Political Arena

Conservative Republicans who want the future to be different from the past had better face some unpleasant facts. It’s logically inconsistent to think that the very same players who advance a massive expansion of gambling and the immature and foolish concept of “homosexual rights,” support abortion, and can’t evenadd and subtract are now going to miraculously transform into statesmen and stateswomen committed to limited government and traditional values.

Andy McKenna is still our state party chairman and he still does what state party pay-roller John McGovern tells him to do. The Republican Party’s State Central Committee hasn’t seen much turnover. Tom Cross still heads up the state house caucus. The Republicans in the Illinois state senate are pretty much the same group that has been there for the past several years.

Why do conservatives support limiting government? Continuing with our excerpting of Congressman Jim Saxton’s Joint Economic Committee research report (see part one here), what follows below is the meat of Saxton’s argument.

I am not calling for boring economic speeches to be given every day by every Republican member of Congress. What I am calling for is that every Republican member of Congress reach out to serious communications professionals so what is explained below and in part one can be heard – and learned by – more Americans.

Congressman Jim Saxton penned and distributed a very good short outline of a few complaints about government overreach into the private economy. Saxton is the ranking Republican member on the Joint Economic Committee. He opens with a 2001 quote from one of Barack Obama’s chief economic advisors, Larry Summers:

It’s a secret ballot, and while we’re pro-secret ballot, there are times when secrets should be revealed. This is one such time. We rail a lot against the small-mindedness of our legislators, and there are few better examples of their limited and selfish thinking than when it comes time for them to vote for their own caucus leadership.

The fact is that actually illustrates the problem with our Illinois Republican Party (as if after the last two election cycles any more illustrations are needed). You see, our state party chairman, his staff, and the people in charge of the State Central Committee all fall into one or more of the following categories:

The “I’m not really serious about party building” camp.
The “I wouldn’t know how to party build if my life depended upon it” camp.
The “I am actively preventing the building of the party” camp.

While other websites and conservative leaning organizations have wavered over the years and have adopted theRodney King “can’t we all just get along” strategy when it came to elected “Republicans in Name Only,” those of us at Champion News held the line.

We warned about a pro-abort/pro-“gay rights” Judy Baar Topinka nomination in the 2006 primary and her pathetic inability to even get 40% in the general election proved us right.

Of the many positive cultural tendencies evident in America today (such as generosity towards charities), there exist a few negative habits as well. One is the public’s tendency to be content to delegate responsibility of their…

With all the focus on the presidential race it has been easy (and frankly a pleasure) to ignore the Illinois General Assembly – especially its Republican ranks. I read that on election day our state house caucus shrunk by three members to 48, and the state senate held at 22.

The attacks on Sarah Palin last week by anonymous McCain staffers merely provided the opportunity for more Americans to learn that many of the people who work in Republican campaign politics are less than honorable and clearly incompetent. Anyone wondering how the political party with the better ideas keeps failing to advance those ideas needs to look no further than the quality of the GOP political personnel.