Attn GOP: Meet The Woodshed

If my email is any indication, too many “faithful GOP voters” are having a hell of a time dealing with the fact that the party has not manufactured a candidate pure enough, perfect enough and “Reaganish” enough to suit them, so they may just sit out what will arguably be the most important election of this era.

As I promised many moons ago, after I vote in the primary election I will be leaving the GOP – which I joined in support of George W. Bush – and re-categorizing myself as an unaffiliated voter. But while I’m still a “registered Republican” (and a RINO to you purists who are so eager to punt me and any like me to the door) allow me to speak my piece to a party running itself unto madness in seeking that unattainable illusion: the perfect candidate.

It seems the standard GOP voter – and apparently Rush Limbaugh – wants to disinter Ronald Reagan from his noble tomb and hoist him onto the campaign trail because he is their saint and savior, and if they can’t vote for someone exactly like him “Ronaldus Magnus” well, they’re going to sit out this all-important election.

Excuse me, but Ronald Reagan would have had no patience for the likes of you.

Unless I am mistaken – and forgive me if I am, but I was a headline-believing Democrat when Reagan was in office, so I cannot quote the Book of Reagan as completely as some – did not Reagan advise an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not criticize other Republicans?

I don’t know if I completely agree with that commandment, by the way, but he’s your idol, not mine. I can tell you that I do agree with another of Reagan’s dicta: that we ought not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

If Ronald Reagan were alive right now, watching the GOP split into these tantrum-throwing factions (whereby “perfection” is duly defined as “pro-life, pro-gun, pro-free-market, pro-worship, pro-Bush-doctrine, pro-tax-cut, pro-ship-back-all-illegals” and then, as each less-than-perfect candidate’s failure on one or more issues is noted, each are thus deemed unworthy of the support of the pristine and uncompromising “base”) I think he’d be disgusted with the lot of you.

Ronald Reagan above all he was a pragmatist and a realist. He understood something that some voters seem to have forgotten:

“When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything. I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.”
— Ronald Reagan, An American Life

If I am reading my mail right – and I believe I am – every candidate running for president on the GOP side is – gasp! – flawed in some way. This guy’s too religious, this guy’s a flip-flopper, this guy’s too John McCain, this guy is a tantalizing “almost perfect” flirt who doesn’t want to put out, this guy is too soft on illegals, this guy is too hard on assault rifles, this guy is great on security but he wears a dress!

Oh, boo-hoo, people. Get a grip. The truth is the GOP had produced several reasonable candidates for the presidential nomination. None are “perfect,” but neither are you. A vote for any of them will require from you an end to the thrust-lip tantrum. You’re going to have to wipe your little eyes, haul up your drawers and – egad – do what Reagan would have done; he would have looked for the candidate who he felt was – taken all-in-all – best for the whole nation, not just for some little one-issue subgroup; he would not simply vote for his comfort zone.

In unserious times, and vacations from history, it is possible to hold oneself aloof from a process and declare, “fiddle-dee-dee, I’ll think about voting next election!”

It cannot be said enough: we are in serious times. In this election you do not have the luxury of complacently waiting for the next bus because you don’t like any of these drivers. In this election, you either get on board and take the damn uncomfortable, bumpy ride with the rest of us, or you marginalize yourself into irrelevancy on your little bench.

If you are a voter who is sitting there waiting for your perfect “pro-life” candidate, think about this while you sit: Reagan and Dubya were inarguably the most pro-life presidents of the era, and neither of them could move your agenda, because the president cannot do so; all he can do is appoint judges to the Supreme Court who might do your bidding. There are 3-4 judges in that court right now who are all but sipping formaldehyde at every meal trying to hold on until a Democrat president can replace them. Instead of heaving your bosom for the “pro-life” candidate, maybe you should sigh a little for a “pro-law” and “pro-constitution” and “pro-judge” candidate who can actually appoint constitution-loving jurists.

Guess what? You sit on that bench through the election and you’re going to see 3-4 judges appointed who will give you nightmares for the next 30 years as they re-interpret the “living, breathing document” that is our Constitution into recognizability. Enjoy your rest.

