The Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party- Gilmore Weighs In

It seems there is a battle raging for the soul of Virginia’s Republican Party. This battle is being waged by conservatives and moderates and its outcome will have a profound impact on principled governance here in Virginia.

Following the significant defeat of Jerry Kilgore this past November (not to mention Chris Craddock, Michael Golden, and Dick Black’s) and more recently Mick Staton’s nearly 2-1 special-election defeat at the end of January, many knee-jerk moderates have jumped to signal that they believe the end of a conservative Republican Party is at hand. These folks believe many principled, limited-government, pro-life candidates are “wackos” and they blame every failure not on the dynamic and complex political situation that exists but on solid conservatives in the mold of Ronald Reagan. They demonize conservative candidates as “far far far right wing” and ignore Reagan’s frequent urging that Republicans “paint our positions in bold colors, and not pale pastels.”

This vocal squish element in the Republican Party of Virginia indirectly call Reagan’s approach of painting our positions in bold colors "divisive" and "polarizing." And in a sense they may be right- there is a sharp distinction between the tax-hiking state-bureaucracy bloating moderates and the principled believers in individual liberty and limited government. The success of the VA Republican Party in the 90s can be attributed, in part, to effectively pointing out this delineation between the Republicans and Democrats on this point. Now the wagons are circling and similar battle lines are being drawn within the Republican Party itself (they’ve always existed but recent events make them more pronounced than ever before).

This battle over principle is in many ways similar to the great debate within the national Republican Party that occurred in the early 1960s. On one side there were the people who wanted to keep the party on a “moderate course” mimicking the agenda of the Democrats as we see Chichester, Dillard and Potts do so very well in recent times. Then there were the Goldwater-Reagan crowd who believed that the party should stand “clearly and forthrightly upon uncompromising principles of liberty.” Reagan made it clear when he said that "we’ve come to a moment in our history, when party labels are unimportant. Philosophy is all important." This is a point on which Virginia Republicans may need to be refreshed. Running a candidate who offers no real ideas or philosophy and who puts his finger in the wind to ensure he is in middle of the road and maximizing his moderate appeal will only end in failure and will never excite voters.

The problem with the VA GOP is not that we have vocal conservative candidates when we should have nice squishy moderate ones (as some blogs would have us believe). This is merely a politically expedient battle cry of the left-leaning faction in the Party; the true problem is much more complex.

I was very much enthused to hear one individual is already addressing this issue- former Governor Jim Gilmore. He did so in his address to John Taylor’s Tuesday Morning Group Coalition meeting this past Tuesday (blogger Norm Leahy has details on Gilmore's remarks here).

As we all recall, Gilmore was a conservative Governor who was elected on the principle of personal property tax relief for Virginia’s families (i.e. abolishing the car tax). Gilmore never sugar coated his conservative message for squishy moderates and has always been unwilling to compromise on the core values that have made the Party of Reagan so great. At the TMG meeting he directly addressed the deceitful tax-hiking practices of the “moderate” GOP leadership in the Senate and former Governor Warner.

Most relevant, however, were Gilmore’s remarks on the troubles facing RPV and this internal battle that is brewing. His principal argument was that many recent Republican candidates have had no coherent message or principles that resonate broadly with the community. Compounding this issue is the reality that distinctions that used to exist between frugal and values-oriented Republicans in the 90s and their Democratic counterparts (post advent of the two-party system in Virginia and the death of the Byrd machine) are becoming increasingly blurry. Republican leaders in the Senate these days are even more eager to raise taxes on Virginia’s families than their Democratic colleagues. The deadly duo of poor candidate recruitment and messaging and the rise of the “moderate” pseudo-Republican tax-hiking, anti-pro-life agenda in the General Assembly has hurt RPV and increased the cynicism among Virginia’s voters. To many it is unclear where our candidates stand anymore and it is difficult to make a real distinction.

Now this doesn’t mean we don’t need to use micro-targeting and be pragmatic in expressing our principles- but we must possess them in the first place. And of course we need good, credible candidates well connected in their communities to carry our principles forward, painting them in the “bold colors” of which Reagan spoke.

It’s refreshing to hear Governor Gilmore address this issue- and it will certainly be interesting to see how the internal party battle unfolds as the blame game continues. I for one agree with the sentiments expressed by John Ashcroft when he famously said that there are "two things you find in the middle of the road: a moderate and a dead skunk, and I don't want to be either one of them.” Principle matters.