In my last blog, entitled "Why I'm a Republican," I listed twenty-seven reasons why I chose to join the GOP. They boil down to the simple fact that the Republican Party, especially at the state level, is better at restricting the growth and scope of government, and thus at protecting individual rights.

I immediately drew responses from Democrats, both in writing and verbal, claiming that I was somehow mistaken, that these were Democratic principles I was endorsing. Jim Splaine, a man I admire for his stances on certain topics, went so far as to say that I should return to the Democratic Party, since that’s obviously where I belong.

These claims, that my Republican principles were somehow also Democratic ones, had me feeling as if I had entered the Twilight Zone. And so, I immediately went off to do some research to alleviate this out-of-sorts feeling. I didn’t have to look long.

Statement of Principle (SOP) 14 states: “I am a Republican because I believe that parents have every right to raise their children as they see fit. Democrats do not believe they are “your” children, they believe they are “our” children.”

Both Democrats and Republicans believe that providing for the education of their children is of monumental importance. Regardless of party, everyone wishes for their children to get the undeniable advantages that come from a quality, well-rounded education. Also, most parents believe – and most teachers would agree – that education does not begin and end at the schoolhouse door. Good parents take an active interest in their children’s education, by ensuring that their homework is done, by exposing them to all manner of museums, books, nature, and by staying in touch with their children’s teachers.

In fact, some parents are so good at this, and they take such an interest in their children’s education, that they choose to educate their children themselves. They have the time, they have the energy, and they have the ability to take full responsibility for their children’s learning. Study after study has shown that homeschooled children obtain educations on a par with or superior to that available at public or private schools. Also, despite the myth to the contrary, study after study has indicated that homeschooled children grow up to be well-socialized, well-rounded adults. Anecdotally, I can state unequivocally that the dozen or so homeschooled children I have met were extremely polite, well-behaved, and most stunningly of all, fascinated with learning.

I believe, as a Republican, that the decision of whether or not to homeschool one’s children should rest entirely with the parents. To listen to several readers of my blog, so do Democrats.

Senate Bill 337, sponsored by Senator Iris Estabrook (D), would require that parents submit a curriculum plan before beginning to homeschool. Also, the bill requires the curriculum covers a multitude of topics, from spelling to the state Constitution.

This bill is an assault on the natural right of parents to decide on the best way to raise their children. It is a clear case of the rights of the individual against the demands of the state. This bill represents the dangerous view that your children aren’t "yours," they are “ours.” And by “ours,” they mean “theirs.” If I’m wrong about party philosophy, and all of those people who insisted that I was really speaking of Democratic principles were right, then the Democratic majority in the senate would have shot this down cold, right?

The bill passed the senate on a vote of 22-14. Voting yea were Senators Burling, Cilley, D’Allesandro, DeVries, Estabrook, Foster, Fuller Clark, Gottesman, Hassan, Janeway, Kelly, Larsen, Reynolds, and Sgambati. Voting nay were Senators Barnes, Bragdon, Clegg, Downing, Gallus, Gatsas, Kenney, Letourneau, Odell, and Roberge.

What’s the trend?

Every single Democrat voted for the bill. Every single Republican voted against it.

I care about parental rights. That’s why I’m a Republican.

Senate Bill 337 is scheduled for a hearing before the House Education Committee at 10 am on April 15th in Representatives Hall, in the State House. Regardless of your party affiliation, if you believe in the principle that parents should be able to raise their children without onerous state oversight, please consider either attending the hearing to speak against the bill or calling the members of the education committee to ask them to oppose it.

Raised by a single mother who venerated the Democratic Party, it was of course only natural that I as a child would defend that party’s policies and candidates to my friends and extended family members. I still remember championing Michael Dukakis in 1988, and cheering for Bill Clinton on election night in 1992. Clinton still got my vote in 1996, the first year I could cast a ballot for president. On my hour-long bus rides to school, I’d read the paper and try to reconcile the Democratic platform with what my mind said was right: that taxes should be lower, that markets operate best when left alone, and that it’s not right to inconvenience a few for the benefit of the majority.

