PURITY
Watering down positions or emphasizing positions that are more palatable to the electorate will hurt the party rather than help it. Our only claim to legitimacy as a party is the core issues that make us different enough that those who are likeminded are not at home in any other party.
The major parties promote the big tent idea. It's all about forming coalitions on the small stuff in order to achieve common goals on the big stuff. The problem is that soon enough it isn't even about the big stuff any more. It's simply about getting and keeping power, and the privilege that goes with it, which leads to corruption, which leads to the mess we have now.
If we are the true party of change we have to find a way to be effective with a smaller tent. Without campaigning on our core issues, we have no soul. If our true core issue is simply reforming government, then we might be able to win on that. I think for most of us, what really lights the fires of passion is advancing key positions legislatively and Constitutionally. If that's what makes the juices flow, then that's what we have to run on.
The problem w the Reform Caucus approach is that you guys assume our orthodox positions can't be made to fly w the public. But it can if we know how to do it. I agree with my esteemed opponent in this debate on one key point and that is that as a party we often suffer from the political inexperience of the majority of our most active members. That is something that must be addressed.
The key to success is to be true to who we are as a party and to communicate our core principles on terms that will appeal to the average voter. We do this by telling them what's in it for them.
We oppose the war on drugs because it is a war on common sense, it is a war on our economy, our safety, our liberties, etc, etc. We oppose it becasue it is a national security issue. We don't argue for the junkie's right to ruin his life or the pusher's right to sell drugs unmolested, we argue for our own right to drive down the street w/o worrying about being shot in the crossfire of street warfare caused by the war on drugs, our right to safety from property crimes related to the unnaturally inflated cost of drugs, the rights of the dependents of drug users not to lose their homes because of the same. We argue how much less it would cost the average taxpayer if all the costs of the war on drugs were subtracted from government budgets at every level, we argue that we jeopardize national security by medlding in other countries affairs and violate their sovereignty in the name of the war on drugs, and we argue the lessons of history regarding prohibition.
Soccer moms & Nascar Dads would get this!
John Howell 06/27/2008
