advantage the Republicans may have right now, and to reduce Republican power into a virtual null-and-void category. During the Senate filibuster controversy, for example, seven prominent RINOs joined with Democratic compadres to engineer the Great Republican Filibuster Cave of 2005. In return for up-or-down votes on a few selected judicial nominees, they agreed to keep an unconstitutional filibuster tactic, namely, the filibustering of judicial nominees, in the Senate playbook.

Informed conservatives know who the RINOs are. Some of the more familiar names are Arlen Specter, John McCain, Lincoln Chafee, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, George Voinovich, and Chuck Hagel. Here in Connecticut they have names like Nancy Johnson, Christopher Shays, Rob Simmons, and, yes, M. Jodi Rell. Let's understand one thing right off the bat: RINOs are not moderates, no matter what they may like to call themselves. These pretenders who carry the letter R in parentheses after their names are to a person are as sworn and committed to the doctrine of liberalism as any of their comrades across the aisle. They despise our president and his policies with every bit as much vehemence as any Democrat. Their goal, in the end, is not to support the Republican agenda, but rather, to undermine it -- as they have been successful at doing all too often. They would like for the Republican Party to ultimately become the Other Liberal Party, and drive the conservatives to irrelevancy in such obscure entities as the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. How many, for example, can name either party's candidate in the 2004 presidential election? The title of Christine Todd Whitman's book, It's My Party Too, states unequivocally the RINO position: namely, that the philosophy of the Republican Party should be anything and everything.

If the Republican Party is to survive at all, it must face the fact that the concept of the Big Tent has not worked. If the Democratic Party is the liberal party -- and it is -- then the Republican Party must inevitably either emerge as the conservative party or be consigned to irrelevance. It's time to strike the Big Tent down. An all-inclusive party-of-all-persuasions is, in the end, not a party at all, but merely a collection of individuals with no core philosophy and no real identity. We must also face the fact that RINOs exist within our ranks because conservatives (like, sadly, our president) willingly tolerate their presence. With all good intent, the conservatives seek to mollify and appease the RINOs when they ought to be whipping these renegades into line. For example, they begged and pleaded with Jim Jeffords to keep his Republican registration, knowing all the while that he was against everything they were for, for everything they were against, and a Democrat in everything but name. And we all know what he eventually did anyway.

In order to put RINOs into their proper perspective, it is necessary that those of us who consider ourselves to be genuine Republicans to put our allegiances into proper order: namely, to be Americans first, then conservatives, and then Republicans. It is only then that we will be able to clearly see that,

(1) We do not need RINOs. The argument that a name-only Republican is necessary for committee chairmanships loses credibility when that Republican shows his true colors by consistently arguing against his party's agenda and weakening its position.

(2) RINOs do no service to the Republican Party. Their goal, as previously stated, is not to support the Republican agenda, but rather, to torpedo it from within.

(3) RINOs are, in fact, agents of the opposition party. As the old saying goes, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it must be a duck. Likewise, if it talks like a Democrat, sounds like a Democrat, votes like a Democrat, but calls itself a Republican, it doesn't take a Ph.D. in political science to figure out what it really is.

So what do we do about RINOs? The answer seems to be simple enough: Don't vote for them! This simple, but honest solution may be difficult to implement in places like Connecticut, where the only alternative to a RINO is a Democrat. It may also be a test of party loyalty. But in a state whose Republican establishment has loyalty neither to its base nor to the national party, the whole concept of party loyalty is of little consequence anyway. If no third-party candidate emerges, write-in votes are still an option. This, of course, may be said to result in a Democratic victory on election day. But once again, this is of no consequence if the Republican candidate does nothing but echo the policies of his opponent. Taking action against RINOs may well hurt the Republican Party in the short run, but the words of General Lee quoted above may serve as a guide for us in the 21st Century. If conservatives can unite and use their votes to send the RINOs to the party of their true allegiance, then, over time, the only damage they will be able to inflict on our party will be from without, as it is with the rest of the Democrats, and not from within.