Enough About You, Let’s Talk About Me

It’s deja vu all over again. 1968: Ronald Reagan, the conservative candidate for President (his campaign never got off the ground), loses the nomination to the “moderate” Republican Richard Nixon. Nixon wins, conservatives in Congress are effectively silenced. Nixon rightly figures, “where will they go?” and moves left. It takes conservatives 12 years to regroup within the GOP. Many who voted for Nixon on the lesser of two evils theory bitterly regret it when they realize how they have been sandbagged.

2008: Conservatives are faced with the lesser of two evils argument once again. Vote for McCain because he’s better on some issues than the Democrat? “Throw away” your vote on a third party candidate? Stay home? Some are even threatening to vote for the Democrat, either Clinton or Obama, figuring that 1) we’re entering a recession and the president will be blamed, so better them than us, and 2) four years of crazy liberalism will energize conservatives and the country and the next election will be a conservative GOP landslide.

This also reminds me of 1976 (when I worked full-time for Ronald Reagan). We lost the nomination to the more liberal Jerry Ford, who lost the election to Jimmy Carter. Four years later the country was so fed up with Carter, and the conservative movement had grown so strong, that Reagan won in a landslide. Should conservative Republicans take 1976 as their model? Yes, they should.

Either that, or form a new party. Conservatives have to stop thinking that conservatism and the GOP are joined at the hip.