We Have Met the Enemy…Part IV…Rethinking the Party
I am a conservative. I believe in conservative principles, and have spent my time in politics fighting for those principles. Less Taxes–I worked to lower the car tax in 1998, and helped keep it low throughout my remaining time in the Legislature. Safe neighborhoods–I helped pass Three Strikes in 1994 (the right three strikes, not the watered down one that is now in effect). At each turn, through legislation and political activity, I spent my effort pushing the conservative agenda. Even in the party fights, I fought for conservatives to run the party. I sat in the meetings when we conservatives planned the strategies to keep the Republican Party in conservative hands.
And we conservatives blew it. We mishandled the party, its operations, its money, its organization, and we have reaped the results of our actions in the losses that have occurred.
Don’t get me wrong. The party’s principles shouldn’t change. We must focus on freedom, family, free enterprise and strong communities. That being said, we conservatives spent so much time trying to maintain philosophical purity that we forgot that the purpose of the party is strengthen… Read More