Within the Republican Party right now, there seem to be three factions who want to define the reasoning behind the GOP’s failures. There are some remaining Republican moderates (Republican Main Street Partnership, Christie Todd Whitman) who believe the party has fallen on hard times because it’s veered too far to the right, and there are a lot more conservative Republicans who believe the party faltered because of ideological principles such as increased spending.
And then there’s Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice who was driven from office in disgrace because a religious crusade led him to believe he could ignore the U.S. Constitution. He believes the GOP has fallen on hard times because, you guessed it, the party isn’t nearly Taliban-like enough.
[P]erhaps the greatest divergence from Republican philosophy has been the widespread rejection of moral principles by many Republicans elected to office. […]
These instances only exacerbate the open affront to Christian principles that occurred when Mr. Bush appointed Mark Dybul, an admitted homosexual, as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. That appointment was confirmed by a Republican Senate, which had previously rejected President Clinton’s nomination of an avowed homosexual as ambassador to Luxembourg. At Mr. Dybul’s swearing-in ceremony, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice introduced his parents and his male “partner,” Jason. Miss Rice then referred to Jason’s mother as Mr. Dybul’s “mother-in-law,” showing disdain for traditional marriage and an open acceptance of homosexuality.
The deafening silence of the White House regarding new Navy and Air Force regulations proposing to take away the right of Christian chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus reflect not only a misunderstanding of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but also a failure to recognize our Godly heritage.
Wait, Dems reclaimed the majority, not because of Iraq, but because of Mark Dybul and chaplain regulations, neither of which Americans heard anything about? According to Moore, that’s exactly right.
As he put it, given the Republicans’ “open affront to Christian principles,” the GOP base stayed home.
First, the facts suggest Moore is just wrong. The base turned out just fine, but it wasn’t enough. The Republican Party apparently needs more than just Moore and his followers.
Second, as my friends at AU noted, there’s another problem with Moore’s diagnosis and prescription: “his snake oil failed miserably when applied in his own race for public office.”
Moore ran in the GOP primary against incumbent Gov. Bob Riley. Riley is no liberal, but he had (shudder) sought to alter the state tax code to increase the tab for the wealthy and (horrors) lessen the burden on poor and working-class citizens. Riley’s plan failed, and the state’s political establishment had all but written his obituary. Surely, if there is any place in our fair land where the voters would be responsive to Moore’s brand of religio-political hooey, it would be demagogue-loving, Bible-Belt Alabama. Here was a tax-and-spend do-gooder running against a staunchly conservative Moral Giant with a Moses complex.
And what happened? On June 6 of this year, Alabama Republicans went to the polls and reelected Riley by a 67-33 percent margin. By 2-1, they gave Moore and his narrow-minded “moral values” crusade a good thumping — as President Bush might put it!
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest Moore doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Call it a hunch.