But Now You Know

Why “Moderates” Have Always been Unelectable

Every time, for decades, the more principled candidate has won, and the "moderate" almost always lost.

They keep telling us that Mitt Romney is the only “electable” candidate…just like they claimed about John McCain and Bob Dole.

But, like McCain and Dole, the history is of Big Government “moderates” losing:

• 1976

  Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan struggled through the whole primary season, reaching the convention with no majority.

  The Liberal “Moderate” Republicans, known as Nixonians and “Rockefeller Republicans”, said that even though Reagan had more delegates, Ford should be the nominee, because he was a “moderate”, therefore more electable.Reagan, with his “liberty” and “small government” talk, was too extreme, obviously unelectable.

  Ford, running as a moderate, lost.

• 1980

  Reagan ran again.

  As before, the Rockefeller Republicans insisted that Reagan was unelectable. Low taxes, spending cuts, in the middle of a recession? Attacking government as the problem, instead of giving people hope by saying it could fix things?

  Madness.

  In fact, when he won the primary by beating John Anderson and George Bush, the Establishment Republicans actually ran John Anderson as a third party spoiler in the general election:

  The Republican establishment hoped to split the vote and get Carter re-elected. They actually preferred Liberal/socialist Carter over Reagan!

  

  The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. – Ronald Reagan, “Inside Ronald Reagan”, Reason magazine, July 1975

  But “unelectable extremist libertarian” Reagan won the election in a landslide, beating “electable moderate” Republican John Anderson and incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter, combined.

• 1992

  Bush won because he was Reagan’s Vice President, but in 1992, he had to run on his own record as a “moderate” Republican, the establishment rallying around to force his nomination in the face of challenges by two more candidates, one more libertarian and one more conservative. The “Moderate” Bush was supposed to be more electable.

  Bush, running as a Moderate, lost.

• 1994

  Two years later, rebellious Republicans refused to follow the Establishment’s advice, running  on a libertarian Conservative platform, the Contract with America. The establishment worried that the lack of a more moderate stance would hurt their normal mid-term gains. This was the first time the Republican party had run for Congress without a “moderate” agenda, in generations.

  Instead of losing, the Republicans running on principle took all of Congress, for the first time…in generations.

• 1996

  The “Moderate” Republican Establishment had regained control.

  Faced with a very libertarian candidate and more conservative one leading in early primaries, they managed to force the “moderate”, Bob Dole, into winning the nomination. Those two non-Moderates were deemed unelectable, despite the lesson of two years earlier.

  Dole, running as a Moderate, lost.

• 2000

  W Bush ran as a Conservative. He promised school choice, Social Security reform, and “no more nation building”.

  Naturally, running as a Conservative, he won.

• 2004

  But it turned out to be a lie.

  • Instead of less centralized education, we got a more socialist education system through “No Child Left Behind”.
  • Instead of Social Security reform, we got Medicare Part D, the biggest entitlement expansion in history.
  • Instead of “No more nation building”, we got endless wars and trillions squandered overseas, killing our sons, driving oil prices up 700%, and crippling the economy.

  He should, therefore, have lost in 2004, exposed as a “moderate”.

  But the Democrats committed political suicide: Dumping the clearly principled candidate Howard Dean, they went for “Me-too Democrat” John Kerry, who was “Bush Lite” on pretty much every topic.

  As usual, the more “moderate”, unprincipled candidate lost.

• 2006

  

  "Moderates" lost Congress to the Democrats in 2006, but only four years later, the TEA Party's principled stand won it back

  The Republican party carefully ran as “moderate”, as defenders of their “moderate” President. In each election where they had done so in the dozen years that they’d controlled Congress, they’d lost ground…and now they were out of time.

  Running as Moderates, the Republicans lost.

• 2008

  Once again, the Establishment fought back challengers who were more libertarian and Conservative, to ensure that one of the two, supposedly electable, “moderates” won the nomination.

  John McCain, running as a Moderate, lost.

• 2010

  To the horror of the Establishment, the TEA Party began ousting “moderates” in the primary, leaving the Republicans with 60 “unelectable” candidates who supported libertarian Conservative principles.

  The TEA Party, running on principle, took back the House, only four years after losing it.

In the entire modern history of politics, and especially the Republican party and Conservatism, there has been a nearly perfect pattern of “moderates” losing nationwide elections, and principled candidates, running on small government, winning.

This is because people support principled candidates, but either stay home or vote for the candidate a  “moderate” one is imitating.

The lesser of two evils is still…EVIL.

“Moderates” are not electable.

February 4, 2012 Posted by kazvorpal | Philosophy, Politics | conservative, electable, libertarian, moderate, moderates, republican, romney, unelectable | 12 Comments