If you are seated and waiting for the perfect “illegal immigration” candidate, one who will “build a wall, arrest everyone, enforce the laws and ship ’em all back,” well, you may as well face the fact that you’re not going to get all of that. If you are lucky you will get enforcement and a wall. If you are very lucky, you will get enforcement, a wall and a structured means to grandfather in those workers who have lived here peaceably and productively, and who can finally start paying into the society they desperately wish to join. If that is unpalatable to you, well…keep sitting.

While you’re sitting there, learn Spanish, because you’ll be joined on that bench by many who wish they could use the vote you’re keeping all to yourself. You can tell them how your ancestors came here “legally” – back when the nation had an excellent system for admitting them easily and humanely – and you can leave out the part where, had that system not been in place, they would have come anyway – illegally – because their lives had no hope, save the promise of America and freedom.

Then you can tell them why an “Ellis Island West” is less interesting to you than a pipe-dream of a policy whereby everyone goes back to Mexico (or Ireland) and starts over. Because “do-overs” are the province of the mature and hardy, right?

The next president of the United States is going to have the privilege of appointing at least 3 SCOTUS justices, who will each be there for perhaps three decades. He or she is going to preside over an economy that lately gets a case of the vapors with every rumor and weather report. The next president will finally have to deal squarely with our over-dependence upon foreign oil – an issue to which every president since Carter has paid lip-service; they’ve done nothing while our own resources have been put out of our own reach. This president will have to – finally – do something about the social security system that will be enormously strained by retiring baby-boomers bent on collecting everything they’ve got coming to them. President Bush couldn’t do anything about it – even with a GOP congress – but that hand will be forced soon.

A lot of hands are going to be forced, soon. If you think the global terrorist movement is not going to want to test the mettle of the next president, think again. They’ve seen “weak horses” before, and they’d love to see another.

You get the government you ask for. Not voting at all may be a request for a different sort of candidate, but it is impractical and self-destructive. If 2006 did not teach that to you, then God help us all while you learn it from 2008 to 2012.

The next president of the United States is already running. You may not “love” him or her. You don’t have to. All you have to do is ponder: which one of these people (because it is going to be one of them, or Mike Bloomberg) will be the best servant of America – not of you, baby – but of all America?

In Rumer Godden’s remarkable book In This House of Brede, the community of nuns must elect a new Abbess after the passing of a much-beloved and wise Abbess of nearly four-decades standing, and as they are observing each likely leader, they are discontented and concerned:

Dame Agnes, Dame Maura, Dames Ursula, Beatrice, Colette, Catherine: each in turn seemed focussed in a strong light that, while it showed their virtues, showed each blemish, too, “as if none of them will do,” said Hilary.

“One must,” said Philippa. “It will resolve itself.”

Dame Ursula endorsed that…”it is very grave; so much so that it seems as if there’s no one who can fill Lady Abbess’ place, but remember God never asks us to do something without giving us the strength. Becoming Abbess will call out qualities in the one chosen, that we – and she – do not think she possesses.”

“It will need to,” said Philippa…”it will be very hard coming after [the beloved predecessor]

Fill in “Lady Abbess” with Ronald Reagan (if you like) and “Becoming Abbess” with “becoming president” and there you have it. It will resolve itself, and the candidate you are so unsure of will certainly find himself or herself evolving and growing as the office demands. God is not done with any of them, any more than He is done shaping you.

Just as the great Abbey of Brede was larger than any one Abbess, America is larger than any one president. One of these candidates, bearing both virtues and blemish, must do. I cannot see that all of them are so pock-marked that their outstanding strengths must be rendered moot.

This election will, indeed, resolve itself. You can either be part of that process, helping the matter resolve in America’s best interests, or you can be the displeased, bench-sitting inveterate, clinging to a ticket to “Perfection-land” while bus after bus passes you by. America is not going to wait for you; while you dither and sniffle, she is moving forward. If you want any say at all as to where she goes, you cannot remain seated on your bench.

Wuzzadem gets me chuckling

Neoneocon writes about the dangerous attraction to “inspiration” and links to some good pieces.

Amused Cynic has more primary thoughts.

Beth seems to enjoy the woodshed analogy a little too much. If she comes out with a whip, everyone duck!

Gateway Pundit has linked to this, and so has Betsy Newmark. Thank you, guys!