A Pivotal Moment

The Republican Party of Virginia is in critical care.

I will not mince words about it.  And if you listen to the advice of the politicians and the political class, you might as well just drag it out back and shoot it.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is the antidote is so simple and easy… but it requires you to act.

Sitting around waiting for the politicians to fix it is exactly what has brought us to this point.  Now many of you may think I am talking about the United States Senate Race, or one of the many House seats Republicans are poised to lose in November.

I am not.

I am talking about the political environment that enables the radical left wing socialists to create the atmosphere that enabled the Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia, Kirk Cox, lead 18 other ‘Republicans’ to stab conservative voters in the back, all to fill their campaign coffers with special interest dollars.  And four ‘Republican’ State Senators (Hanger, Vogel, Wagner and Chafee) to vote multiple times to expand Obamacare in the Commonwealth. These so-called Republicans thereby filled their own campaign coffers with special interest dollars while foisting 30% increase in insurance premiums and $600 Million dollars in new and increased taxes on the rest of us.

And many Republican party “leaders” are going around the state telling rank and file voters they have to accept this treachery– for the good of the party.

Politicians and their lapdogs will try to sell you on the politics of personality.  Their lapdogs – desperate to garner the attention and access to the spineless politician – will invite them out to Party meetings and politely ask them to explain their bad vote, in a charming and personable way; while your insurance rates and taxes go up.

And they will charm you into believing that, despite their votes to the contrary, they are really conservative like you!  They will tell you they just had no choice but to vote the way they did – while your insurance rates and taxes go up.

This must stop.  When a Republican votes like a Democrat, they should not be given the chance to backpedal.  Instead they need to be confronted, chastised, and ultimately incur consequences for voting away your money and liberty. If they don’t, they will continue to do it again, and again, and again.  And we, the people, will see our rights continually slip away as they pass more gun control, raise our taxes, and continue the steady march toward socialism. The cold reality is that most politicians only stand for one thing:  their own re-election. And if that means they have to do a double back-flip and stab you in the back, they will do so in a minute.

I know what many of you are thinking right now:”let’s just toss the bums out in the primaries next year.” But that doesn’t do any good if you end up with new bums. And that is what usually happens.  They may not start off as bums, but once they learn they can get away with selling out, they always do.

The solution is deeper.

Together the conservative voters of Virginia must change the political environment.  For if you control the environment, you control those who live in it, like politicians.  The radical left learned this a long time ago. They realized that if they made it more politically painful to oppose them rather than to push their policies, politicians will vote their way.

And policy is made one vote, one politician at a time.

So how do you make these sellout “Republicans” feel political pain?

First you have to realize the politicians and the Republican Party officials work for you, the Republican voters of Virginia.  We do not work for them; they work for us – and we need to act accordingly. And that means holding them accountable when they perform poorly.  

And how do you do this?  It’s really simple. Join your local Republican Party County Committee and work to publicly censure them for their bad votes.  Call upon the committee to publicly condemn them for their bad votes, rather than trying to give them cover. Call upon them to publicly deny them any support (including party funding!) in any future elections, while working to primary them out of their elected seats.  Again, unless we impose consequences for bad behavior, we will continue to get more of the same.

Politics is a numbers game.  Whichever side shows up with the most wins.  And in most county-level Party committees in Virginia, if you show up with a voting block of 25 active and non-compromising friends, you can make this happen.

In fact, it already has. The local Republican parties in Greene, Appomattox, Hanover and Culpeper counties have passed Resolutions and refused future electoral support for the “Republicans” who voted to expand Obamacare in Virginia.  Any several other counties… and it is being worked on in several other counties, including Loudoun, Bedford and Campbell, are working on similar measures.

True conservatives need to become – and stay — personally engaged and invested in the continued fight to force our elected officials to keep their promises

The Republican Party is supposed to stand for conservative principles: life, individual liberty, private property and personal responsibility.

Those are not just words; they are a call to action, to take personal responsibility of your own life, your liberty, your personal property and the Republican Party. And while there are many of us fighting tooth and nail to return conservative values to the Republican Party, we will fail without your personal involvement.

It does take your time and a little money to get involved.  But there is no choice. Government simply cannot be “for the People” unless it is “of the people and by the people.”  And I challenge anyone who says s/he does not have the time to join in the fight to say that while walking past the graves stones of Patriots who gave their very lives– all they had and all they ever would have — to create and defend our Republic.

A Republic based upon liberty and freedom, not socialism and the destructive manner of personality politics, where just because you ‘like’ a politician means you let them vote away the very principles our forefathers fought to defend.

We, the conservatives of Virginia, need to take back the Republican Party of Virginia.  We must hold elected Republicans accountable for their poor votes, and we must restore the party to the principles of those great Founding Fathers of Virginia.jjgg

Together we must not only do this, but also force the Party to create a State Platform, one created by the voters, not the politicians, and in turn hold politicians accountable to that platform.

And never, ever, compromise.

Never fall for the ‘lesser of two evils’ argument politician’s lapdogs use to get you to reward a politician’s bad vote with your good vote every single November.  I have worked in politics for many years, and I can tell you this- it is far easier to replace a bad Democrat than a bad Republican.

And in the end, it does not really matter who is elected, but rather how they vote.

For their vote, not their personality, determines whether you lose or gain more liberty and freedom.

We have a lot of work to do.  Sometimes it is hard, and often not pleasant.  And, in the words of Thomas Paine, it is not for the summer soldier, who only fights when it is easy.

But rather one who stands together with other principled leaders and defends our conservative principles against all those who work to destroy them, in spite of what the politicians tell you.

And often then, you will find yourself being charmed by politicians, to sell out your principles for shiny babbles such as being invited to dinners and made to feel important.  This is something I will address in a later column on just how the Tea Party failed and actually enabled politicians to pass legislation against the very principles the Tea Party was founded to defend.

Patrick Henry never said “Give me Liberty or invite me to dinners and receptions and make me feel important”.

The bad news is the Republican Party of Virginia is ailing, but the good news is that the cure is simple.

But only if you hold your freedom and principles near and dear enough to turn off the TV for a few hours each week and join us in the fight.