And then, between my undergraduate degree and my graduate studies, I went to work for a Democratic machine in South Baltimore and actually watched how people get elected, how laws are proposed and passed, and how bureaucracies work. It was, in a word, horrifying. That uneasy marriage with the Democratic Party in my mind, with those nagging inconsistencies between my opinions and the platform, quickly turned to divorce, and even while working to elect Democrats I changed my party registration to “Independent.” I still remember walking into the City Clerk’s Office, soon after moving to Manchester, and, though I had intended to register as a Republican, being almost lightheaded when answering the clerk’s question relative to my party registration. I felt, for a moment, as if I were intoxicated. The unfamiliar word left my lips in a slur and a stutter, as if I were trying to pronounce something in Russian.

The obvious question is: why? Why did I leave the party in which I was raised, the party that I had supported and worked for and helped to elect candidates? Why did I find myself swaying at the clerk’s counter, saying a foreign word?

I could no longer, in good conscience, ignore the facts that had become so evident to me over time. I had, over nearly three decades, learned to put aside the outdated party platforms and actually consider the very different philosophies behind them, and I found that without question my personal philosophy is much more in line with the Republican Party than that of the Democrats.

This, then, is why I am a Republican:

I am a Republican because I believe that each individual is born with inherent, inalienable natural rights, and that no government action may legitimately take them away. This is the same sentiment expressed in our state and federal constitutions, and in the writings of virtually every Founder of this nation. Democrats believe that rights come from governments, and as such those rights may be regulated and legislated away. In addition, Democrats believe that rights not found in nature may be legislated into existence, such as the right to housing and the right to health care. I believe that down this road lies pure socialism.

I am a Republican because I believe that these natural rights include the right to free speech, the right to engage in free trade, the right to contract, the right to control one’s property, the right to self-defense, and the right to make one’s own decisions. Motivated by their misguided good intentions, Democrats routinely work to subjugate these rights to their will. I cannot list the ways they do so. They are simply innumerable.

I am a Republican because I believe that the rights of the individual need to be protected from a tyrannous majority; indeed, that protecting individual rights is the real reason we have governments at all. Democrats believe that the individual must yield to the majority, regardless of the rights in question.

I am a Republican because I believe that the free market is dynamic, that it quickly responds to a multitude of factors, from a surprise snowstorm that hurts the orange crop to the return of bell bottoms to the latest obsession with Apple’s high-tech devices. The free market is a wonderful equation that balances supply and demand with the full range of values and preferences of every single consumer, simultaneously. I further believe that government regulation is stolid, unyielding, and oppressive, and that it harms the entry of new talent, new capital, and new ideas into the marketplace. Democrats believe that centralized economies yield more of this amorphous concept they call “social justice.” They believe this in spite of the undeniable fact that the most centralized, regulated economies in the history of the world – China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, etc – have resulted in the lowest amount of social justice, human happiness, and quality of life over the past century.

I am a Republican because I believe that the ends do not justify the means. It is never acceptable to trample the rights of even one person to improve the lot of the many. Democrats place more value on the “common good,” and are willing to step on some people in pursuit of their grand vision.

I am a Republican because I believe that my business is private space, not public, and that I should be entitled to set the policies to be observed therein. Public spaces are publicly owned, as in the streets and sidewalks and parks. Democrats believe that not only are all businesses public and thus subject to intense regulation, deep down they believe that all homes are public, too, and are thus equally subject to regulation. Observe the latest push to ban smoking in apartments, condominiums, and attached dwellings.

I am a Republican because I believe that people are entitled to make their own decisions. Democrats believe that anyone not an elected Democrat is generally stupid, and need to have their decisions made for them. Democrats believe that, because their intentions are pure and yet we oppose them, that our intentions are not. They often advocate class warfare by painting us as selfish and uneducated. Thus, they believe that they are morally superior, and perhaps just a little more intelligent. Democrats tend to be elitist and condescending.

I am a Republican because I believe that people can overcome any obstacle through hard work and determination. Democrats believe that people are either helpless victims or lucky victors of their circumstances, and that citizens have no control over their destiny. I believe this view of humanity is insulting.

