How Republicans can help elect a
Democrat
By
STAR PARKER
Founder & PRESIDENT
COALITION ON URBAN RENEWAL & EDUCATION
The opportunity for
Republicans to hold onto the presidency in 2008 is far better than
what conventional punditry would have us believe. But for
Republicans to capture this opportunity, they are going to have to
stop the destructiveness that has been fomenting inside the party
and the mudslinging against their own.
As I wrote in a
recent column, year-end highlights from the Pew Research Center show
the Republican Party in a state that can be seen as either a glass
half empty or half full.
On the half empty
part, Pew reports that now "fully half (50 percent) of Americans
identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party, compared with
just 36 percent who affiliated with the Republican Party."
But the glass half
full message is that this reflects disillusionment of Republicans
and previous Republican-leaning Independents and not new enthusiasm
for Democrats. Favorability ratings for the Democratic Party have
been unchanged while it has gained this apparent new support.
I do not believe for
a minute that the majority of Americans are anxious to turn this
country over to the big government socialism and cultural nihilism
of the Democratic Party. But they will just to get change, if
Americans of all walks of life do not again feel, as they did under
Ronald Reagan's leadership, that the Republican Party represents
them.
The growth in
government during this recent period in which Republicans have been
in control is obscene. It is appalling that since 2000 the number of
registered lobbyists in Washington has doubled, from about 17,000 to
now over 34,000.
The leading
Republican candidates at this point are McCain, Huckabee, and
Romney. None are cookie cutter cutouts of the Reagan ideal.
But from a gamut of
well-known conservative and Republican personalities, no one is
being excoriated like Huckabee.
There may be
dissatisfaction with the other candidates, but Huckabee is the only
one publicly being charged with John Edwards-like populism,
anti-capitalism, of not being a conservative and, from some, being
outright called a liberal.
I even heard one talk
show journalist say the other day that there are Republicans that
have their "knives" out for Huckabee.
But, as of this
writing, Huckabee has finished first in the Iowa caucuses, is
polling strongly in a wide array of states, and is first in the
latest Gallup national poll. This support is coming from voters who
identify themselves as conservative.
I would suggest that
the hate campaign being conducted against Huckabee, emanating from
some whom I know and respect, is just one more symptom of
Republicans losing touch with their own principles and base.
To bring one
representative example, in a recent column former Republican House
Majority Leader Dick Armey accuses Huckabee of "small minded
populism" and "pitting his socially conservative supporters against
the GOP's business wing."
But, this "business
wing", as in corporations, is far from being a battering ram pushing
free market and conservative principles.
In this election
cycle, more corporate political contributions are going to Democrats
and there is a long list of Wall Street moguls financing Clinton,
Obama, and Edwards.
A study done by the
Capital Research Center a couple years ago showed that the total
corporate contributions to left-leaning organizations was fifteen
times greater than to right-leaning organizations.
My own work over the
years trying to get the conservative message into the black
community has been made infinitely more difficult as a result of the
multiple millions that America's corporations have poured into
left-wing black organizations like the NAACP.
Ironically, Huckabee
is the only Republican candidate to propose fundamental reform of
our tax system. Credible economists, including one Nobel Prize
winner, support the Fair Tax idea that Huckabee has put forth.
Critics charging that the Fair Tax is politically impossible to
enact also speak to the unfortunate state of mind of many
Republicans today who can no longer conceive of major and sweeping
change as achievable.
Inside-the-beltway
Republicans have also lost touch with the increasing seriousness
with which grass roots conservatives relate to the traditional
values agenda. More and more folks are feeling personally assaulted
by the meaninglessness that is gripping our culture and do not see
our moral health as separate and apart from our economic health.
Rather than attacking
Huckabee, folks would be better served to take a more careful and
less dismissive look at why he's garnering such broad support.
If we lose focus on
who really is a liberal, we'll really wind up with one in the White
House.
---------------------------------
Star Parker is president of the
Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education and author of the new book
White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay.
Prior to her involvement in social
activism, Star Parker was a single welfare mother in Los Angeles,
California. After receiving Christ, Star returned to college,
received a BS degree in marketing and launched an urban Christian
magazine. The 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed her business, yet
served as a springboard for her focus on faith and market-based
alternatives to empower the lives of the poor.
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