GOP Conservative “Litmus Test” on the Horizon for Republican Party Support?

I looked at the list of 10 points and there seems to be some wiggle room on some of them. Still this is a terrible idea by a party that should be attracting members, not finding reasons to get rid of them. Apparently the goal is to become a small party of people who all agree.

Apparently the aim is to become a small party of even smaller people. How many respected republican leaders of the 20th century would be considered RINO's by present day GOP "standards" - meaning standards based on behaviors and actions, not just rhetoric? As for the old "fiscal conservatism" shtick, if that only translates into more "let most folks eat cake - while few feed at the trough" then I wouldn't count on it being a winning strategy.

I think this comes from the driving idea that the "silent majority" is mostly social conservative. The socons feel that if they get back to their roots, the silent majority will rise up and support them. They believe that they have strayed from the path, causing the silent majority stay dormat.

This is completely delusional of course.

Looks like Ronald Reagan would have failed the proposed litmus test. What does that tell us???

I actually don't see anything wrong with asking politicians running for political office under a particular political party to adhere to some of the fundamental positions of the party. Political parties, in theory, are supposed to be working together to advance a particular set of political ideas. When members of a political party are all over the map on fundamental issues, it confuses the populace about what the party stands for.

Let me give an example.

The Libertarian Party is a party that used to stand for something: individual freedom, free trade, and limited government. Unfortunately, in its desire to attract more people to the party, it has allowed people to join the party who have positions that are one hundred eighty degrees opposed to what libertarians believe in.

People who who don't know very much about the Libertarian Party will often say "Oh, I didn't know Bob Barr was a Libertarian" or "I didn't know that Mike Gravel was a Libertarian", and will then come to the conclusion that Libertarians support some of the very unlibertarian positions that Bob Barr and Mike Gravel hold.

Part of the reason that I voted Libertarian in 2004 was because I opposed the War on Drugs and the Iraq War. For the Libertarian Party to nominate a presidential candidate who was once an ardent supporter of the War on Drugs (Bob Barr) and a vice presidential candidate who was once an ardent supporter of the Iraq War (Wayne Allyn Root) was kind of a slap in the face.

It's probably not a good idea to insist that everyone who joins a particular party agree with a particular platform. But if you're going to actually run for public office, you ought to actually agree with the party on the fundamental issues.

The problem with the Republican Party, however, is more than whether a politician agrees with the party platform. It's about the inherent incoherence of a party platform itself. The majority of the ten-point plaftorm focuses of opposing the growth of the federal government. Two of the planks, however--those dealing with foreign policy--do completely the opposite; that is, they insist upon maintaining an expensive, interventionist foreign policy.

I'm not sure even Robert Taft, the former Republican Senate Majority leader and "Mr. Republican" himself would have agreed with 80% of the positions in this platform.

In short, I don't believe that political parties should be imposing "litmus tests" on people who join then. However, I do believe that both the Republican and Democratic parties should be fielding candidates that actually stand for a coherent set of ideas--something that is entirely to rare nowadays.

If the Republican Party wants to be seen as fiscally responsible, then it can't allow polticians who vote for pork barrel spending and skyrocketing deficits to continue winning their congressional seats year after year. And if the Democratic Party wants to be seen as socially tolerant, then it can't allow politicians who support draconian drugs laws and refuse to defend civil liberties to continue winning their congressional seats year after year.

It's a herding mentality, isn't it. Dick Armey has always shown a lot of leg and cheek too. The guy should, like the Buffalo, be herded off a cliff!

I posted the actual ten points elsewhere, some time ago. It shows the state of the GOP currently, and explains part of its currently low reputation (as I was covering elsewhere, earlier). As presented here, it (the list of points) illustrates the lack of initiative or originality from which the GOP currently suffers.

Note that some of them are based on the most current events (this and next year), and so are fleeting (and fluffy).


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 and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;


and


10. We support the right to keep and bear arms

by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership


... a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position 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 ...

"Apparently the goal is to become a small party of people who all agree."

Actually, it's "smaller" than that. First, as I wrote earlier, they're choosing to fixate on a number of essentially immediate issues -- "issue of the month"-oriented shallowness. Second, they're stating largely that they're going to do X by opposing Y that Obama's trying to do. While some will be light thinkers and simply consider this as obstructionism or being "the party of No," that's not all there is to it, and in fact these people are missing the real point. At its essence, these points are almost fully devoid of initiative or originality or true substance; the key here is that the party is effectively defining itself primarily and in effect, essentially, in terms of what the other major party is doing, i.e., waiting for whatever positions (of the month, or currently) Obama (leader at the present) and the Democrats take or will take, and largely (and define itself, the GOP, in terms of) opposing whatever the Democrats do.

I agree with DLS. I didn't like the idea when I first heard about it, but I like it even less now that I've read the 10 points. I expected them to be much more principle-oriented, but then I suppose they would be much harder to measure. Of course it's reasonable for a political party to want to support candidates that agree with their platform (there are limits to the "big tent" strategy), but it seems to me that the case-by-case method is still superior to some arbitrary quota from some arbitrary list of current issues.