I am a Republican because I recognize that making mistakes and overcoming hurdles is part of growing up and maturing, and that by insulating people from their mistakes and discouraging them from tackling those hurdles we are becoming a nation of adult children, destined to never have the experiences that result in true adulthood. Democrats believe they are everyone’s parents, so it’s perfectly all right that some people never grow up.

I am a Republican because I believe in Locke’s principle, that voluntary interaction is morally superior to using force to achieve social progress.

I am a Republican because I’m happy to live my life and let my fellow citizens alone to live theirs as they see fit. Democrats aren’t happy with living their own lives, they feel the need to live the lives of others, as well.

I am a Republican because I believe that people are generally good, and that being good, people that can afford to help other people in genuine need usually will. Democrats believe that people that do not happen to be elected Democrats are very selfish, and that they must utilize the power of the state to take money away from those who earn it for redistribution to the needy using a very inefficient, wasteful, bloated bureaucracy.

I am a Republican because I have no wish to be kept, or to keep others against their will. Democrats believe they are your keeper, whether you like it or not.

I am a Republican because I believe that parents have every right to raise their children as they see fit. Democrats do not believe they are “your” children, they believe they are “our” children.

I am a Republican because I believe that people know best how to spend their money. Democrats believe that they know how to spend your money better than you do.

I am a Republican because I believe that the meanings of words do not change, just as one plus one always equals two. This means that laws, including Constitutions, mean exactly what they meant when written. Democrats believe that words do change, and that the Constitution means very different things now than it did when written in 1787. Republicans believe this approach to be very dangerous, because if the meanings of words are dynamic and not static, then the words themselves are meaningless; like a modern art painting, the meaning is solely in the eye of the beholder. This is why so many lawyers are Democrats: they believe they are uniquely qualified to be shapers and artists of the law.

I am a Republican because I believe in liberty. Democrats believe that liberty must yield upon the demand of 50.1% of a given geopolitical unit.

I am a Republican because if someone shoots at me but misses, I'm either going to be shooting back or cursing myself for not wearing a firearm that day. Democrats would reach for a cell phone and call the police, hoping the police cars somehow reach them before the next bullet.

I am a Republican because I believe that local government is better government, because one is more likely to know the decision-makers by name, or more likely to run into them at the grocery store, and thus be able to influence the decisions, when those decisions are being made locally. Democrats believe that decisions made further away are somehow better. Thus, they support moving power from the cities to the state capital, from the state capital to Washington DC, and even from Washington DC to non-state entities such as the United Nations or The Hague.

I am a Republican because I believe in the right to be left alone. Democrats believe in the right to impose. My philosophy requires no sacrifice from anyone against his will. The philosophy of Democrats is built upon unwilling sacrifice.

I am a Republican because I believe taxes should be as low as possible and that government should focus on performing a limited number of essential tasks, most of which have to do with public safety. Democrats believe that the government should be funding all manner of programs designed to accomplish innumerable goals, from running a network of radio stations to funding artists to fighting marijuana use to encouraging healthier eating.

I am a Republican because I believe in the dignity of the individual. Democrats do not; rather, they believe in the supremacy of the collective.

I am a Republican because I believe that affirmative action is racism, and racism is wrong regardless of whether the victim is white or black. Also, I believe that people should be judged on their merits as individuals, based on their talents and intelligence and character, and should never receive special treatment because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. Democrats believe that people of certain races, a certain gender, and a certain sexual orientation deserve preferential treatment to make up for past discrimination. This leads to…

I am a Republican because I believe that generations do not leave legacies of guilt behind. My great-grandfather was a racist, but that does not obligate me to anything, nor is a cause for me to feel guilt. I am not a racist, and that’s all that should matter. Democrats speak of inherited guilt, as if people bear some measure of guilt for their forefathers’ misdeeds.

I am a Republican because I recognize that a perfect world is impossible, that life sometimes isn’t fair, and that obstacles, fair or unfair, must be overcome through persistence and hard work. Democrats believe that a Utopia is possible, free of suffering and full of happiness and fairness, and that it can be legislated into existence by the use of their superior intellect and wise beneficence.

