Jeffrey Lord: Conservatism is not a candidate. It's a movement.

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Well said by Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator Blog:

Somewhere it always seems there's a need to refresh on the savage attacks on Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan or, to be current and with no need to refresh, today's Sarah Palin. Heck, why limit this to running for office? Attacks by conservatives on more prominent conservatives occur these days with the same certainty as the attraction of gin to tonic. Google names like...oh...say...Limbaugh, Rush and you'll get the idea.

These attacks are so utterly, utterly predictable although I'm sure that a Palin or O'Donnell still finds the sensation amazing as the arrow enters between their shoulder blades.

[...]

It is now Christine O'Donnell's turn to feel that startling arrow-in-the-back sensation that comes with this.

Conservatism is not a candidate. It's a movement. Based on a set of rock-solid principles. The fight always is to move the ball forward. The quarterback of the moment is…Fox News Alert….always flawed in some fashion. We could and can pick endlessly at the quarterback who is on the field. The real question is …now and always….are we moving the ball? Elections will be won. They will be lost. The objective is to move the ball.

Christine O'Donnell has the ball. Mike Castle plays for the other side wearing the Republican jersey. Which is why he wants the ball. This confuses many -- as it is designed to do.

But Riehlworld and Levin have both gotten it right.

We couldn't agree more. These attacks on Reagan conservatives by Vichy Republicans and -- as Lord credits Mark Levin for describing Conservative Lites -- "conservatives who are more Republican than conservative" have become worse than tiresome and noxious. The Lites should be thoroughly skewered every time they do it.

We have to move the ball. If you don't move the ball, you don't score, and you cannot win. Those more Republican than conservative had nearly destroyed the GOP, but an overreaching bunch of radical Democrats have fumbled the ball, opening a window of opportunity for Reagan principles to guide a nation at the crossroads of its destiny. It is well past time to send those players who refuse to block and tackle to the bench and shame those of our cheerleaders who cheer for the other side. Let's win this one for the Gipper.

And be sure to read Jeffrey Lord's full blog post here.

- JP

Sarah Palin: What we know about November

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The Washington Post recently asked several former politicians and political experts, including Sarah Palin, what Tuesday's primary results show about the midterm elections. This is Gov. Palin's answer:

The recent primaries make clear that Washington's status quo is turning us off because the politicos are turning us into a country that would ignore its charters of liberty. Americans who understand that deficits and enormous, immoral, unsustainable federal debt steal liberty and opportunity are saying, "Enough is enough. You who have not fought for the people and against Big Government -- you're fired."

The criteria for supporting constitutional, Reaganesque conservative politicians are pretty simple: Do they know how to live within their means, and do they realize it's a sacred trust to be spending other people's money? How do they stack up against an incumbent who supported government control of one-sixth of our economy via Obamacare? Did the incumbent pit him or herself against state officials who warned against accepting Obama's debt-ridden, strings-attached stimulus package? Did he or she disrespect the 10th Amendment and push unfunded mandates on local governments? Do they disrespect America's families by putting us in harm's way, economically and militarily, because of skewed priorities?

If the politicians fit that bill, then they're part of the problem, and so we will hire people who know the solution. That's the message, and our voice will be heard loud and clear at the ballot box in November.

- JP

Landslide Rand and Prescient Palin

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W. James Antle, III writes in The American Spectator Wednesday about Rand Paul's landslide Tuesday night GOP primary victory in Kentucky. The younger Paul, Says Antle, rode voter anger at Barack Obama, bipartisan bailouts of private industry, and the growth of the federal leviathan to a big electoral win. But Rand was also successful in part because he knew which of his father's policy positions to adopt and which of them to discard. Which makes the Kentucky Paul a pretty shrewd political poker player.

The electorate didn't fall for the attempts by Trey Grayson and his supporters to distort Rand Paul's views on social issues, explains Antle, so when Grayson tried to do the same with foreign policy issues, voters didn't buy that one either:

The Grayson campaign enlisted Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani, and Rick Santorum, among other supporters of a neoconservative foreign policy. Yet their attacks did not move the polls -- and here Rand Paul did not completely follow his father's playbook.

Which makes Sarah Palin's endorsement of Rand seem all the more prescient today. At the beginning of February, when Gov. Palin made the endorsement, there was no shortage of "experts" who claimed that it was a bad move on her part. It only took a hundred days or so to prove them wrong.

But the Palin backing for Rand Paul has benefits for the governor beyond demonstrating that she picked a winner. Most importantly, it allows her to distance herself from the neoconservatives. The great neocon failure was to focus so intently on the war in the Mideast to the exclusion of nearly everything else. This myopic view tarnished neoconservatism to the point where it is a largely discredited theory today, and frankly, we're delighted to see it fall out of favor on the right.

We've always preferred an across-the-board conservatism as practiced by Ronald Reagan and his political disciples. Sarah Palin is one of those disciples, and she battled with the Republicans in her own state legislators as governor to try to keep spending down and budgets from ballooning. Reagan Conservatism is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, despite the efforts of the neocons to characterize it as dated and "not in tune with the times." Balderdash! Reagan was always one to acknowledge the positive influence on the conservative philosophy by fiscal libertarianism, and Sarah Palin has that same respect for libertarian Republican principles. Hence, her endorsement of Rand Paul. In fact, we believe that Gov. Palin has long wanted to reassemble the Reagan coalition, and what better way to reunite the conservative and libertarian branches of it than to give her nod to Paul the younger? As Antle writes:

Paul united his father's national army of libertarian followers, who became his avid fundraising base, with a much larger group of rank-and-file conservatives who were ready for someone who would fight for limited government. It was a union of Ron Paul Republicans and Rush Limbaugh Republicans. In April, an exit poll taken at the Tea Party protest at the National Mall showed the demonstrators' favorite politicians were Sarah Palin and Ron Paul. Rand Paul, with his focus on the size of government, unified both wings of the Tea Party movement.

So much for the neocons and the squishy Republican establishment. As for the liberal Democrats, Rand Paul has a message for them as well:



As Antle says, "Washington has been put on notice." Rand Paul, Sarah Palin and an army of outsiders are coming to take their government jobs away.

- JP