“A political party cannot be all things to all people. It cannot compromise its fundamental beliefs for political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers. It is not a social club or fraternity engaged in intramural contests to accumulate trophies on the mantel over the fireplace…No one can quarrel with the idea that a political party hopes it can attract a wide following, but does it do this by forsaking its basic beliefs? By blurring its own image so as to be indistinguishable from the opposition party?”
– Ronald Reagan, 1976.
There’s been a lot of talk in the wake of the defection of Arlen Specter about how Republicans have lost influence because they have been intolerant of moderate Republicans. What’s generally missing is context: Specter wasn’t a moderate Republican, like a John McCain, but a perpetual thorn in the side of the Republican party, voting against his own party on a myriad of issues from property rights to national security. (For example, in the annual American Conservative Union rating, Specter has a miserable 44% lifetime rating to McCain’s 88% lifetime rating.)
What’s in a name? Specter was already voting with Democrats, and would have given them the 60th vote whether an “R”, “D” or “I” was beside his name. The Democrats had that 60th vote the day Norm Coleman’s campaign self-imploded.
Which brings us to our more important point and Reagan’s quote above: Take a page from the Democrat’s playbook. The Democrats expanded their party membership and seized or solidified power in all three branches of government by not moving to the middle. Barack Obama and Democrats in both House and Senate races ran on platforms championed by the hard Left. So how is it that Republicans — we are misguidedly told — will only regain power by embracing those persons like Arlen Specter who are, at best, moderates that vote against their party literally half the time? They won’t.