Put yourself in this situation and tell me what you’d do.
You are a politician running for office. You have certain core principles, ideals that motivated you to go into politics in the first place. You have a vision for your city, state, or country, one that you believe will make things better for your constituents, and, more importantly, is consistent with your values and principles.
But polling data suggests that your ideals are antiquated, and have fallen out of popularity. If you insist on running on your principals, the pollsters tell you that you will lose. You are faced with a stark choice.
- You can run on your principles, remain true to yourself and lose.
- You can change your principles to adapt to more modern sensibilities and make yourself more palatable to the electorate, even though you believe those new ideals will end up causing great harm in the future.
- You can pretend to do number 2 to get elected, then once in office, act in accordance with your principals.
What would you do?
Sacrifice your ideals to get elected and try to rectify the electorate’s drift away from your values? Stick to your principals regardless of whether you win or lose? Or say whatever it takes to get elected, then do what you really believe?
The Republican Party, following figures like Karl Rove, has clearly chosen to follow strategy number 2, with a dash of 3 to attract Democrats who are used to the flavor of deceit. The 2012 election post mortem is filled with advice for the GOP based on broadening the party’s appeal by adopting more moderate positions. And to be perfectly honest, it might be a winning strategy, particularly after 8 years of Obama. Offering a difference that is not too different might be the recipe for winning the 2016 election.
But is it a winning recipe for healing our ailing nation?
I don’t think so.
More to the point, is winning an election a good reason for compromising your ideals? And if you win, what have you won? Your ideals are shredded, and still unpopular, and you might find yourself compelled to lead as you ran.
And while I’m not convinced that we’ve reached the point where the only way to win is to become less conservative, I don’t think we are far from it. The re-election of Obama demonstrated to me that the majority of my countrymen, at least those motivated enough to vote, are in favor of Obama’s policies. And while I believe his policies will continue to diminish America, I abide by the will of the people. We the people will always get what we deserve, God hep us all. However, there remains the possibility that we haven’t slid past the point of no return. A lot of conservatives and libertarians either stayed home or voted third party rather than support Mitt Romney, and I can’t fault them for that. Despite his portrayal in the media, Romney was far from a conservative, small government candidate and it is hard to get solid conservatives to vote for a candidate that is more of the same, only less.
As for me, I’ll never be a politician because I refuse to compromise my principles. I’m a solid 1 all the way. I would rather lose the election while standing up for what I believe in than to win by lying. That’s just who I am.
And that’s what I like about Rand Paul. While there are some things I disagree with Rand Paul on, I believe he is firmly committed to his principles and I can respect that. And I’ll also say this: as conventional Republicans like McCain, Rove, and other members of the Grand Old Party continue to attack Paul and try to quench the growing Tea Party movement, the possibility of a split within the Republican Party becomes that much stronger. And if that split occurs, I don’t see the GOP surviving very long afterwards as the young voters abandon it for the new party.
And I don’t expect Democrats to benefit for long because there will be a lot of young people who leave the party of Reid, Feinstein and Pelosi behind for one that is more about freedom and less about regulating how much soda you can drink.
But again, the bottom line is simple. Stand on your principles. Win or lose, you win.
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