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A New Time for Choosing
The most important thing about the November 2008 Election is Barack Hussein Obama. By comparison, John McCain is a minor distraction. A new time for choosing has arrived. Americans will have the chance to choose either the status quo, which is not all that good, or a vast expansion in the size and cost of government in the European socialist image. Americans will also have to choose either a flawed, but necessary, strategy against enemies who have sworn to destroy us or a policy of appeasement that could lead to the ashes of American cities rising through the atmosphere in mushroom-shaped clouds.
 If you think mentioning the result of a nuclear attack on our cities is over-the-top rhetoric or, worse yet, if you are thinking of voting for Barack Obama, please click Dr. Thomas Sowell's image to read a very sobering argument for why it could be the worst, and perhaps even the last, vote of your life. Galling as it may seem, conservatives would be foolish to stay home on Election Day rather than voting for John McCain.
There is no question that we conservatives are angry with the choices our big-government Republican Party has given us in the November 2008 Election for candidates at all positions on the ballot. This year, more than in any years in recent memory, is dominated by the “choice” of voting for the candidate who represents the “lesser of two evils.”
- At the top of the ballot is Senator John McCain who has done so many things that run counter to conservative principles that it’s difficult to warm up to him. Radio and TV talk-show superstar Sean Hannity estimates that conservatives will disagree with McCain about 40% of the time if he is elected to be America’s next president.
- Ballot woes aren’t confined to the president. If you live on the East Coast, chances are your Congressman parts company with his or her fellow Republicans on no-brainer issues like minimum-wage increases by voting with the current Democrat majority.
- If you live in California, chances are no better than 50-50 that the Republican candidate for the state legislature is hard to distinguish from the Democrat.
We’re in this situation partly because primary voters have bought into the line that conservative candidates just can’t win in a country or a state or a district that’s "trending to the left." And now, of course, the Republican Party wants us to rally behind candidates we dislike simply because the alternative is so much worse.
In eight of the past ten presidential elections the choice for conservatives has been less than ideal. We have gone along, of course, usually voting against the Democrat rather than for the Republican.
While a compelling case -- such as Thomas Sowell's -- can be made for voting for McCain to help defeat Obama, conservatives would be wise to focus their efforts strictly on electing conservatives to down-ballot offices.
 Conservatives are long overdue to say this is the last time. Increasingly, conservatives are calling for a change in Republican Party leadership -- the July 7, 2008 column by Robert Novak, for example, underscores this demand. We are long overdue to declare that we refuse to buy into blind partisanship any longer. We are long overdue to say that the current Republican Party leadership has overstayed its welcome by transforming the Party’s mindset from limited government to big government and by promoting second-rate candidates.
It’s time to kick the bums out of the Republican Party!
With respect to the Republican Party, a new time for choosing has arrived. One choice is to continue accepting a cheaper-welfare-state Republican Party because it’s not as bad as the socialist Democrat Party. The other choice is reject the current Republican Party leadership and begin the rebuilding process in the spirit of Barry Goldwater when he said, “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.”
By rejecting the current Republican Party leadership, we can liberate ourselves from elections in which we have the chronic dread that a far-left Democrat might prevail over a hapless “moderate” Republican.
By rejecting the current Republican Party leadership, we can look forward to the day when we will be able to actually vote for the Republican candidate.
And, above all, by rejecting the current Republican Party leadership, you give yourself the opportunity to look to the future with optimism and hope. As depressing as this election may seem, we conservatives can buoy our own spirits by declaring our independence from the Republican Party now, and by looking forward to rebuilding the Party from whatever is left of it on January 2, 2009.
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