Minority Group in a Minority Party?

I haven’t written about Doug Gross’s comments the last few days because I didn’t want to get into the blame game any more than I already have. I also was hoping some of these things would go away soon but since there is an article in about every local and national paper incorrectly blaming conservatives and the religious right for our losses, I thought it best to jump in now. Obviously most of you probably know that I’m on the other side of the argument to moderate our positions on the core issues of life, marriage, guns, etc..

I keep going back to Gross’s statement, “Conservatives are a minority group in a minority party.” I don’t know how he can keep saying that. Almost everybody I talk to believes in traditional marriage, life begins at conception, the right to keep and bear arms, less government, and lower taxes. Those are all conservative ideals. They are also all in our platform. I don’t know what Republican Party he has been a part of. He apparently hasn’t been to state or county central committee meetings, house parties for candidates, RPI dinners, campaigns’ headquarters, or any other political function. These rooms are all filled with conservatives, not moderates. Sure there are a few moderates and they stand side by side the conservatives, but almost all of these events are set up and made successful by conservatives.

What Doug Gross and people like him can’t understand is conservatives are the party and the people he calls radically conservative are the folks who agree with the platform on the most issues. His illogical statements just frustrate me to no end. He also says we need to be a big tent party. I don’t see how we aren’t. Go through our platform, there isn’t one issue in there that doesn’t get more than 50 percent support statewide.

Conversely, take a look at the Iowa Democrat Party’s platform. You will find a ton of extremely liberal positions such as: redistribution of wealth for the greater good, a moratorium on new coal plants, the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to all state and federal laws, legislation protecting gay couples’ rights in adopting children, gay marriage, legalizing marijuana, eliminating English as the official language of Iowa, and many others. They also nominated the most liberal Senator for President (while we nominated one of the most liberal in our party). The Democrats are about as far away from a big tent party as you can get.

Nope, Gross - even though his intentions may be good - is way off. We are getting beat because we keep failing to support the conservatives in our party. Until Gross and Des Moines insiders like him start to understand that for every moderate who doesn’t vote for guys like Tom Latham, Bill Salier, or Steve King, there is at least one registered Democrat and/or no party voter who does vote for them because they stood strong on an issue they really liked.

The last thing I can’t figure out is what Doug Gross wants Republicans to run on? I know he said fiscal issues – but what exactly and does that work? If we run solely on fiscal issues than I’m assuming Doug would support the flat tax or FairTax. Or does he want to just run on lowering property taxes and cutting a few taxes here and there. He’d also say we need to shrink the size of government but wouldn’t be able to point to a program he’d cut or eliminate. Sounds like a McCain debate answer? How’d that work out?

Conservatives have the opportunity right now to take over the reins of the Party and go full steam ahead. We absolutely need to have our candidates screaming conservative ideals at the top of their lungs. As Mr. Bill Salier said the other day, time to grab the pitch forks and march to the sound of the guns.

I’m going to leave you with one last thought. We just nominated John McCain, one of the most liberal Senators in our party for President and now we are getting article after article and moderate after moderate spouting the same junk they’ve been saying for years. How can they possibly say the conservatives are to blame and what exactly do they suggest we run on? Did anybody out there hear Mike Huckabee, Bill Salier, Steve King, Fred Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Bob Vander Plaats or any other national or state conservative leader offer any negative words about moderates or John McCain after the Iowa Caucus? Did any of you see any candidate’s commercials that focused on life or marriage this election cycle?