I am a Republican because I believe that opinions and decisions should be based upon thoughtful reasoning, weighing of the evidence, and the use of logic. Democrats believe that opinions and decisions should be based upon emotional appeals that tug on the heartstrings, regardless of how illogical those arguments may be.

I am a Republican because I believe in smaller, less intrusive government. Democrats believe in larger, more intrusive government.

I will anticipate some objections. As is always the case when dealing with loose organizations containing literally tens of millions of people, this list is full of dramatic generalizations. To be a bit more specific:

There are two kinds of Republicans with whom I find myself disagreeing often: the evangelicals and the RINOs. The evangelical Republicans do not share my “right-to-be-left-alone” beliefs. They, like the Democrats, are perfectly happy to use the power of government to shape society; they simply have different priorities and want society shaped towards a different kind of Utopian vision. Thus, like Democrats, they argue for restrictions on the right to contract (advocating state interference in marriage) and state funding of worthy causes (funding of religious charities). Make no mistake, the Bush Presidency has been an evangelical one, with its war on Islam and its big-government pseudo-conservatism. Happily, the stranglehold these evangelicals have held upon the GOP for the past decade seems to be slipping. There will be some growing pains, such as the disastrous election of 2006 and mixed results nationally this year, but the party will emerge the stronger and better for it, because we will have regained the Goldwater-Reagan small-government classical liberal conservatism that defined the winning GOP for forty years.

RINOs are Republicans-in-name-only, people who support Democrat policies and beliefs, but who register as Republican for electoral success or due to a lack of understanding of the party philosophy. I cringe whenever a registered Republican votes to expand state power or centralize it, weakening local decision-making. Republicans who do it often should truly consider a change in party, because by their incorrect, inconsistent votes they make it appear that we stand for nothing at all, or worse, that we are Democrat-lite. There are some DINOs – I know several – but they are much rarer than RINOs. I believe this disparity is due to the fact that Democrats tend to be followers, and so they fall in line and vote as they are told much easier than Republicans. The local Democrat chair calls the delegation and tells them to support or oppose a given bill, and they usually say, “Yes, sir!” The Republican chair rarely bothers to make that call, because he knows that if he did the answer would usually be “Go to hell!”

For a mathematical explanation of why I am a Republican, I direct you to the nonpartisan New Hampshire Liberty Alliance’s “Liberty Ratings.” In 2007, only one of the top 25 House members was a Democrat, one of the rare DINOs I referenced earlier. In comparison, all of the bottom 25 House members were Democrats. With few exceptions, the Republicans scored much higher than Democrats in terms of voting to protect us from an overreaching, intrusive, expensive state government. Clearly, the Republican Party is a more dependable caretaker of freedom and individual choice.

http://www.nhliberty.org/2007_liberty_rating

As to my mother, she recently opened a small business, a deli and country store. Last month, the woman who has for my entire life cursed Republicans as selfish and held up Democrats as fine examples of generosity and intelligence, after fifty-six years as a Democrat, after five years of giving me books by Daniel Moynihan and George Mitchell in attempt to bring me back to the fold, she recently walked into her city clerk’s office in Cumberland, Maryland, and said a word that I’m sure made her head spin.

“Independent.”

They reap what they sow.

At the 1980 Democrat convention, Jimmy Carter survived a very close nomination battle with Ted Kennedy, only to lose the general election. Rather than accept the truth, that Ronald Reagan was an immensely capable politician while Carter an immensely incapable one, Democrat Party officials jumped to a very undemocratic conclusion: you just can't trust the voters to do the right thing.

And so, determined to increase the odds that the party chooses an electable nominee, the party bigwigs created superdelegates, who comprise approximately 20% of the people who will choose the Democrat nominee this year. These 800-odd individuals have the power to overturn the votes of millions of Democrat voters spread over all fifty states. Who are these superdelegates, these undemocratic party elite?

According to The Politico, half of the superdelegates are white men, which is surprising given that white men only comprise 28% of the Democrat Party. Men overall make up 64% of the superdelegates, again surprising given that only 45% of the party membership is male. This, from a party that trumpets with pride and smug superiority that its leading contenders this cycle are a white woman and a black man, as if race or gender are better qualifiers than character and experience.

