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Politics
It’s Time to Retire the GOP’s Moderates
COMMENTARY / Michael Reagan
T
HERE ARE A LOT OF MEETINGS GOING ON ATTENDED BY a party of moderation — the party that can’t make up its
Republicans trying to fi gure out what went wrong mind about what is right to do and what is wrong to do.
in November and how the party needs to respond. So they try to come down in the middle.
None of them involves what the media They forget that Abraham Lincoln, the fi rst Republican
like to call the base, the folks at the grass president, warned us not to believe there “is some middle
roots whose votes, after all, determine the ground” between what is right and what is wrong.
outcome of elections. The grass roots haven’t forgotten that, and the election
The gatherings get a lot of media results prove it. The “values voters” are alive and well,
attention because the media mistakenly and they spoke loud and clear where values were at stake.
believe that the people attending them As Brad O’Leary has noted, a majority of Americans
represent the grass roots of the GOP. still support traditional American values. He cited
They don’t. initiatives to uphold traditional marriage that were
What they represent is the coterie that on the ballots in two states carried by President-elect
Michael Reagan led the party into eight years of ignoring Obama: California and Florida.
is a syndicated talk- the traditions and principles of the O’Leary, author of The Audacity of Deceit: Barack
radio host heard by party pursued so avidly by the Reagan Obama’s War on American Values, says, “In both states,
5 million listeners. administration, with which they have the voters passed measures to ban gay marriage. In California,
effrontery to identify themselves. where Obama beat McCain 61 percent to 37 percent,
They represent the big-government, big-spending ‘values voters’ beat special-interest voters 52.5 percent to
Republican Party that turned its back on the grass roots. 47.5 percent on the issue of same-sex marriage.”
Many of them say that what the GOP needs to do is to In Florida, which he recalls Obama won, the margin
do more of the same things that put us where we are. of victory for values voters
I have news for them. They are not the Republican was even more substantial
Party. They remain wedded to the idea that the party is — 62 percent of Floridians
The party’s
voted against gay marriage,
while only 38 percent voted
grass roots stand
THE LOYAL OPPOSITION
in favor.
for traditional
Most damning for
the GOP moderates was
values that are
Obama’s ability to portray
worth fi ghting for.
himself as a tax cutter.
Meanwhile, the big-
government, big-spending Republicans’ voice is David
Brooks, The New York Times columnist who insists that
the GOP must abandon its traditions and values and go
merrily down to road to the land of moderation where
nothing is really right and nothing is really wrong.
However, Brooks neglects to tell his readers that this
is the road that leads to lost elections.
The future of the Republican Party is in the hands of
the party’s grass roots. Some of us will be concentrating
on organizing the people who are the real base of
the party and fi ghting to restore the party’s values as
represented by my father’s administration.
What we stand for is worth fi ghting for. And it is
what will save the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald
Reagan. Let the moderates have their meetings. We’ll be
busy taking over the reins and restoring the GOP.
© 2009 NEWSMAX MEDIA
© 2008 MICHAEL REAGAN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
38 NEWSMAX / JANUARY 2009

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