GOP: Reclaim the spirit of Lincoln

Lincoln inevitably came to mind when I toured the Civil War coin exhibit currently on display at the American Numismatic Museum in Colorado Springs. My grandson asked me to take him to see the exhibit which he'd already seen  a few times and will likely see several more times before the exhibit moves on in October.  The museum is a hidden gem, and the Civil War displays are well worth your time.  My grandson is an avid coin collector, history buff and is developing a very keen interest in our presidents, at the tender age of 6. The Civil War era holds so much history beyond the typical textbook renditions.  As we hear alot about Mr. Obama hoping to fashion his presidential career after that of Abraham Lincoln, I've spent time delving into some of the oft-missed historical content of Lincoln's presidency and politics of the day.  As a quilter, I'm intrigued with the accounts of the Underground Railroad quilts, love letter quilts women made to send with a loved one going off to war, and the message quilts that were hung on clotheslines to assist soldiers in avoiding nearby enemy encampments, or depicting a route they could take if wanting to defect. It is incredible to ponder what it must have been like for the women that stayed behind, with some having sons fighting against each other.  The conflict and mental anguish they must have suffered is beyond my comprehension.  There are amazing stories also of women that joined the soldiers in the combat fields, served as surgeons, helped with burials, and other sobering duties.  Many women believed so strongly one way or another on the slavery issue that they disguised their femininity and enlisted under a man's name.  They fought and died side by side with men.  The issue of slavery and civil rights in general caused great divide and aroused fervent passion and desire to stand up for what one believed.  There were few 'moderates' in terms of support for or against Abraham Lincoln.   People were outspoken with respect to how they viewed their president.  Families were often divided in opinion and friendships were severed.  The press frequently did it's best to undermine Lincoln and create dissent.  Sound familiar?

The Obama's visited the Lincoln Memorial over the weekend and it's reported Mr. Obama will be sworn in with his hand on the same Bible that Lincoln used, and will dine on some of Lincoln's favorite foods for his Inaugural luncheon.  While neither Lincoln nor Obama were born in Illinois, it's reasonable to expect certain similarities between the two, both coming to the White House from the state of Illinois .  {Of note, Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois, yet little recognition  is made in that regard.}  Some are suggesting Mr. Obama may be going a bit too far in trying to mimic President Lincoln.   No matter, the coming Inauguration will be, as always, a monumental point in America's history.  Our system allows for a peaceful transfer of government with as much pomp and circumstance and celebration as the incoming President chooses to enjoy.  The true connection between Mr. Obama and Mr. Lincoln is yet to be revealed in terms of how the country will be governed.

As we look at some historical context, let's clarify that Lincoln was a Republican.  I spoke with a woman during the campaign that said she was voting for Obama because he was going to be the next Abe Lincoln.  I kindly suggested that might be difficult if Obama follows a partisan agenda.  She looked confused, so I told her Lincoln was a Republican.  She was immediately angry and disputed it.  She had believed her entire life that Lincoln was a Democrat.  Afterall, he was against slavery and he wanted equal rights for all people.  It was hard for her to swallow the idea that 'all men are created equal' and civil rights, personal freedoms, along with small government have been foundations of the Republican platform since inception.   Democrats have done a good job of convincing the electorate that it is their party that is compassionate and protective of rights.  I wonder as Lincoln's name continues to be invoked during the coming presidency, how many people will learn for the first time of his political party!

During the Inauguration festivities we will hear repeatedly about the phenomenon of our country electing the first black president.  While it is rarely stated that Mr. Obama is actually bi-racial, the country as a whole should be proud of this  accomplishment.  A particular landmark that is significant to many has been achieved.   Yet, there has been no support from the Left for other African Americans that happen to also be Republicans.  When I think of Ken Blackwell, Rod Paige, Thomas Sowell, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, J.C. Watts, Lynn Swann and Condi Rice of our modern era, I believe any of these individuals may well possess the qualities, experience and background requisite to serve our country as President or any high office in government.  They are Americans of great character and integrity. The media and Democrats as a whole have little to no respect for these individuals, but still claim to be the party of progression and fairness and equality for all.   

