Whose Betrayal?
by Bill Sizemore

In "Need to Lose", Alan Caruba makes many sweeping statements about what is wrong with today's Republican Party. Some of his observations are astute, but several are nuts. Caruba blames evangelical groups for pressuring Republicans into acting like liberals. I assume he means efforts by evangelicals to get the party to intrude into "private" matters such as abortion and gay marriage. Would Caruba have said the same thing about Lincoln's opposition to slavery? Should we have just left that a personal decision, too? For most Republicans, politics is not just about money issues.

After reading "Need to Lose", I was not sure who would be the "true Republicans" in Caruba's world. One thing I know is this: If he succeeded in getting the traditional values voters out of the Republican Party, Republicans would be about as relevant as the Libertarian Party. There are a lot more of them in the Republican Party than there are country club Republicans.

The current Republican malaise has many causes, but the real problem may not be as broad as Caruba implies. Iraq certainly is a contributing factor, but the problem with Iraq may not be so much that we are there, but that George W. Bush has dismally failed to articulate the relevance of Iraq to the overall war against militant Islam. At times, President Bush may have said the words, but the man simply cannot communicate. He lacks the ability to inspire, at least bound with the way he is with Karl Rove's rigid, insincere sounding scripting.

The real cause of disillusionment amongst today's party faithful stems more from Bush's trillion dollar increases in spending on entitlements and his refusal to enforce the nation's borders. Bush's prescription drug program is right out of the Democrat playbook, unworthy of any Republican. And conservatives are never going to swallow willingly the bitter pill of accepting 12 million illegals into our midst, unless they first are assured that this is it and that the borders are indeed secured against further invasion from the South.

Give us one articulate, bold conservative standard bearer to rally around and we will revive our party in one election. Absent that, however, the Republican Party may be relegated to minority status for a very long time. It is the squishiness of so many Republican officeholders that has worn us down and stolen our hope. It has been pretty disheartening to work so hard for candidates like GWB, only to see them betray the values of those who worked to get them elected. If I am asked to follow a Guliani or a McCain into battle next Fall, I may simply sit this one out. And I won't be alone.

Bill Sizemore, president, Oregon Taxpayers Union