[Vision2020] The Republican Agenda and the Purity Test

[Tom Hansen]

According to a its proposed party resolution, the Republican National
Committee will not support a candidate if that candidate fails on three or
more principles delineated within the resolution.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal at

http://tinyurl.com/RepublicanPurityTest

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Conservative Republican Party activists want to withhold money from GOP
candidates who stray too far from party orthodoxy.

Ten Republican National Committee members are distributing a plan to
impose a purity test – calling for money to be withheld from anyone who
disagrees with conservative principles on more than two of 10 core issues.

Among the required stances: oppose President Barack Obama’s health care
and cap-and-trade proposals as well as his stimulus plan; reject
government funding for abortion; vote “no” on legislation to help unions
organize; and support keeping the Defense of Marriage Act.

“The problem is that conservatives have lost trust in the Republican Party
that we will govern as conservatives,” said James Bopp Jr., an Indiana
lawyer and one of 168 RNC members who will debate the idea during the
party’s winter meeting in January. “And I think that loss of trust is
warranted to a certain extent because of the fact that we in the final
several years of the Bush administration were supporting increased
government, earmarks and, ultimately, bailouts.”

Bopp and other conservatives have tried in the past to convince RNC
Chairman Michael Steele to label Obama a “socialist.” The new resolution
brings back the ‘s’ word, arguing that, “Republican solidarity in
opposition to Obama’s socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the
security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way
of life.”

The resolution underscores a simmering tension within the party about how
to remake the GOP and regain power in Washington, coming as conservative
candidates such as Florida U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, are
challenging establishment Republicans viewed as too accommodating to the
left.

Many core conservatives argue that the party has lost elections because it
strayed from its ideological foundations, running up deficits during the
George W. Bush administration and supporting candidates such as Sen. Arlen
Specter of Pennsylvania, who often sided with Democrats and wound up
switching parties. Others, such as Steele, have argued that the party can
gain ground by welcoming a wider diversity of viewpoints.

A spokeswoman for Steele, Gail Gitcho, said it was unclear what the
chairman would do about the proposal, but she left the door open to
negotiations once the deadline for submissions passes in about a month.

“At this point, we do not know what resolutions will be submitted, nor
what the final language of any resolution ultimately submitted may be,”
Gitcho said.

RNC meetings, traditionally fairly staid affairs focused on mundane rules
and convention planning, have become lively in recent years as the party
has slipped into minority status. Many committee members are elected by
conservative party activists in their home states, and somepushed
resolutions in the waning years of the George W. Bush presidency
challenging his support for more open immigration laws.

Organizers of the new purity test said they decided to allow deviation on
no more than two issues in deference to the mantra of the late President
Ronald Reagan, who, as the resolution states, believed “that someone who
agreed with him eight out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.”

Democrats, who have watched their own support from independent voters slip
in recent months as public anxiety has grown over Obama’s push for a
health-care overhaul, are likely to use the RNC’s debate to paint the
Republicans as inhospitable to centrists. Polls, after all, show that
those independents losing faith in Democrats are not necessarily gaining
faith in the GOP.

A Democratic Party spokesman, Hari Sevugan, predicted the resolution would
“further marginalize” the GOP, and added jokingly: “Do you think they have
rules that will allow me to cast a ballot in favor of it?”

The proposal was distributed to a handful of committee members several
weeks ago, but surfaced in the blogosphere on Monday. It appears below:

Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should
support and espouse conservative principles and public policy; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should
welcome those with diverse views; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who
agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public
policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama’s socialist
agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic
and political freedoms, and our way of life; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public
policies is necessary to restore the trust of the American people in the
Republican Party and to lead to Republican electoral victories; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald
Reagan’s belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative
principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President
Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National
Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local
parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefits
all candidates and is not affected by this resolution; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee
identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election
cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public
officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits
and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style
government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade
legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by
opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting
military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective
action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing
health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of
abortions; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government
restriction on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above
stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as
identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed
questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial
support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee; and be
further

RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican
National Committee shall deliver a copy of this resolution to each of
Republican members of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, as
they become known, and to each Republican state and territorial party
office.

Chief Sponsor:
James Bopp Jr., Indiana

Sponsors:
Avie Axdahl, Minnesota
Donna Cain, Oregon
Cindy Costa, South Carolina
Debbie Joslin, Alaska
Peggy Lambert, Tennessee
Carolyn McLarty, Oklahoma
Pete Rickets, Nebraska
Steve Scheffler, Iowa
Helen Van Etten, Kansas
Solomon Yue, Oregon

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Seeya round twon, Moscow.

Tom "radically moderate middle-of-the-road left-winger" Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown