Bill Murchison of the Dallas Morning News examines the leading candidates for the Republican nomination for president and concludes that we are faced with a Gandalf moment: Frodo the Hobbit remarks, as darkness descends on Middle Earth, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.” “So do I…,” the wizard replies. “But that is not for [us] to decide. All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” It’s another way of saying that life, especially political life, can be urgent and challenging.
For a rock-solid Reagan conservative, we’re faced with a series of bad choices. There’s the pro-abortion, anti-gun Rudy Giuliani and the apparently flip-flopping Mitt Romney and the free-speech-impairing media darling John McCain. Or if you want to stand on principle, you can support a candidate who would make a great president but lags far behind in visibility and finances, like Sam Brownback. And the sad fact is that a year from now, the decision will most likely have been made for us and we’ll have to hold our nose and vote for someone we really don’t want because the Democratic alternative would be even worse. (For those of you not from Massachusetts, trust me: Conservatives in this state have lots of practice doing that.)
The problem, as Murchison notes, is that as we hold our nose and compromise our principles for the sake of victory, we slip ever further away from the society we envision, not least because politics has usurped the realm of moral absolutes.
A previous supposition had been that politicians and judges generally left moral matters to the regulation of the community at large, meaning pastors, parents and the like. It was only with the school prayer decisions of the 1960s that government added moral and philosophical questions to its agenda.
You can see the problem. If politics indeed is the art of compromise, what does it mean when politicians address the moral absolutes, as with the matter of unborn human life? You compromise—how? By making abortion sometimes illegal, sometimes not? And in the process outrage everyone? It is thus with gay marriage. Where lies the possible compromise?
Exactly. Such “compromises” are in fact the surrender by one side or another because if you believe marriage is one man and one woman, what compromise can there be? Likewise if you believe an unborn child is fully human with all rights and dignities, what compromise on abortion can you make?
So that’s what us Reagan conservatives—those of who put our Catholic beliefs about the just ordering of society into practice in our political action—are facing: How much will we have to surrender in November 2008 to prevent an even greater defeat?
Technorati Tags:conservative, election, politics, presidential campaign, Republicans
Well, (alas)…. McCain has the voting record that allows for no compromise. On paper he is a solid conservative choice. His remarks on marriage are that should it threaten to go Federal (against DOMA) he will support the Amendment. That’s rather solid in my book, given that its now playing out on the state level…and we can hold him to his promises.
The off-paper problem I see is that he is in love with the Beltway/Media circle. He believes that one can negotiate with the eastern establishment. This makes him likely to go rogue in the nomination of Supreme Court justices and judges in general. This is the scary scenario. (I have a pretty good head for politics)
One interesting scenario I heard was the Rudy would be more beholden to pro-life voters should he get elected. That this, along with a combination of his law & order philosophy and penchant as a fighter would get us the nominations we need.
You need to weigh this (obviously) against the Nuclear prospect of actually nominating a pro-choice candidate after years of activism on the issue. (a dire prospect indeed)
I feel horrible…..leaning McCain
(will vote Brownback in Primaries)
I stopped holding my nose on the second Tuesday in November some time ago. I readily vote for honest 3d party candidates. Given where I’ve lived over the decades, the electoral college usually makes my vote a “waste of time” anyway, so I might as well not trash my conscience for a candidate who won’t benefit from my vote in any case. Brownback is the man so far.
What to think about is what you’re actually voting for. It’s one thing to vote for a politician you disagree with on political matters. It quite another to vote for a politician who (like Giuliani), sees no problem with killing unborn children up to and including the moment of birth. I have held my nose and voted for any number of GOP candidates, whose politics I despised, because they were pro-life. Why would I vote for someone whose politics I despise if they are pro-death?
Fitz,
You claim to have a good head for politics and then give some kind of credence to the idea that “Rudy would be more beholden to pro-life voters should he get elected.” How in the name of St. Patrick do you figure that?! It is a law of political thermodynamics that pro-abort pols never, ever (EVER!) feel beholden to pro-lifers. Half the time, nominally pro-life candidates don’t show any true loyalty to the pro-life cause.
The problem with Rudy is that, as he showed on 9/11, he is a true leader (for good or for ill). That’s attractive when you are voting for the leader of the free world and your other choices are mealy-mouthed, flip flopping pols (like McCain, Romney) who you couldn’t trust as far as you could throw ‘em or relative unknowns (Brownback) who say things you like, but hey, they are relatively unknowns.
(Write-in Jeb for Prez)
Duncan Hunter is another good choice (Congressman from San Diego). Solid conservative, and he’s recently won the straw poll in McCain’s home state, and came in a close third in the South Carolina straw poll a couple weeks ago.
Hunter and Brownback are the only two I can see myself voting for, at this stage.
One more thing…. the presidential dynamics would change considerably if Bin Laden (and Zawahiri) are killed or captured before the primaries kick in.
Don’t forget that Bubba Clinton was an unknown, also, when he entered the primaries.
Suggestion: campaign and vote for Brownback. Don’t hold your nose and vote a pro-abort; if we do that, we’re no better than they are.
Danby got it exactly right:
Brownback’s only chance is in a three way race in the the general elections. So, I think he should save his $$ for a third party race.
In the Republican primaries, they (the Politico-Media establishment) will find a way to take him out, just like they did the PURE LIBERAL from VT, Howard Dean. They just won’t let someone from what are now considered the “fringes” of the parties, represent the parties (and don’t try and tell me GW is “all that”).
He should save his money, and let the two parties nominate Hilary and Rudy. Then he can run as an independent, non-New Yorker. The NY backlash should be enough to propel him, if not in, at least into a position where his people can determine the next Prez. Hill and Rudy will split the coasts, while he will gobble up the middle (all of whom HATE NY). Then in the ConCon… anything can happen.
My personal opinion, only.
Sorry for the double post:
Dom said:
Dom, perhaps what this country needs is four years under the Democratic alternative, with a Democratic Congress.
Perhaps we need to live “in Winter”, again, to appreciate the absence of Springtime. If we drift all the way left, then under persecution, finally this country may wake up and snap back to right of center. Let’s face it, things on the life front aren’t much better now than they were during Bill Clinton.
Accept whatever befalls you, in crushing misfortune be patient;
For in fire gold is tested, and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation.
Trust God and he will help you; make straight your ways and hope in him. Sirach 2:4-6
Sounds like the answer has already been provided.