If any Party deserves to be run out of Washington it’s the Republicans. After nearly a decade of complaining about the Democrats liberal morality, spending on social programs, high taxation, and weak national defense, the Republicans achieved the turnover they had desired, only to play pacifist to those objectives which afforded them public office en masse. To have the majority in Congress and hold the Oval Office, and to fail to obtain those ideas which electrified your base after six years of Republican rule, demands wholesale change. But is this really the time for Conservatives to hold back their votes or to cast votes in protest of the Republican Party?
In 1992 America was dissatisfied with the Presidency of George H.W. Bush. President Bush conducted himself admirably as President of the United States and enjoyed many successes. During his term he was confronted with the hostage crisis in Lebanon, the Exxon Valdez oil Spill in Alaska, the on-going drug war with South and Central American drug cartels, the invasion of Panama, and the crisis in Kuwait which resulted in the Gulf War. His most notable accomplishment was the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which ended the US-Soviet buildup of long range nuclear missiles. At the height of his Presidency President Bush - post Operation Desert Storm - enjoyed an 89% approval rating. But a looming deficit, a broken pledge not to raise taxes, discontent over leaving Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power after the Gulf War, repeated talks of a ‘New World Order,’ and developing concerns over an uncertain US Economy would offer a toe hold for the opposition to vie for the Presidency.
In 1992 industrialist billionaire H. Ross Perot took the political scene by storm by offering the American people a viable third party candidate for the office of President of the United States. In his own quirky but charismatic way, Mr. Perot used his business-like demeanor and his infamous pie charts, to achieve notoriety unparallel by any independent candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. The American people’s uncertainty over the nation’s economic direction in 1993 combined with President Bush’s desire to promote the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provided the an appealing atmosphere for Perot’s business leadership mentality.
Americans facing the choice between the flat ‘new world order’ touting President George HW Bush and the amiable “used car slickster” William Jefferson Clinton, welcomed the feisty, chart wielding, H. Ross Perot with open arms. Americans had become accustomed to the charismatic surety of President Ronald Reagan. Both Clinton and Perot had, each in their own way, a charismatic advantage over President Bush. In this way President George HW Bush leadership was victimized by “the Great Communicator.”
To recapture Reagan’s vision of America and to send a message to President Bush and the Republican Party, Conservatives were torn between the fiscal sense of Perot and the uncertainty of Bush’s NAFTA gambit. In the end the charisma of William Jefferson Clinton combined with those conservatives who sat out in 1993, or voted in protest of NAFTA, or voted for Ross Perot ushered in eight years of the Clinton administration.
Voting to protest policy, or party, or voting for a candidate who makes more sense for the country is more than an American right, it’s the right thing to do. But at this time in history where America is facing dangers from Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Mexico, the United Nations, and an entire host of terrorist organizations throughout the world, is it wise to place in power those who truly refuse to see the world shifting against America?
Do those who voted for Ross Perot find comfort in their consciences after America has experienced the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 9-11, and The War on Terror? Does the ideological betrayal from today’s Republicans in congress outweigh the record high Dow Jones Industrial Average, historically low unemployment levels, the record high home ownership statistics, the low interest rates, and the low fuel costs Americans appreciate today? Have the ‘sky is falling’ obstructionist Democrats offered any hints on how they can improve America’s economy, or how they can better protect America, or how they intend to disarm America’s enemies with an impotent UN and without use of force?
The ideological views of today’s Democrats scarcely resemble those of Democrats of only a few decades ago. Today’s Democrats scoff at smaller government and lower taxes, they dispute that the national debt has been reduced by tax cuts and robust economic growth, they believe that government (and not the individual) knows what best to be done with individual earnings, and they stubbornly refuse to identify and confront – if necessary- America’s enemies. The Democrats have deviated so far from their political heritage that they completely fail to recognize that the Republicans are enacting policies that former Democratic President John F. Kennedy promoted only four decades years ago. They have strayed so far from their American birthright that stumping on the ‘common good’ raises about as much cause for concern to them as the term ‘leftist’ does in a campaign year.
The Republicans need to be held accountable for their betrayal of their Conservative base. But at this juncture in time the Democrats have proven themselves unworthy of the power they have traded their integrity and political ‘souls’ to regain. What solution or constructive idea has any Democrat offered the American people to convince voters that they are better able to govern than those they have sought to undermine - at any expense - the last six years?
A comeuppance is at hand for the Republican Party, but time for this reckoning must not be now.
