Opinion
Gingrich Chooses Power over Principle
By Richard Bishirjian, Ph.D.
Nov 13, 2009, 16:57

"...[I]t’s equally clear that you can’t be a right-wing party and govern the country."--Newt Gingrich quoted by Jonathan Martin, Politico, November 12, 2009

Dr. Newt Gingrich (Ph.D. History) should know better by now not to use “right-wing” as an adjective to describe the GOP.  The GOP is not “right-wing,” but rather a conservative political party.

Members of that party responded to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract for America” that was not “right-wing,” but an expression of the conservative philosophy of limited government shared by most Republicans and many Independents.

Unfortunately, had Newt Gingrich adhered to political principle he might not have been ousted from his Speakership by conservatives in Congress who felt that Newt was off-message and no longer exhibiting the attitudes of a conservative nor representative of conservatives who made up the Republican majority that took control of the House in 1994.

Newt is now and was then a Republican first and a conservative when it benefited him. So it is in keeping with Newt’s opportunism to criticize conservatives who supported the Conservative Party nominee, Doug Hoffman, in New York’s 23^rd Congressional District while Newt supported the “left-wing” Republican Dede Scozzafava.  Newt himself is a left-wing Republican with skills and abilities lost to the Republican Party when he abandoned principle in favor of electoral success.

That, of course, is what bothers Newt—the abandonment of a real shot at obtaining power at the cost of mere principle.  In Colorado Republicans like Newt—who are not conservatives—have ganged up on Colorado’s conservative state Senator and Minority Leader Josh Penry.  This 30-something political conservative is not raising as much money as “moderate” Republican and former Congressman Scott McInnes and has dropped out of the race.  The arguments made to get him out of the race are that a primary is bad for McInnes who is the only Republican in the race who can raise enough money to defeat incumbent Governor Bill Ritter.

That may be true, but will the Colorado state GOP be better off with McInnes as Governor if he follows the same disastrous policies of former Colorado Governor Bill Owens?  And frankly would the national GOP be better off if Sen. John McCain had been elected President and then engaged in a wholesale abandonment of Republican Party principles?

The answers to those questions are as important as is the well- justified fear of Newt Gingrich and others who fear a growing polarization of American politics.  That's another issue.

A long time ago, before the 1960s. conservative Democrats leavened the policies of Democratic Administrations and state politics.  Today all the conservatives except for a handful of pigs at the federal trough who call themselves Blue Dog Democrats are gone from the Democratic Party. 

And all the liberals are gone from the GOP--except for Olympia Snow, Lamar Alexander and the Bush toadies who took the GOP down to defeat in 2008. 

Despite anything that Newt Gingrich might say or think, until the numbers of Republicans in Congress are filled up by new Congressmen and Senators who truly believe in limited government, the GOP won’t have an opportunity to govern the nation.