Posted by
Bullpen on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 3:05:10 PM
The prevailing wisdom is that Ronald Reagan died on June 5th, 2004. I fear that is not entirely true. I fear that he may have truly died on Super Tuesday.
This time there was no funeral. There were no tears. There was no memorial. There was only John McClinton reading a victory speech with the enthusiasm of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. At that moment it dawned on me that we are going to nominate a man who is bankrupt of original ideas. We are nominating a man who talks down to us. We are nominating a man who could win the nomination of the other party without changing positions.
Yes, I fear that it is almost guaranteed that he will get the nomination, if only because Mike Huckabee will be giving all of his delegates to McClinton. He wants to be the Vice President of killing Conservatism.
I thought we learned our lesson after we lost control of Congress in 2006. Apparently not. Our party has decided on the insanity route--doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Maybe we deserved it. When we were pushed, we didn’t push back. Our elected officials gave up on their ideas and principles and we stood idly by and let it happen. We let men who were only interested in power carry our conservative mantle for personal gain. Now look at where we are. I fear we have become nothing more than a loud minority of the population.
What now?
That was the thought on my mind as I watched California go to the man who is an example of what Non-Conservatives believe a Conservative should be. I feared that we are facing the sunset. But as I passed by my Shawshank Redemption movie poster on the way out, I remembered that there was no reason to be afraid of losing everything we've worked for. We have something that can't be taken away from us: Hope.
Conservatism is about what human beings can achieve, not under the power of government, but under the power of freedom. Ronald Reagan said to his supporters after being defeated at the 1976 Convention by Gerald Ford, "I know there is some disappointment in what happened. But the cause....the cause goes on."
Some causes are worth fighting for. One day, the sun will rise again.