I spent Easter weekend with some of my relatives, all who are staunch Democrats. They listen to NPR, watch CNN, read the NY Times and even consume a little Michael Moore on their free time. Worst of all, they know I work for Bill Bennett. So naturally, politics always seems to rear its ugly head at family events. I don’t visit my extended family very regularly, so when I do, it feels like they’ve been storing up political ammo to use against me. This time the gunfight was over tea partiers.
Their side of the conversation went something like this:
“How can you listen to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talkers?! There practically provoking race riots against the President.”
“The Republicans are the party of ‘No’ and they hate everything the Democrats try to do.”
“Republicans are all radicals now and anyone they disagree with, even in their own party, they want to throw out.”
Now, these conversations do read a lot like MSNBC talking points. Do the liberal media try and paint tea partiers as radical, racist, and even violent demonstrators? YES. Do they take isolate incidents of extremism and generalize about the entire movement? YES.
BUT, as a conservative, I started to ask myself, “Do we do more to squelch these allegations or more to fuel them?”
Recent events have again brought this question to my mind.
This week Tom Coburn called Nancy Pelosi a nice person and admonished those who said she was not, especially those who do not know her. The outrage on the show this week from listeners was ludicrous. Callers slammed Coburn saying that Pelosi and the Democrats are evil and we are in a fight for our freedoms and shouldn’t bother being nice. The overwhelming response from callers was against Bill, who took the side of Coburn in this argument.
I understand that most conservatives have reached their boiling point over the long months of health care debate, but that is still not reason enough to warrant the type of hatred and cynicism that I’ve seen lately.
I’m not saying we should get in bed with the Democrats or bend over backwards for them, but remember that Republicans represent a mere 30 percent of the electorate. To win elections, we must make alliances and draw independents and Democrats to our side. If we forget that, we will be in the permanent minority.
Granted, we cannot sell ourselves out or sacrifice our principles. However, we can show some civility, and an occasional kind word about an opponent is not betrayal. We should stand on steely reserve and conviction, not cynicism and hatred.
Ronald Reagan, the champion of tea partiers and conservatives, reached out to work with the Democrats. So much in fact, we still have REAGAN DEMOCRATS today. Reagan did not sell out, but he treated Democrats with respect and that made him the most popular president of my generation and an example we should not forget.
