Principle Versus Power Politics

The 2008 election season has wrought a disaffection among GOP voters not seen in a long time.

Somehow, it seems the Republican primary process has left the party's base, the conservatives, with no reliable candidate to support. How could this happen in a party which, despite its "mavericks," remains at the grassroots a conservative party?

Dennis Prager's column at TownHall.com on Super Tuesday today provides insightful analysis of what is going on in both the Democrat and Republican Parties this campaign season: an overweening impulse to vote not for the best candidate, but the candidate that people think can win.

This paragraph from Prager's piece says it best:

Many Americans have become so politically savvy that they are in danger of outsmarting themselves. Republicans and Democrats who vote on the basis of who will win rather than who they think would make the better president may well be making a big error. Between now and November is far too long a period of time to make any predictions.

I attended the Family Research Council's "Washington Briefing" in Washington D.C. back in October. While there, I got a chance to talk with and listen to many conservative pro-family leaders from across the country. What I heard was surprising.

Among a group from which I expected pretty uniform principle over power-politics, instead I heard a lot of talk that goes along with Prager's analysis. Instead of many pro-family leaders supporting the best, most solid, most reliable pro-family conservative candidates, I heard people strategizing over who was most electable. I heard pro-family leaders who were willing to sacrifice principle and the best candidate in favor of one they considered more electable, the one who could beat Hillary Clinton.

I didn't talk to every pro-family leader there, and every one I talked to wasn't leaning this way. But a startling number were.

Instead of getting behind a solid conservative candidate who might have been behind in the polls, many chose to "choose a winner." Never mind that if they had got behind the solid conservative, they might have boosted his poll numbers into "electable" territory. Whether or not they thoroughly checked out the records of these "winners" before getting behind them, I do not know. It turns out that some of those "winners" are unacceptable to conservatives dedicated to principle, and at best will only receive grudging votes from conservatives on election day.

Just today, Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, made a personal statement that if Senator John McCain gets the GOP nomination, he's going to sit out this election. Dobson's opinion carries a lot of weight with values voters, and many of those values voters were undoubtedly leaning this way before Dobson's announcement.

As Prager said in his piece today, I think may conservatives have "outsmarted themselves" by lending early support to some candidates without really checking out their records, and now we're stuck with a few lousy choices.

It's always better to go with principle over politics. Even if lose a battle temporarily, you leave yourself in a much better position to win the war. And you can always respect yourself in the morning.

But with many on the Right having chosen to go the other way, we're probably looking at a demoralizing route in November, no matter who gets elected.

From the Silver Lining folder, however, remember that Jimmy Carter ushered in Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton ushered in a conservative Republican congress.