Posted by
flagwaver on Sunday, June 03, 2007 2:06:27 PM
As Fred Dalton Thompson gets ever so close to stepping into the Presidential race, the GOP's conservative base is getting nearly giddy with excitement. Here is the man that we have put all of our Reagan wish fulfillment fantasies in; the strong, authoritative, articulate conservative that is uabashedly conservative. There is not even a hint of any "compassionate conservativism" in anything he says or does. He is what we claim to have been looking for for the last 8-12 years, and now he has arrived.
But I don't think that Fred Thompson's anticipated entry into the race is at all a reason for giddiness; I am looking at this as he point where the GOP is now going to have to finally take a stand. Is the GOP in line with the principles of the base, which is overwhelmingly conservative. Or is it, as I have long suspected, filled to the brim with country club elitists who do not embrace conservatives but merely tolerate them in their ranks.
How the GOP reacts to the anticipated Thompson candidacy will say volumes about where the Party sees it's future. If the Party poers and pundits, including some here at Townhall, continue to push a Guiliani or McCain nomination at us on the grounds that these two are "electable", we will know where the GOP has staked its future. It will have become a Party that is totally bereft of any principles, save one...winning elections; just like it's cousin, the Donkey Party. If it embaces Thompson, there may be some hope yet that conservative values are still a core part of the GOP and its future.
I am not saying that any opposition to Thompson is opposition to conservatism, but the nature of that opposition will be. How many, and how quickly will the power players of the GOP will rush to label Thompson as a captive of the "religious right" or the "far right"? And how many will try to tell us that all that matters is the "electibility" of the more "moderate" candidates? That will speak volumes.
No, this is not a time for dancing in the streets, for patting each other on the back, or for jubilation. This is a time for the conservative base to let it be known, by our words, actions, and votes that we are the backbone of this Party. It is a time for the conservatives in the GOP to watch closely what the party does: Will it support Guiliani over Thompson as it supported Specter over Toomey? This is a time for clarity of thought, and steely eyed determination to reclaim the Party from the "moderates" who embrace everything, while standing for nothing.
And if the Party chooses to ignore the base...again...and ignores our voices, it will be time for something else entirely. It will be time to call the Party to account.
It will be time for a reckoning.