Now, with it clear that neither Obama nor Clinton will earn enough pledged delegates in the remaining contests to lock up the nomination, the choice will lie in the hands of these 800-odd party elite, each of whom holds a vote equivalent to roughly 10,000 actual Democrat primary voters. Delegates will go into Denver with teeth set on edge, and the opposing campaigns will be there with plans and maneuvers aplenty. The Democrat convention will be, for once, must-see TV.

All hell will break lose in Denver. The superdelegates will be told by the Clinton campaign that she is the most electable candidate because she has been vetted, because she won the big, important states, because she might well have the delegate and vote leads if Michigan and Florida delegations had been seated, because she has more experience, and because the "Republican attack machine" will go after Obama for his past drug use and his allegiance to a pastor who hates white people. The Obama campaign will answer that he holds the lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote, that being First Lady is less valuable experience than being a state senator, that he is much more talented at using lofty, inspiring rhetoric, and that Clinton is a proven liar who often seems to be handling the gears of the so-called Republican attack machine.

And the difficulty is that they will both be right. While they are attempting in good faith to ascertain the best nominee for their party, delegates will be reminded that being "pledged" doesn't really mean anything, and now that they are actually at the Convention they are capable of doing absolutely anything they want. They will then be barraged with a series of manipulative floor maneuvers designed to sway delegates away from one candidate and towards another. The very party platform will likely face upheaval, as various resolutions and planks are proposed that blatantly pander to key Democrat constituencies. To attract women delegates, the Obama campaign may call for the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment. To attract minority delegates, the Clinton campaign may introduce a resolution calling for a national apology for slavery. And, pressed to deny their opponents a victory at all costs, each campaign will instruct their loyal delegates to vote down the proposals.

Stressed by these obvious attempts at vote-buying and constant lobbying, bothered immensely by being told to vote down proposals they usually strenuously defend, and secure only in the knowledge that the elitist superdelegates will just make the decision for them, the regular delegates elected by the little people back home will be very, very unhappy. Emotions will be raw and nerves on edge. Tempers will rise, and more than one fight will likely break out on the convention floor. At the end, women will head for Clinton, blacks will head for Obama, and it will be the white male superdelegates who make the final determination.

Women and blacks are the two biggest constituencies of the party, and one of those groups is all but certain to be alienated in Denver. Significant percentages of the supporters of whichever campaign loses in the end will either stay home in November or vote for McCain, and that's especially true for fans of Clinton. Further, this will represent the greatest opportunity for the GOP to expand its registration in nearly thirty years, as resentful, angry Democrats turn away from the party that spurned the candidate that looks and sounds most like them. If Clinton is the nominee, swing states with significant numbers of blacks will move towards McCain. If Obama is the nominee, as appears nearly certain, every large state will go Republican as women vote GOP.

This exact scenario happened before with different players, with a different dynamic. It was between a northern Democrat, part of the party elite and from a well-known family, and a southern good 'ol boy who turned the establishment on its head. The southerner won the nomination, the northerner literally turned his back to the nominee on stage, the resulting split did not heal for a decade, and the Republican won 44 states in a landslide.

The year was 1980. The candidates were Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy, and the Republican was an affable westerner named Ronald Reagan. This was the situation that superdelegates were supposed to fix, were supposed to ensure never happened again. Just as the Democrats place inordinate faith in government's abilities to make better decisions than individuals, they have placed inordinate faith in their party elite to make better decisions than their voters. Between their superdelegates and their absurdly complicated proportional delegate assignments, they've set themselves up for a disastrous convention and a likely loss in November.

They reap what they sow.

The Republican candidates are all promising to cut taxes, and the new leader of the pack, John McCain, is also promising to do what George Bush didn't, and cut spending.  Meanwhile, the surge in Iraq that McCain pushed for last year is undeniably working.  Sectarian violence is down, American casualties have become much less frequent, and the Iraqis are slowly but steadily taking control over their own country.  Though I still believe the war to have been a tremendous error, I am relieved to see a safer environment for our troops and for the Iraqi people, and the light seems to be visible at the end of the tunnel. 

