In his most recent piece, the widely respected Thomas Sowell remarks upon the GOP\u2019s decades long insistence upon nominating \u201cad hoc moderates\u201d\u2014like Mitt Romney\u2014as their presidential candidates\u2014even though these moderates unfailingly \u201cget beaten by even vulnerable, unknown or discredited Democrats.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sowell expresses what appears to be the consensus among many in talk radio, to say nothing of the rank-and-file of the Republican Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sadly, far from shedding light on the GOP\u2019s woes, this consensus is a reflection of them.<\/p>\n
When Republican voters decry \u201cad hoc moderates,\u201d it is to \u201cRepublican-In-Name-Only\u201d (RINO) types that they refer.\u00a0 That is, it is Republican liberals <\/em>for whom they reserve their disdain.\u00a0 But this grievance implies that there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between Republicans who are \u201cmoderates\u201d and those who are not.<\/p>\n The truth of the matter is that no such distinction exists.<\/p>\n In other words, with few exceptions, the vast majority of Republican politicians are <\/em>\u201cmoderates.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0In practice, if not always in rhetoric, they are liberals, Big Government tax-and-spenders.<\/p>\n Doubtless, the widely shared perception among those on the right that Mitt Romney is, as Newt Gingrich referred to him in the presidential primaries, a \u201cMassachusetts moderate,\u201d is correct.\u00a0 Seldom noted, however, is that Gingrich himself is no less of a \u201cmoderate.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, Gingrich is actually more <\/em>of a \u201cmoderate\u201d than the former Massachusetts governor.<\/p>\n From his support for \u201cspreading\u201d Democracy around the planet, foreign aid, and an individual \u201chealth care\u201d mandate, to his support for a \u2018flex fuel\u201d mandate, Medicare D, the bank bailouts of 2008, and everything in between, Gingrich is as avid a proponent of Big Government as there is.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Yet Gingrich isn\u2019t the only \u201cconservative\u201d alternative to Romney from the primaries who isn\u2019t conservative. Rick Santorum is another.<\/p>\n The United States government currently has its military personnel in some 160 countries or so. Santorum wants an even stronger<\/em> American military presence. He also never renounced the \u201cCompassionate Conservatism\u201d that he once avowed, an ideology of Gargantuan Government that lead Santorum to call for greater government involvement in the life of civil society\u2014including <\/em>its religious institutions.<\/p>\n In 2005 Santorum gave a speech to the Heritage Foundation in which he claimed: \u201cIf government is to be effective,\u201d then \u201ccharities, houses of worship, and other civil institutions\u201d have to be, not just \u201crespected,\u201d but \u201cnurtured<\/em>\u201d (emphasis mine).\u00a0 Among the things that he wanted to see done is for the federal government to \u201cdedicate a larger percentage of\u201d its \u201cGDP to foreign aid\u201d and to abolish \u201cgenocide, international sex trafficking and the oppression of minority groups\u2026 around the world [.]\u201d<\/p>\n George W. Bush, in spite of winning two terms and presiding over a Republican-controlled Congress for 75% of his time as president, was at least as much, and probably much more of a \u201cmoderate,\u201d than Romney or any other RINO.\u00a0<\/p>\n The federal government continued to swell under Bush and his Republicans.\u00a0 His \u201cCompassionate Conservatism\u201d did absolutely nothing to advance anything that can remotely be called \u201cconservative\u201d and much to retard it. Not since Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s Great Society has federal spending increased to the extent that it did under Bush\u2019s watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t just these much touted \u201cconservative\u201d stars and veterans of the GOP who are indistinguishable from the \u201cmoderates\u201d who self-styled conservatives disdain. While it borders on blasphemy to suggest it, the truth is that no less a figure than Ronald W. Reagan<\/em> was also a \u201cmoderate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, Reagan, though brilliant at articulating a vision of liberty, did not govern as a conservative.\u00a0<\/p>\n The federal government ballooned during Reagan\u2019s eight years as president. He succeeded in eliminating not a single government program, let alone an agency.\u00a0 Taxes were cut in his first year as president, yes, but they were increased many times after that.\u00a0 Spending far exceeded even Jimmy Carter\u2019s wildest forecast, we \u201ccut and run\u201d after more than 200 of our Marines were killed in Lebanon, and millions of illegal immigrants were granted amnesty\u2014all during Reagan\u2019s tenure. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Republican Party is not divided between conservatives and \u201cmoderates.\u201d It consists of varying degrees of \u201cmoderates.\u201d\u00a0 Until this is grasped, until, that is, we realize that conservatives\u2019 ticket to winning future elections is to make sure that they are, well, conservative, Republicans will continue to lose ground with the American public. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his most recent piece, the widely respected Thomas Sowell remarks upon the GOP\u2019s decades long insistence upon nominating \u201cad hoc moderates\u201d\u2014like Mitt Romney\u2014as their presidential candidates\u2014even though these moderates unfailingly \u201cget beaten by even vulnerable, unknown or discredited Democrats.\u201d\u00a0 Sowell expresses what appears to be the consensus among many in talk radio, to say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n