A GOP of Bold Colors

“Let’s have a new first party – a Republican Party – raising a banner of bold colors, no pale pastels. A banner instantly recognizable as standing for certain values which will not be compromised.” – Ronald Reagan, 1975

While I myself am a registered conservative, I look to the Republican Party as the closest representative of conservative values in American politics. Overtime, that appears to be fading. Sometimes I look at Washington lately and I wonder if it is possible to distinguish one party from the other. While many see the parties as becoming more partisan in their rhetoric, often we can look at their actions and find it nearly impossible to discern one from the other. It’s as if they are melting into the same pot of power, rather than standing firm on the principles that brought them there to begin with.

Reagan also stated in that speech quoted above that people at the time felt it no longer mattered which party won. Are we approaching a similar place in history? I think that conservatives have the chance to bring a similar vitality brought by Reagan if they listen to his idea that Republicans don’t need to act like a watered down version of the Democrats. Instead, they need to make the differences between the two parties bold, no pastels. Standing for principle will earn you respect, others will want to fight alongside you for shared principles and it will restore a renewed faith that we send conservatives to Washington who won’t bend at the fear of a Democrat-Media campaign.

This is what the fight over ObamaCare is truly all about. Like it or not, this is the issue where conservatives will rise to the top and Republicans who don’t act on conservative principles will sink. ObamaCare represents virtually every antithesis of conservative principles: Big government, lack of freedom, invasion of privacy, increased taxes, harms businesses, higher costs with worse results, more government dependency, less innovation, more regulations. Not only that, but you have the majority of Americans who despise the law AND you have the power in Congress to stop it if Republicans unite. If Republicans won’t stand up and fight against ObamaCare, then I seriously doubt their willingness to fight for any conservative principles in the future. They will become irrelevant. I don’t want to see that happen and neither do you. Those who are opposed to Mike Lee’s idea of how to fund ObamaCare need to hear from you and they need to know that this issue matters, these principles matter and you are counting on them to lead rather than to cower in the shadows of a potential Democrat PR smear campaign.