Pence in '08
by Chris Denney

History has shown that conservatism works every time it is actually tried and that nothing else works at all. As a guide, we have the principals of Ronald Wilson Reagan. Yet, for ten years, Republicans have slowly moved away from limited government into a government-first, careerist, get-reelected at any cost mentality. The 2008 Presidential election will decide if we maintain our conservative convictions or abandon them for perceived political gain. Most of us realize that our party must nominate a Reagan conservative who can articulate the values and philosophy that made America what it is today. We must draft, nominate, and elect both a true fiscal and social conservative. In my mind there really is only one choice: Mike Pence of Indiana.

I am a twenty two year old conservative living in Indiana and I have dedicated my life to drafting Mike Pence for the Presidency of the United States of America . After only two months, a thousand others have joined to insure that we have a Reagan conservative as our nominee. I believe there is a Reagan wing of our party made up of two major halves, Social and Fiscal conservatives (along with an immigration and second amendment wing). If the Reagan wing of our party hopes to prevent Rudy Giuliani or John McCain from receiving the nomination, then we must have a candidate who is acceptable to all of the Reagan constituency. We must have a true Fiscal and Social conservative; otherwise we split the Reagan wing in half. Our goal is to unite the Club for Growths of the world and The Family Research Councils of the world behind the same candidate early on. This united front will allow us to advance our conservative agenda that we know is the real key to electoral success.

Mike Pence is the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, which is the conservative caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives (and the largest caucus in government). He was elected to this position unanimously. He is one of the few (some say only) conservatives in Washington to actually fight for limited government. Pence has recently and repeatedly called for a roll back in our President's landmark (infamous) No Child Left Behind Act. Mike Pence voted against it at the time, and says we must roll it back now because Washington must have zero role in education; indeed we must abolish the Department Of Education. Now that is Reaganesque conservatism.

What even took more courage than this is when Mike Pence stood up to his President and his party leadership on the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill. He, in a Reagan-like way, went over his party's leadership and carefully articulated the dangers of socialized medicine and government interference in medical care. He, along with Pat Toomey, and John Shadegg led the revolt against the bill and came within two votes of defeating the largest increase in entitlement spending since the Great Society. To this day he calls for a immediate roll back of this expensive and irrational bill.

Mike Pence also has true Reagan ideas when it comes to United Nations reform, a line item veto, zero based budgeting, true immigration reform, right to life issues, abolishing the IRS for a consumption tax, Tort reform, etc etc.

Indeed, on every true Reagan style conservative reform, Mike Pence leads the way. When he came to Washington the GOP leadership so loved him they made him a part of the House leadership team by making him a deputy whip. Pence had instantly what most politicians take several terms to acquire and what did he do with this? He took on the leadership time after time on the side on conservatism and its principals. He doesn't care about his career, he cares about his country. This year, he resigned from the leadership saying "you can't serve two masters" How many so called conservatives these days would do that?

Ronald Reagan constant refrain was, "We must proclaim a banner of bold colors, no pale pastels." With this conservative platform we were able to limit government, strengthen families, and secure freedom. Republicans ran on a conservative Reagan platform in 1994 that would shock the world. Once in power we could finally complete the Reagan Revolution and get the Federal government off our backs and out of our daily lives, right? Apparently some Republicans had other ideas and thought a banner of bold colors would be politically dangerous.

Since 1996 the Federal budget has exploded and the Federal government has grown in every area. Just in the last four years we have seen from a "conservative" Congress and "conservative" President campaign finance reform, increases in funding for the NEA, proposed amnesty by another name for illegals, billions in dollars in aid to Africa that will not solve the problem, more of the same Sen. Ted Steven's pork. Wait a minute, it is not the same it is worse, a daisy cutter sized entitlement in Medicare that only makes things worse, a public takeover of airline security, Teddy Kennedy's NO Child Left Behind that only drags us further into educational socialism, steel tariffs that hurt our recovery, a 250 billion dollar farm bill, a proposed energy bill that even Nelson Rockefeller would think was extravagant and a highway bill that puts the P in Pork.

They say every great nation goes through the same cycle, from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, selfishness to complacency, complacency to apathy, apathy to dependency and dependency back to bondage. If we continue on the cycle toward big government dependency we only have ourselves to blame. In his 1975 Conservative Political Action Conference speech Ronald Reagan told us, "A political party cannot be all things to all men. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs, which must not be compromised to political expediency, or to simply swell its numbers. If there are those who cannot subscribe to these principals, THEN LET THEM BE ON THEIR WAY. In his keynote speech to the last year's CPAC, Pence said, "And conservatives know that if you reject these principles of limited government and urge others to reject them you can be my ally, you can be my friend but you cannot call yourself a conservative." Pence then added, "It's time for conservative Americans to do what Reagan did. It's time for conservative Americans to right the ship again."

The Gipper did his part, Pence is doing his, now it time we did ours. If we don't do it who will? If not now, when? If we don't right the ship and set it on the course away from big government and towards Faith, Family, and Freedom we might not ever get another chance. We must proclaim President Reagan's dream of an America that would always be a shining city on a hill and a beacon of freedom for the entire world. Now is the time to restart the Reagan Revolution.

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