GOP Must Define Its Basic Essence, Offer Clear Vision of Future

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Feb. 28, Orange County Voices carried columns on the future of the Republican Party from two thoughtful Orange County writers representing conservative and moderate viewpoints.

At that time we offered this page as a forum and invited readers to join the debate by submitting their views on the future of the GOP and what its themes, appeals and programs should be.

The comments published here are a representative sample of the responses received.

‘Being a Republican Is More Than Simply Fiscal Responsibility’

It has been said that the Republican Party is broken up and divided with internecine strife. No doubt, that is something that a Liberal paper like The Times would be glad to see. Rather than sowing strife and finger-pointing, the party needs to look ahead to its future.

It is interesting that at a point when the Democratic party is seeking to re-establish a broad-based and perhaps an overly unfocused broad coalition, the Republicans are trying to narrow the focus of their party. Being a Republican is more than simply economic and fiscal responsibility and laissez-faire capitalism. Republicans are more than quasi-Libertarians who merely seek the shrinking of government. Progressive Republicanism is a social responsibility whereby government is selectively limited and real goals to new and different problems are sought via conservative solutions.

Republicans are feeling depressed right now, and with Bill Clinton in the White House they should be depressed. The moderates are quick to lambaste the religious right as intolerant. They want to reclaim “their” party. They have bought into the Democrat/media definition of Christian values as they apply to Republicans. In doing so, they have forgotten the true meaning of conservatism.

The religious right only seeks to keep government in its place. (Their) values are being violated when secular humanism and homosexuality are being taught to children in public schools, with federal funds, in violation of family religious beliefs. Another concern of “the Right” is abortion, which they decry as taking human life. Almost as significant, though, is the violation of the reserve clause (of the 10th Amendment) that takes place when the federal government dictates its pro-abortion stance unto the states.

These are not just concerns for those with religious values but concerns for all conservatives. It is ironic that as the Democrats seek to be inclusive, the Republican moderates seek to exclude Christians. When Tom Campbell says, in a now infamous quote, that moderates seek to “ . . . exclude issues of morality and conscience as litmus tests of being a Republican,” he is decrying the very tolerance that moderates supposedly promote. The Republican moderates are effectively seeking the removal of the Republican “soul”--that object of morality and conscience.

In decrying Rep. Robert K. Dornan, Robert Nelson makes the criticisms that such individuals as Dornan do not live up to the standards of the party of Lincoln. If Robert Nelson would do what so few Americans do and open up a book, he would see that this party of Lincoln has consistently taken moral stands. The moral stand to abolish slavery, for instance. Had Lincoln embraced the “tolerance” that Tom Campbell, Pete Wilson and Robert Nelson have evoked, slavery in the United States may have existed well into this century.

This is the party of Lincoln, the party for this nation and the party for the 21st Century. A party that demands government accountability and takes stands that evoke family and the individualism that made this country the great land that it still is today. It is not the party that Pete Wilson, Tom Campbell and Robert Nelson would like it to be. Yet, I am sure that a place can be found for these political equivocators in the Republican party; after all, this is still a tolerant party.

DARREN BOUWMEESTER

Garden Grove