Sylvia Thompson
Study reveals why some are leaving the Republican Party
By Sylvia Thompson
A recent study by a conservative marketing research group, Frontier Lab (www.thefrontierlab.org), found that Republicans who leave the party are tired of being forced to accept the lesser of two evils in elections, among other dissatisfactions.
In an interview with Breitbart News (reported in Liberty Alliance, "ConservativeByte" Alert, July 3, 2013), Anne Sorock, author of the study, offered her criticism of the Republican National Committee's (RNC) self-examination after the party's dreadful showing in the 2012 presidential race. Sorock commented that the RNC's decision to use political consultants to assess the party's problems is an example of how wrong that group is on so much of what it has done to date.
The RNC's autopsy was prepared using familiar tools, such as focus groups and polls. The Frontier Lab applied methodology from market research to assess motivation. The study used a sample of Republicans who have left the party in recent years.
As a conservative, I welcome this kind of study, because it lays bare the ridiculous assumption that Republicans lost because their tent is not big enough. The Democrats, their opponents, certainly think that the state of the "tent" is their problem. Feigned concern for your well-being by opponents should raise all kinds of flags, but apparently not for establishment Republicans. And while those establishment types water down principles to appeal to illegal aliens, glom on to the homosexual agenda, and cozy up to women who want abortions forever legal, conservative Republicans search for alternatives.
I recall some years ago hearing a black female Republican respond to a media person's inquiry regarding why Republicans did not reach out to blacks. Her comment remains with me after all these years, because of its reasonableness. She said that if blacks or anybody else shared the GOP's conservative principles, why wouldn't they come to the party? Why must the party go to them?
That was, however, some years ago when the Republican Party leadership shared the conservative principles of the base – primarily, traditional social values, fiscal responsibility, and strong national defense. There is no such leadership in the party today. A few conservative Tea Party candidates from the 2010 Republican landslide are fighting an uphill battle against the faux-conservative leaders, and the conservative base has had about all they can take of those leaders. The 2012 elections are a clear indication of their disgust.
I contend that part of the Republican problem is that libertarian influences have usurped the party, pretty much as socialism has taken over the Democratic Party.
Libertarians were unable to sell their ideology to the American people with a party of their own. It was therefore prudent to change tactics. Libertarianism embraces fiscal responsibility, but not much else in the Republican platform. Its adherents, for the most part, do not embrace traditional social values and they are not particularly sold on military defense. Consequently, the base, which embraces all aspects of the platform, must be removed. And we know what happens when the base (foundation) is removed from a structure: it collapses.
Libertarians tend to be moneyed and more educated than the everyday people in the Republican base, they therefore have the upper hand when it comes to winning over weak Republican leaders. I read that it was something of a struggle for conservatives to keep in the 2012 party platform an adherence to traditional marriage and support of the unborn.
What exists now is a fractured Republican Party, in the throes of deciding whether it will be the God-oriented, patriotic, principled party that it was years back, or whether it will be driven by libertarian and liberal ideals more on the order of the Democratic Party, which has become socialist.
If the Republican Party continues on its downward spiral to become something more fitting to its libertarian members, a truly conservative alternative party will arise. The sentiment for such a party is certainly out there. It will take a few more tries on the part of Tea Party enthusiasts (who are primarily social conservatives) to reinstate the full spectrum of conservative principles into the Republican party structure. If that task fails, a genuinely conservative party will be the result. It may take time to come to fruition, but I am convinced that it will happen.
© Sylvia Thompson
July 9, 2013
A recent study by a conservative marketing research group, Frontier Lab (www.thefrontierlab.org), found that Republicans who leave the party are tired of being forced to accept the lesser of two evils in elections, among other dissatisfactions.
In an interview with Breitbart News (reported in Liberty Alliance, "ConservativeByte" Alert, July 3, 2013), Anne Sorock, author of the study, offered her criticism of the Republican National Committee's (RNC) self-examination after the party's dreadful showing in the 2012 presidential race. Sorock commented that the RNC's decision to use political consultants to assess the party's problems is an example of how wrong that group is on so much of what it has done to date.
The RNC's autopsy was prepared using familiar tools, such as focus groups and polls. The Frontier Lab applied methodology from market research to assess motivation. The study used a sample of Republicans who have left the party in recent years.
As a conservative, I welcome this kind of study, because it lays bare the ridiculous assumption that Republicans lost because their tent is not big enough. The Democrats, their opponents, certainly think that the state of the "tent" is their problem. Feigned concern for your well-being by opponents should raise all kinds of flags, but apparently not for establishment Republicans. And while those establishment types water down principles to appeal to illegal aliens, glom on to the homosexual agenda, and cozy up to women who want abortions forever legal, conservative Republicans search for alternatives.
I recall some years ago hearing a black female Republican respond to a media person's inquiry regarding why Republicans did not reach out to blacks. Her comment remains with me after all these years, because of its reasonableness. She said that if blacks or anybody else shared the GOP's conservative principles, why wouldn't they come to the party? Why must the party go to them?
That was, however, some years ago when the Republican Party leadership shared the conservative principles of the base – primarily, traditional social values, fiscal responsibility, and strong national defense. There is no such leadership in the party today. A few conservative Tea Party candidates from the 2010 Republican landslide are fighting an uphill battle against the faux-conservative leaders, and the conservative base has had about all they can take of those leaders. The 2012 elections are a clear indication of their disgust.
I contend that part of the Republican problem is that libertarian influences have usurped the party, pretty much as socialism has taken over the Democratic Party.
Libertarians were unable to sell their ideology to the American people with a party of their own. It was therefore prudent to change tactics. Libertarianism embraces fiscal responsibility, but not much else in the Republican platform. Its adherents, for the most part, do not embrace traditional social values and they are not particularly sold on military defense. Consequently, the base, which embraces all aspects of the platform, must be removed. And we know what happens when the base (foundation) is removed from a structure: it collapses.
Libertarians tend to be moneyed and more educated than the everyday people in the Republican base, they therefore have the upper hand when it comes to winning over weak Republican leaders. I read that it was something of a struggle for conservatives to keep in the 2012 party platform an adherence to traditional marriage and support of the unborn.
What exists now is a fractured Republican Party, in the throes of deciding whether it will be the God-oriented, patriotic, principled party that it was years back, or whether it will be driven by libertarian and liberal ideals more on the order of the Democratic Party, which has become socialist.
If the Republican Party continues on its downward spiral to become something more fitting to its libertarian members, a truly conservative alternative party will arise. The sentiment for such a party is certainly out there. It will take a few more tries on the part of Tea Party enthusiasts (who are primarily social conservatives) to reinstate the full spectrum of conservative principles into the Republican party structure. If that task fails, a genuinely conservative party will be the result. It may take time to come to fruition, but I am convinced that it will happen.
© Sylvia Thompson
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