NO to Barbour’s advice
June 27, 2009 6 Comments
While I did not attend the Night of the Rising Stars I have taken the time to read about the event and to hear from those who were attendance.
A take away I have from what Haley Barbour had to say is that “pro-lifers need to vote for pro-choice candidates and vise-versa if we are to win elections.”
The Republican Party is in big trouble if they think Social Conservative Republicans will take this advice. In fact, let me be clear, the answer is NO!
For me it boils down to trust. If a candidate can support killing babies then I can not and will not trust them to support other issues that I care about.
Big Tent is a nifty term for some but for me if it means compromising my beliefs I will not cave in to support moderate candidates.
There are grass roots social conservatives who also care about other issues that need to be solved. We are out in our communities working to make our voices heard. We may not attend party events or be in the “in” crowd of political circles but we are networking and supporting each other to be strong and committed to candidates who share our values and beliefs.
As I read your post, I thought of the gazeble we purchased for our daughter’s wedding. I went to great lengths shopping for just the right one. It was beautiful and worked well for the reception. My husband had to put it together with help. As it was a wedding gift for the newlyweds, the next June my husband and son-in-law put it up in their back yard out on the farm. They thought they would get it done as well and more quickly by anchoring it down by using cement blocks rather than a better way.
Not two days later, it was destroyed by the first high wind.
As you write about the “tent”, I think of compromising the base and the results.
The sad and disappointed feeling quickly returns to mind.
A big tent, hastily erected, with collapse at the slightest wind.
Principles, in the form of strong poles in which to suppport the tent, must not be compromised.
An interesting topic for Barbour to step into. As far as I know there are no pro-choice Republicans running for Governor………….yet.
I am sick of old men telling us how to do things.
This was part of an interview Haley B did in an June 26 Iowa Public T. V. interview.
“Henderson: But Governor there are some in the Republican Party who don’t wish to include people who have, as you labeled, pro-choice views. They don’t want them to be part of the party. They don’t want them to represent the party. What do you say to those folks?
Barbour: I would say that my experience is that every election you have millions of Pro-Choice Republicans voting for Pro-Life Republicans. You have millions of Pro-Life Republicans voting for Pro-Choice Republicans. The best example I can think of, Kay, in my own experience in your neighboring state of Minnesota in 1994 Arnie Carlson was the most liberal Republican Governor in the United States. He was pro-choice, he got challenged in the party convention and lost the convention before he won the primary. Yet in the general election Arnie Carlson had more to do with our electing a Pro-Life Republican Senator in Minnesota than any other person. It was the perfect example of a Pro-Choice Republican leader saying ‘Hey, this guy and I agree on 80% of the things, I’m not going to let the fact that we disagree on abortion keep me from helping him get elected Senator of Minnesota.”
callmecrusader,
I share your sentiments. The leadership of the Democrat party never allows their pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, culturally radical positions to be compromised. The so-called “big tent” Republicans
have been trying for years to get social conservatives to essentially sell out and give up on their principles.