Just as many may not know Abe Lincoln was a Republican President, some may also not realize that the great civil rights activist, Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Republican.  His niece, Dr. Alveda King, also a Republican, is an accomplished author, college professor and believes the most significant civil rights issue of our time is school choice.  She is also adamantly pro-choice.  While the election of Mr. Obama is a historical benchmark, the clear division in our country that follows party lines veils the deserved acknowledgement of other black Americans that have equally remarkable personal stories,  professional accomplishments and contributions to their country.  As Mr. Obama settles into the Oval Office, hoping to fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, he must recognize that the great divide in thinking and opinion today is not necessarily between races, but rather between political parties.  It is partisan politics that has diminished our standing in the world and divided families and friends.   It is the vitriolic and caustic rhetoric of the Left, supported by the MSM, that inflames dissent and inspires anger.  To be fair, there are some extremes also on the Right, however, they don't get nearly as much media coverage, and often when they do, they are quoted out of context within 30 second sound bytes.

The heroics of Harriet Tubman during the Civil War are very inspiring.  The restraints of space here don't allow an adequate tribute to her contribution to civil rights and humanity in general.   History also recounts the difficult work of Sojourner Truth, who also fought hard in the Abolition, and later stood up for women's rights.  Both black women staunchly supported their Republican president and praised his work in supporting freedom for slaves.   In the post-war late 1860's black men were granted the right to vote.  Women--black or white--were not yet allowed to vote, but many Republican women became activists.  Black women are credited for recruiting many Republican voters in the South during this time.  They supported their fathers, husbands and sons as they started to run for office, make speeches on the issues  and other political involvement.  Black women organized political rallies, marches and parades to support Republican candidates, and many became very active in making speeches themselves and worked to get out the vote.  This effort to support Republican causes did not go forth without conflict and threat to personal safety.  In South Carolina, Democrats still angry over the freeing of slaves organized raids to terrorize blacks that were so vocal in support of the Republican Party and it's platforms. 

Today, it is little reported and seldom mentioned that it was the Republican Party, lead by Abraham Lincoln, that stood for free speech, abolition of slavery and women's suffrage.   At the time the Republican Party was founded, the country was divided by political discord among Democrats and a handful of other parties, such as the Free Soil Party, the Whig Party of the South and their spin-off, the the Conscious Whigs of the North that were anti-slavery.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act provided for states and territories to determine for themselves whether or not slavery was legal.  President Lincoln saw the great divide all these radical factions were causing.  He won the presidency campaigning on determined action and strong resolve to end slavery and bring the country together.

As Republicans, let's stand up for our conservatism.  Let's not allow the Beltway Boys, Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan and other moderate-to-left voices carry our message.  While they have every right to speak and have opinion, they do not speak for us on many issues.  Here in Colorado, don't let our GOP leadership whither away until the next election draws near.  Get involved, ask why you aren't receiving weekly emails with updates about Party activity in your county and our state.  If you don't get the desired response, make noise at the state level and ask why.  Help identify bright, energized, articulate, persuasive, charismatic youthful conservatives and then get behind efforts to set them up for speaking engagements at our colleges, universities and civic organizations.  Find out what is being taught to kids in your school district in terms of accuracy in civics and government.  We need to make sure people around us know who the Republican Party is, what we've done, what we stand for and where we intend to lead.  We aren't just the minority party, we also have an uphill battle to get any press coverage or make any opposition known.  A great effort continues to silence questions and differing points of view.  In the spirit of our founding fathers, we have a responsibility to defend our right of free speech.  As they say in the football coaching industry, "Next year starts today." We won't win back anything in '10 or '12 unless there is activism and movement happening today.

Perhaps Democrat leadership will help us out.  As government grows larger and becomes more intrusive, our version of hope can be that our country takes a hard look and decides it wants some of the freedoms back, and change of a different sort will be desired during the next election cycles.  

