The Republican Party has a serious question to ask itself. Does it try to return to the principles of conservatism championed by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, or does it move back to the country-club style of liberal politics that it used to know under Nelson Rockefeller and George H.W. Bush? This is a fight for the very nature of politics in the modern era.

Consider this. If the Republican Party chooses to nominate a candidate for President like Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney, then it is basically saying that several conservative principles (including appointing originalist Supreme Cour Justices) are not important anymore. Conservatives will once again be orphaned.

The Democrat Party continues to move further to the Left with no hope of moderation in site. Its candidates for President try to outdo each other on who can sell the biggest Leftist policies the fastest to the American people. “I’ll give everyone free health care!” “Well, I’ll give everyone free health care and a lollipop!” Couple that with the desire to gut the military and return to the Clinton-style of terrorism control (which is to say, not at all), and you have the perfect storm that Soviet intelligence operatives used to dream about when writing propaganda for the American anti-war Left. While the rest of the First World runs screaming from progressive taxes, especially developing former Second World nations in Central Europe and while even staunch socialist nations such as France question whether they’ve made the right decision allowing everyone to work less and siphon off government largesse more, the geniuses in the Democrat Party want to embrace a society that would bring a tiny tear to Joe Stalin’s eye.

What do we have to counter this? We have Rudy Giuliani, who is definitely in the old Nelson Rockefeller vein of Republicanism. Strong defense is fine, but nobility obligates and we need a strong social safety net (social welfare, gun control, etc.). This person, by the way, is who noted conservative Glenn Beck and his co-host were pining over as the uber-candidate yesterday after the Dearborn, Michigan debate. “Oh he’s so impressive…he’s so good at this…” They were almost as slovenly for the John Kerry of the Republican Party, Mitt Romney. Such a polished and impressive performance he gives at these debates. What a guy, right? Yes, the same guy who, when running for the Massachusetts Senate against Ted Kennedy, told the citizens of that screwed-up state that he and Kennedy were basically on the same page on a lot of issues. This is the same stout fellow who appears so polished in spouting conservative talking points because that’s all they are to him, talking points. He has yet to convince one cell in my body that he believes in any one of the conservative points he espouses (although truth be told one of the cells in my Left hand is on the fence about him).  

We come into a whole series of other candidates, including a supposed conservative Mike Huckabee. The Arkansas governor is certainly more conservative in practice than the likes of Giuliani and Romney, but he thinks illegals should come unhindered into the country and has gone out of his way to paint anyone who disagrees as racist hill jacks. That doesn’t really sell him for me. There’s also good ole’ John McCain. While I salute that man a thousand times for his service in Vietnam and his nightmare stay at the Hanoi Hilton and I doubly salute him for staying with his men when he could’ve left for home, I can’t abide the bulk of his politics. Sure he’s been good on the War and understands the need to defend the U.S. against all comers, but he has made a career out of sticking his thumb in conservatives’ eyes whenever he gets a chance and mostly just so he can score some points with the antique media. He was chanting the same “racist” crap against immigration opponents and people should never forget that he was the co-sponsor of the most damaging legislation against free speech in this country EVER.

Ron Paul, I admittedly used to think rather highly of. I will explain why, for it’s a simple reason and indeed I still like him on several issues. He’s small-government, big on liberty, big on the Bill of Rights, and a tiger at fighting against higher taxes on ordinary Americans. That is a commendable way to be. However, he’s failed to grasp some of the preeminent truths of our time. We are at war and were a lot before 9/11. We just didn’t choose to acknowledge it. He allows 9/11 “Truthers” to rally around him and use them as their poster boy and wants the U.S. to be isolationist. That didn’t work for us in the ‘30’s and I don’t see how it’s going to work now. He also states that the U.S. basically got what it deserved on 9/11, and those statements sound a little too much like your garden variety Marxist college professor to sit well with me. He wants to return to the gold standard, which although it would be nice isn’t feasible in the modern global economy. Yes, you could argue elements of our economy are about as fake as a three dollar bill, but this is what we got.

Brownback who? He’s a good guy, but he’s not bringing much to the table that all the candidates aren’t bringing and better. Tom Tancredo, I gotta say, is great and I think he’s an amazing Congressman, one of the very best. He’s really starting to show as a one trick pony, though, tying everything back to immigration. It’s not working for me for a Presidential Candidate.

Then there’s my favs. Duncan Hunter is a candidate that I’d love to see make it to the White House. The guy has a proven conservative track record in Congress, he’s a military vet, his son’s served in Iraq and he’s got some solid answers to keeping this country going in the right direction. The problem is, he’s not breaking out of his regional recognition. He’s a San Diego Republican. He’d make a stellar Vice President who then ran for President. I think he would be a shoe-in for both, but for whatever reason he can’t get the name recognition he needs to break out of the single digits. I’m sorry Dunc. I really wish you were going to make the final show.

That leaves the new guy, Fred Thompson. The same Glenn Beck, who I share a last name with and who I normally often agree with, was calling Fred diminished and really a poor performer in the debate. Admittedly, he was slobbering over Giuliani at the same time, so there’s easily a reason for it, but still. I know Fred’s had some downturns. Ann Coulter wrote about him this week noting how he was one of the Republicans who voted with the Left-cadre of Republican Senators against convicting Bill Clinton and kicking him out of the White House. I disagree significantly with him on that. I disagree with a lot of Washington D.C. Republicans who’ve tried to take it easy on Clinton. Just a little note, guys…he wouldn’t do the same for you.

However, Fred’s a federalist. He’s a small government, low tax, liberty-promoting, strong foreign affairs background kind of candidate and for that I’m throwing in with him. He’s not perfect and he’s not Reagan. Heck, Reagan wasn’t even that great in office. He had to make a lot of compromises and we hold him up as the gold standard. Of the candidates running, though, Thompson is the most conservative of the candidates that I think could win the nomination

I often hear Republican pundits and bloggers tell me that regardless of who the Republican is, you should support him or you’re basically tacitly electing the Democrat. I especially heard that back in the ‘90’s when I would vote Libertarian (and incidentally, we used to say in Indiana that Hoosier Libertarians were basically just Republicans who actually believed in and stuck to conservative principles). “You’ll never get the ideal intellectual-conservative candidate, the one who’s perfect on all the issues. You just have to hope for who’s closest to get the nomination and work with them to get your ideas through. You’ll have better luck with them than you will a Democrat.” I heard each of those three sentences over and over and over until I finally started voting Republican again.

Now I’m hearing some of who I believed were fairly conservative pundits talk lovingly of Giuliani and Romney and disparaging all others. Is this what we want? Do we want Rudy Mitt Rockefeller because he’d be so “good” against Hillary in a head-to-head race or do we want a more conservative option like Thompson (or if a miracle happened, Hunter)? They’re not perfect, but they’re more conservative than the alternatives. Do we want this campaign to be about smaller government and a strong national defense versus a complete nanny-state with an impotent military or do we want it to be about which candidates health care plan we want, part-socialist or full-on socialist? Right now that should definitely be a thought in the minds of whether we want liberal, conservative, or liberal-lite for our next president.