ReaganSauce

written by Joseph Winberry

I am a Republican. I have always been a Republican. I was probably born with an Elephant bumper sticker on my bum.

I have a library of Republican and conservative literature. My dream date is a stroll through Central Park with Ann Coulter. I think I would look good in a pair of Goldwater glasses.

Having said this, one could probably deduce that I have Republican parents. I do. I have two strong, Reagan Republican parents. They believe in a strong military, less taxes and an effective and efficient government. Yes my parents are conservatives but that doesn’t mean that they agree on everything.

My parents have different interests, goals and values. Why would their ideology be any more identical?

My father is a part time evangelist. He is strongly pro-life, opposed to gay marriage and civil unions and owns more than a couple of Bibles.

My mother is a full time student and former retail store manager. She believes a woman has the right to choose, supports civil unions for gay Americans and enjoys a glass of wine every now and then.     I live with very different Republicans. My father is a member of the Religious Right. He believes in the Bible and thinks that America should retain its values; through legislation if necessary. My mother is a practicing Catholic who believe in social choice for those who believe differently than herself. She wants her leaders to be tough on crime and criminals; terror and terrorists; and thieves and thievery.

Its as if my house is a petri dish or a social experiment. Am I being punked, Ashton?

My parents’ views form the big tent that the GOP has been harping about lately. However the party needs to ensure that its words are backing its actions.

A recent CNN opinion poll brought back grave news for big tent Republicans. Purists, those who want hard core conservatives running everywhere, have an eight point lead over those who want to win the election with a center-right coalition.

Recent news should prove to you why this is disastrous for moderate and conservative Republicans alike. New York’s twenty-third congressional district spreads across a third of Upstate New York. It borders Canada and has been in Republican hands since the mid nineteenth century. The result of November election changed all that.

The Republican Party nominated a liberal named State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava to replace longtime incumbent and centrist John McHugh after he was brilliantly plucked from the ranks of Congress to be a part of Obama’s cabinet.

The Democratic Party nominated Bill Owens, a moderate liberal businessman. While Owens was a good candidate, Scozzafava was expected to win without much drama. However, that was until the emergence of Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman.

Hoffman, a failed Republican candidate, ran as the third party nominee and positioned himself as the conservative alternative to the liberal GOP nominee. National conservatives quickly jumped on the Hoffman band wagon and the fiscally conservative Club for Growth (called the “Club for Democratic Growth” by former Republican Congressman Tom Davis) endorsed his candidacy.

Scozzafava was forced out of the race after many of her supports joined Hoffman. She then turned around and endorsed and campaigned for the Democrat nominee.

The result? Bill Owens has become the first Democrat to represent the twenty-third since Lincoln lived in the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue.

While I agree that Scozzafava had socially liberal views and was an ally of local labor, her views were far closer to that of the Twenty-third than Hoffman’s ideology. This split in the GOP put a damper on an election that had been a boon for other Republicans across the country. Now instead of having a congressman who supports the GOP eighty percent of the time, sixty or fifty percent of the time, New York 23rd has a congressman who will vote with the GOP twenty or thirty percent of the time.

Ronald Reagan once said, “if we agree on 80% of the issues you're 80% my friend, not 20% my enemy." This is the policy that the Republican Party must deploy today.

A Republican candidate running in New York City will not have a one hundred percent rating from the American Conservative Union. Neither will a Republican candidate in Florida, California, New Jersey or Pennsylvania. The GOP must admit, accept and run moderates where they can elect moderates and conservatives where they can elect conservatives.

I am encouraged by strong moderate Republicans running in state wide races in California, Illinois, Delaware and Connecticut as well as other states. The GOP has a long way to go to rebuilding the party but as long as conservatives make room for their moderate brethren, Republicans can be the national party again.

Moderates and Conservatives get along in my family. It should work in the national party as well.

Now get out there and build that tent.