Bold leadership worked for Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan in bringing about real change.  It's past time for Republicans to do some history homework and revisit what wins elections and brings people together.  Reclaim Lincoln's goal to "lift the artificial weights from all shoulders, and clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all."  Thomas Jefferson had the same philosophy in mind.  Reagan perfected it.  Freedom of expression, free markets and enterprise, freedom to vote, freedom to practice religion, and opportunity limited only by an individual's personal desire to succeed are the foundations of the Republican Party.   As the spirit of Abe Lincoln prevails during next week's Inauguration, I'm inclined to believe he'd have stern words today for his party:  "Return to your party's values and core principles, and do not become weary in that pursuit."

Don't be fooled by Obama's 'moderation'

The mass media have been filled with news of the pending policies and appointments of President-elect Barack Obama, particularly the signs that his administration will be more ‘moderate’ than many on both the left and the right expected. The leftists are restraining their rage and the conservatives are breathing a sigh of relief. Don’t believe it. While it is true that the responsibilities of governing can be sobering for even the most ideological of presidents, they can be overcome in time. And while it is also true that “personnel is policy” to a considerable degree, even the old Clinton stalwarts that Obama has selected for the cabinet-level positions serve only at the president’s pleasure.

“Rule will show a man,” the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote 2300 years ago, and it always does. Obama’s strength has always been rhetoric, and his two-year quest for the presidency revealed that he is not too shabby at campaign management and organization. But making life and death decisions for the sake of the American polity is a whole different matter.

Those of us who recall the presidencies of the two previous Democrats find more similarities than differences. Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton won over the national media to their cause, taking office on a wave of enthusiasm. They, too, had the advantage of their fellow Democrats controlling Congress. And they also made impressive cabinet-level appointments.

But both Carter and Clinton had failed administrations. I don’t mean failure in the narrow sense of failing to achieve their goals, which in fact they did in some cases. I mean in the more profound sense that their ideas for improving the country were demonstrably mistaken.

Carter was elected in 1976 on a vague promise of restoring the trust of the American people after the defeat in Vietnam and the trauma of the Watergate scandal. That got him into the Oval Office but didn’t restrain him from bestowing unconditional amnesty on Vietnam-era draft dodgers (like Bill Clinton), calling for austerity rather than production to deal with the 1970s energy crisis, failing to restrain spending and raising the payroll tax on social security, cutting the defense budget, abandoning America’s allies in Central America and the Middle East, and failing to rescue 58 Americans held hostage by Iran.

As for Clinton, he didn’t merely admit, like Carter had, that he had lusted for other women but actually had affairs with several women while “stand by your man” Hillary vouched for him before the adoring cameras of CBS. The most notable slogan of his 1992 campaign was “It’s the economy, stupid,” as if the challenges facing our nation abroad could be wished away after Ronald Reagan had won the Cold War.

Clinton had higher priorities, like lifting the ban on homosexuals serving in the armed forces, abandoning his promise of a middle-class tax cut (this will soon be repeated), nationalizing health care and, of course, cutting the defense budget.

Congress, after members were given a videotape of gay pride parades, defaulted to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but continued with a policy of unrestrained domestic spending. Not surprisingly, Clinton asked for an income tax rate increase, which passed Congress by a narrow margin. Then there was the “Hillary care” takeover of the health sector that went down in flames even without a vote. Islamist terrorism was merely a legal question.

Obama has proposed new federal spending of nearly one trillion dollars, huge cuts (again) in the defense budget and abandoning our allies in Central America and the Middle East (again), while signaling a desire to “transform” this country into a kind of model project of “progressive” reform. However he couches his proposals in reassuring terms such as “stimulating the economy” or “restoring America’s prestige abroad,” you can be sure that taxes will go up and America’s defenses will go down.

Obama’s studied pose as a moderate actually is the personification of the academic habits he acquired in elite colleges and universities where professors typically affect a detached approach which only obscures a radical impatience with the supposed inequities of flawed human institutions.

The professorial class sees America as a racist, imperialist, oligarchic, sexist and homophobic regime that is indifferent, if not hostile, to the needs of other nations and peoples and needs the stern corrective of impoverishment and impotence. The Constitution places obstacles like separation of powers, bicameralism, judicial independence, freedom of speech and press, and private ownership in the way of progressive enthusiasms. Sooner or later, however, Obama’s contempt for the Constitution will become clear.