The war in Iraq is going well, and the economy is hitting the skids.  The campaign plan the Democrats used so successfully in 2006 is no longer valid, as the political ground is shifting beneath them.  It now appears very likely, though far from inevitable, that the Democrats will nominate the candidate surest to drive Republicans to the polls in droves.  Later this summer, then, history may well repeat itself in the form of a Mondale moment: a Democrat will take a stage and either contradict all statements she's made to this point, or be forced to admit she intends to raise taxes.  A Republican will promise to cut spending and let taxpayers keep their money.  And the voters will respond as they should: in their best interests.    

To My Fellow Republicans,

It is now a year after the elections that drove our party from Congress, and from legislative chambers and governor's offices around the nation.  A year hence the voters will return to the polls and will, if so inclined, finish what they started last fall and sweep us from office entirely.  And, I fear, barring a dramatic change of direction this is exactly what will happen, for I sense the mood of the nation is still against us.  Despite this, except for a brief burst of introspection following the electoral disaster of 2006, there has been little or no change of course from either our party officials or most of our federal candidates.

I submit to you, my fellow Republicans, that we are long overdue in admitting some errors of judgment on the part of our leadership and highest elected officials.  Further, I submit that only by disclosing these errors, acknowledging them in full, and apologizing for them, can we hope to once again hold the trust and respect of the voters.  Criticizing the decisions of my own party leadership is not an action I relish, and it weighs heavily on my mind.  I do so out of a sense of deeply held principle, and in the conviction that only by this sort of self-examination can we move forward and reconcile with middle America.

I have been waiting these last twelve months for a letter such as this one to appear.  It would mean so much more were it to come from the party chairman, or a congressman.  But alas, it appears that no one else has stepped forward, and that if a letter is to be written at all it may have to come from me.  

These are the errors of our party as I see them:

We have enmeshed the nation in a war without cause or easy solution.  Under the guise of a tenuous connection to the 9/11 terrorists and the hobgoblin of weapons of mass destruction, our Republican president and congress invaded a sovereign nation and hunted down an admittedly ruthless dictator.  Now, using the rubric of "spreading democracy," our president continues to push for continued deployment and billions in new spending for a war that now approaches its fifth year.  This war has cost the lives of 3,860 of our soldiers, and the lives of at least 73,264 Iraqi civilians.

Based on false intelligence and deception at the highest levels, the Iraq War has been and continues to be a tremendous mistake.  The Republican Party has never, ever stood for war, especially not in the name of nation-building.  It has never, until recently, been our argument that we are to police the world.  The American people elected us to end the war in Korea and the war in Vietnam.  We should return to our historic premise, which held from the time of Jefferson to the days of Reagan, that we should encourage peace through trade and a strong defense.  We as a party must heed the words of Jefferson, "If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."  Open trade is much more effective at spreading our ideals than the use of our military.  

Our party, in collusion with the Democrats, has led an assault upon basic rights and freedoms inherent within the American character.  The Patriot Act, named in an demonstration of supreme Orwellian doublespeak, has given the federal government access to a slew of private records of every citizen, from video rentals to library records to phone records to bank statements.  "Free-speech zones" have been set up across the nation, severely curtailing the protests and freedom of expression that is the lifeblood of a free people.  And the Democrats, elected last year at least in part to reverse this disturbing trend, have promptly passed the Military Commissions Act, which allows the federal government to eavesdrop on the international phone calls of everyday Americans without even bothering to obtain a warrant.  

Since our party was formed to oppose slavery, after the splintering of Jefferson's old Democratic-Republican Party, we have stood for freedom.  When the nation was wrestling with the issue of slavery, it was Republican President Lincoln who signed the document ending the practice forever. When women asked for the right to vote, it was the Republicans who led the charge.  When the Democrats turned sharply left towards outright socialism, it was the Republicans who welcomed true liberal Democrats, those concerned with fundamental issues of liberty, with open arms.  And when one of those ex-Democrats became a great Republican president named Reagan, the United States had its greatest protector of free people and free markets in the White House than it had seen in perhaps a century.  We, the Republicans, must remember the counsel of our own Barry Goldwater, "A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

