While none of the prominent conservatives, such as William F. Buckley, who have jumped ship this year can be found on the beach singing kumbaya around Democratic campfires, they're making the mid-term elections rather unpleasant for some long-time Republican incumbents. No doubt some of them are hoping that a little grief striking the GOP right now will shape the party up in the way they'd like to see it reshaped. The pay-off? Electoral success for "real" conservatives across the board come 2008.
For that reason, they're not all that concerned their public argument with Mister Bush over his unconservative behavior and what they see as a botch job in Iraq may be fueling a Democratic win next week. From their perspective, the Dems will gain a Pyrrhic victory, a last gasp, not a new surge of energy.
For still undecided voters, however, there is a plethora of loyalist GOP orcs - including some without analysts' gigs on Foxaganda - who refuse to remove their armbands. Given the millennarian viewpoints of many of them, it's a bit difficult to see why they would be opposed to the armageddon they claim will be America's inevitable lot if the Democrats win. Go figure.
This afternoon, I took a peek. Read for yourself, if you can stand it.
Why the Republican Party should continue its winning streak
By Ben Shapiro
The political center is now the Republican Party. The Republican Party under George W. Bush has lowered taxes and brought the war to our enemies. It has sought to enshrine marriage between a man and a woman as the basis for our morality. It has banned the horrific partial-birth abortion procedure.
If anything, the Republican Party is often left of the political center -- but the Democratic Party is far to the left of even that. The Republicans have spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave -- but the Democrats would spend more. The Republicans have treated terrorists with more respect than they deserve under morality and law -- but the Democrats would treat terrorists like American citizens. The Republicans have debated the immigration issue and the morality of stem cell research -- but the Democrats refuse to take any stance whatsoever on immigration and are gung ho in favor of snuffing out human life in the speculatively wild hopes of developing miracle cures.
The 2006 Choice
By Cal Thomas
Conservatives who are upset that Republicans haven't done enough during their 12 years in control of the House and Senate and nearly six years in control of the White House need a slap in the face.
Republicans may have controlled all three branches of government, but conservatives haven't. If conservatives believe enough has not been done to advance their agenda, let them work to elect more conservatives, not hand control of Congress over to a party controlled by far-left liberals who have no intention of moderating their tone or watering down their beliefs after the election.
One issue should trump all others for conservatives: judges. As Manuel Miranda of Third Branch writes in Human Events, "If the GOP loses the Senate, precedent shows that more than 60 Bush judicial nominees will never get a Judiciary Committee hearing under the chairmanship of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Republicans will be unable to stop a filibuster of a next Supreme Court nominee and countless circuit court picks. This will dwarf Democrats' past six years of obstruction."
Jihad is fun! Vote Democrat!
By Ann Coulter
Democrats can't not be crazy. They will instantly set to work enacting a national gay marriage law, impeachment hearings, slavery reparations and a series of new federal felonies for abortion clinic protesters. The only way to get Democrats to focus on terrorists would be to convince them that the terrorists are interfering with a woman's right to choose or that commercial jetliners exploding in midair are a threat to America's wetlands. ...
As millions of lunatic Muslims plot to murder Americans, some Americans -- we call them "Soccer Moms" -- will cast a vote to save Michael J. Fox this year. In the process, they will put all Americans at risk by voting for a frivolous, dying party.
V Squared: Why you must vote and volunteer
By Doug Wilson
But the time for intra-party criticism has passed. Now it's time to close ranks and work hard for the next few weeks to do all that we can to retain control of both houses of Congress. Unfortunately there are many Republican voters who fail to see the merits of such a decision. Instead, they think like a friend of mine--a long time GOP leader who served in the Nixon White House--who says he hopes the Republicans lose both the House and the Senate. Why? "To teach them a lesson," he says.
Republicans need to learn some lessons--I agree. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. We must set aside our anger and frustration and support Republican candidates across our nation. Why the switch from critic to supporter? Because the alternative is much worse. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the would-be Democrat majority leader, is no friend of the taxpayer. In fact, she has voted 19 times against eliminating the death tax. She also voted against the historic welfare reform bill of 1996; against protecting the right to say "one nation under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance; against banning partial-birth abortions; and against requiring voter identification at polling stations so that we can ensure that only legal citizens cast votes.
Is this the kind of leader you want in Congress just so Republicans will "learn a lesson"? It's almost like sending your child to his room for two years because he didn't eat his vegetables. In parenting, like politics, the goal should always be to punish--and teach--but not to ruin. And when you think about some of the progress we've made as a country since 1994--well, let's just say we can't afford to ruin it.
Before Iraq:
The assumptions of a forgetful chattering class are badly off the mark
By Victor Davis Hanson
Instead of recalling any of this, Iraq is seen only in the hindsight of who did what wrong and when. All the great good we accomplished and the high ideals we embraced are drowned out by the present violent insurgency and the sensationalized effort to turn the mayhem into an American Antietam or Yalu River. Blame is never allotted to al Qaeda, the Sadr thugs, or the ex-Baathists, only to the United States, who should have, could have, or would have done better in stopping them, had its leadership read a particular article, fired a certain person, listened to an exceptional general, or studied a key position paper.
We also forget that Iraq, contrary to popular slander, was not "cooked up" in Texas or at a Washington, D.C., neocon think tank. Rather, it was a reaction to two events: a decade of appeasement of Middle East tyrants and terrorists, and the disaster of September 11.
We Need His Kind
In praise of Rick Santorum
By Peggy Noonan
But here's an exception: the state of Pennsylvania, which has been this year a bright patch of meaning. Its U.S. Senate contest has been the great race of the cycle, the one about which conservatives in their hearts most care. And not only conservatives, but those who know, for whatever reason and in whatever way, that there is something truly at stake here, something beyond mere red team and blue.
That would be Sen. Rick Santorum. The sense among so many people--including politicians and journalists--is that the Senate needs his sort, his kind.
13 reasons to vote Republican on Nov. 7
By Mona Charen
2) The Patriot Act. Democrats and liberals mourn this law as a gross infringement upon civil liberties. Yet the much-discussed abuses simply haven't materialized. The law has, on the other hand, permitted the CIA and FBI to cooperate and share information about terrorist threats -- at least so long as The New York Times isn't publishing the details of our counterterrorism efforts on the front page.
3) The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, to which liberals clung with passionate intensity, has been cancelled, permitting us to work on missile defense. In the age of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is anyone (except Nancy Pelosi) sorry? ...
5) There has not been another terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Who would have predicted that on 9/12? ...
8) John Roberts and Samuel Alito sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
9) Those Democrats who do not want to close Guantanamo Bay altogether want to give all of its inmates the full panoply of rights Americans enjoy in criminal procedures.
Note to angry Republicans: Stay angry, but vote Republican
By Dennis Prager
And what about the single most important reason to elect Republicans -- the appointment of judges, especially justices to the Supreme Court? What sort of reasoning would lead a conservative to conclude that it is more important to express anger at Republicans than to prevent Democrats from appointing Supreme Court justices and other judges?
And taxes -- what rational conservative would prefer tax increases, one of the major goals of the Democratic Party?
As regards national security, what sort of Republicans are so angry at the Bush administration and/or the Republican Congress that they would want to replace the party that made the Patriot Act and NSA wiretapping possible with the party that opposes the Patriot Act and NSA wiretapping? And doesn't the Bush administration deserve credit for the absence of a single terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11?
How about Social Security? Why would a rational Republican want to reward the party that opposed any attempt to fix a system that will fail the next generation of Americans -- and hurt the Republican president who bravely, if ultimately futilely, spent political capital trying to fix it?
I'm off to buy some Maalox.