ABOUT THE WRITER Richard Reeb taught political science, philosophy and journalism at Barstow College from 1970 to 2003. He is the author of “ Taking Journalism Seriously: ‘Objectivity’ as a Partisan Cause”  (University Press of America, 1999). He can be contacted at rhreeb@verizon.net.

2008 was no realignment

Adding considerable luster to the achievement of the Founding Fathers in building success and stability in the infant Republic is the fact that five of our first seven Presidents not only won and served out two terms but also departed office popular enough to insure the election of approved successors. What was achieved by five of the first seven has eluded all but four of the eighteen men elected President since 1900. Only Theodore Roosevelt (1908), Calvin Coolidge (1928), Franklin Roosevelt (1948-posthumously), and Ronald Reagan (1988) left office with sufficient popularity to effect the election of their chosen successors.

Any hope George W. Bush had of being the fifth President since 1900 to see his party win the White House three consecutive times was decisively crushed last November 4th. Instead he becomes the sixth president since 1900 to see his party driven from the White House, losers in two consecutive Congressional election cycles, and himself under a cloud of immense unpopularity. Thus W. joins Hoover, Truman, Johnson, Nixon and Carter.

Of the initial five history has largely restored the reputation of Truman; LBJ and Nixon have made only slight recovery; and Hoover and Carter are generally viewed as beyond redemption. Some time must pass before History instructs us how to think about George W. Bush.

Beyond the great distinction of becoming our nation’s first African -American President, Barrack Obama also joins FDR and LBJ as the only Democrats since 1900 to win the Presidency in a landslide.

In what Yogi Berra called “déjà vu all over again” the punditocracy is now proclaiming fundamental political realignment and the descent of the GOP, into permanent minority status.

In 1964 when LBJ crushed Goldwater many pundits opined that the Republican Party might like the Whigs disappear altogether. Four years later the GOP was in the White House and Democrats in chaos.

In 1972 when Nixon won forty-nine states and McGovern just one, everybody was reading Kevin Phillips's The Emerging Republican Majority and saying that just as the Civil War had destroyed the Democratic Party in the 19th century, the Viet Nam War had destroyed it in the 20th. Four years later the Dems were back in the White House and the Republicans were in chaos.

In 1988 following three consecutive landslide Presidential defeats many Democrats thought their party had to be reinvented by jettisoning liberalism. Four years after the Democrats were back in the White House and liberalism was very much alive and well.

Finally in 2004 after consecutive Presidential victories and a remarkable three straight victories in Congressional election cycles Republicans were hailing Karl Rove as the Architect of a permanent GOP majority. Four years later -well, we all know what happened in 2006 and 2008.

So, what does all this tell us about American politics?

First, and foremost things can change mighty fast. It is extremely unwise to read too much into even the most stunning partisan triumphs. The American people will punish most severely even those men and parties they have extravagantly affirmed just a few years before.

Second, electoral landslides happen frequently; genuine political realignments occur very, very rarely.

Fully half (13 of 27) of the Presidential elections since 1900 have resulted in landslides.

Yet only twice in our entire history have we seen full-blown political realignment and it required the massive trauma of the Civil War and the Great Depression to trigger those.

Finally the margin between victory and defeat even in a landslide (usually defined as six or more percentage points) is very narrow. If even one voter in twenty voted the “other way” Obama’s landslide becomes a decisive victory for McCain.

Two thirds of the electorate is pretty fixed in their partisan attachment. It is the loosely bonded or independent third in the middle that decides all elections. If just one in seven of those voters switch sides from one election tot the next- pretty likely if the country is experiencing an unpopular war, a sagging economy or both- the entire electoral configuration can be transformed, hence the old adage that “All of American politics is played between the forty yard lines”.

The moral of the story ? It’s a little early to place your bets for 2012 or even 2010.

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in The Wall St. Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, and Rocky Mountain News.