By Mr. Curmudgeon
If it walks, talks and attempts to act a like a Tea Party, is it? No, it’s the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Conservative Republican leaders gathered in Washington one day prior to the conference’s opening to sign the Mount Vernon Statement; a list of conservative principles they hope will endear the Republican Party to suspicious Tea Partiers. Better late than never.
As the New York Times put it, “This gathering of establishment leaders of conservatism — some of them the remaining elder statesmen of the Reagan era — is occurring against a backdrop of splintering conservative and Republican bases, with right-leaning activists like those in the Tea Party movement tugging against moderates over adherence to core party values and vying for candidates representing the ‘real deal.’” The problem for Republican conservatives has always been their adherence to what party loyalists refer to as the “eleventh commandment,” thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It was this self-imposed decree that kept many conservatives mum while accommodationists like Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, George Bush the elder and younger and John McCain worked with Democrats, undermining conservative principles and the party’s credibility.
Conceived after Barry Goldwater’s defeat to Lyndon Johnson in 1964, California Republican Chairman Gaylord Parkinson devised the eleventh commandment to end the intra-party bickering seen when liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller provided ammunition for Democrats by labeling Goldwater an “extremist.” However, the new code never did apply to liberal or moderate Republicans. In 1979, George H. Bush referred to Ronald Reagan’s plan allowing Americans to keep more of what they earned as “voodoo economics.” The phrase became a mantra for the left throughout Reagan’s eight years in office.
In New York’s 23rd Congressional District special election last November, conservative heavyweight Newt Gingrich threw his support behind liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava. “Our best chance to put responsible and principled leaders in Washington starts here,” said Gingrich. He justified his support by describing the contest as “the first election of the new Republican Revolution.” Disgusted conservative Tea Partiers threw their support to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who lost by a narrow 3,000 votes.
Thankfully, what separates the Tea Party from CPAC Republicans is their loyalty to principle and not party. For them “thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican” has been replaced by “thou shalt defend Constitutional limits on government and not carry water for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.”
Conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) warned fellow Republicans who refuse to sign CPAC’s vague Mount Vernon Statement “…are part of the problem and should be replaced.” The Tea Party has already launched a process to unseat Republicans for failing to live up to a previous document designed to “…secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…” But, better late than never.
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