Charged by the American people with reducing the size and scope of government, we instead enlarged it.  In 1994 our party was handed a mandate when we were entrusted with control of the House of Representatives for the first time in four decades.  This was a direct result of our "Contract with America," in which we promised to cut taxes, spending, and the red tape that defines the federal bureaucracy.  While several taxes were cut, spending was not reduced.  In fact, entitlements such as Medicaid were expanded, subsidies to industries and agriculture exploded, and expensive new programs, including a return to the moon, were initiated.  These expenses, combined with the billions of dollars of spending on the Iraq War, have sent our budget spiraling into deficit.  Sent to Washington to eliminate the federal Department of Education, and return full control over education to the states, our Congress worked hand-in-hand with the Bush Administration to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, which, like so much Democratic legislation, has the best of intentions but is, at the end of the day, a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars and an intolerable intrusion into how parents and teachers run their local schools.  We must remember our roots and return to our rhetoric, and this time, should we earn back the trust of the people, we must follow through with our promises.

We have practiced the politics of exclusion.  Not so long ago, the Republicans were the party of the big tent.  All who believed in personal freedom and responsibility were welcome, and we could sort out our minor differences amongst ourselves in a jovial fashion.  But somewhere we lost that focus, and it became so important to win that we were willing to sacrifice entire segments of the people at the altar of victory.  In 2004, winning was so crucial to Karl Rove that in an effort to bring out social conservatives, he engineered the placement on multiple state ballots of state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.  In the process, he single-handedly drove away many who might otherwise be attracted to our message of smaller government and greater personal liberty.  

Likewise, rather than spread our philosophy of less regulations and more opportunity to blacks across America, the candidates widely perceived to be the front-runners for our party's nomination in 2008 - McCain, Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney - all declined to participate in a debate held by the NAACP.  This is especially ridiculous considering that for the last half of the 19th century, every black person who held office did so as a Republican, in recognition that Lincoln was the president who ended slavery.  Martin Luther King Jr. himself was a Republican.  We must return to being the big-tent party, and welcome people of all colors and orientations and genders and backgrounds.  

Finally, I come to the greatest sin of all, the one for which all others are merely symptoms.  There is a reason that our party believed that it had a duty to deliver democracy to the Middle East.  There is a reason why we thought we knew better than the Framers of the Constitution, and came to believe their protections were outdated.  There is an explanation for why we abandoned our commitment to smaller government and began to spend money hand over fist.  And there is a reason why we thought nothing of pushing wide cross-sections of the American people out of our party.  We are guilty of hubris.  So confident were Rove and Tom Delay of their success in building a lasting Republican machine that they spoke not so quietly of a "permanent majority."  And the voters, having observed that we had forgotten who was really in charge, reminded us last November.  

And who can blame them?  

All is not lost, my fellow Republicans.  Although we lost our way, over the past decade, the right path is still there for us to reclaim.  It is not taken by our Democratic counterparts, who still insist as they have for the better part of a century that the answers to our nations problems lies in ever-larger, ever-more intrusive, ever-more expensive government.  Every day that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and those who form the new Democratic majority in Washington advocate a new program instead of addressing our mistakes, they frustrate the very voters who placed them in power.  Emboldened by our failure, they push spending to unimagined heights and leave our messy table untouched.  Our mistakes are there for us to fix.  We're still at war.  The deficit continues to grow.  Our freedoms remain at greater risk than ever.  There are still vast sections of the American people waiting to hear us resume our message of liberty and responsibility.  The abandoned trail to electoral success is there, where we left it, at the signpost of our principles.  

We must retrace our steps.  That means acknowledging our errors, as I have done in this letter.  It means apologizing to the American people on behalf of our party leadership.  It means we, the grassroots who never lost our Republican principles, moving at last to take our party back from the neoconservatives who led it so far astray over the past decade and sending them back across the aisle from whence they came.  It means biting back our pride and asking the people for another chance to lead.  And finally, when that time comes, it means keeping our promises.

We have a lot of work to do, and the sooner we begin the better.

Sincerely,

Keith Murphy
Manchester NH