Will the Republican Party Get Whigged Out?

Show of hands, how many of you are registered to vote as a Whig? You know, with the Whig Party. Okay, so I can't really see if you're raising your hand, but I'll bet none of you are. And that's my point. The Whig Party became extinct in the mid-1800's when they stopped standing for something, when they began putting party-power above party-principles.

As ending slavery escalated to a hot-button issue, politicians tried to straddle the fence. Whig Senator Daniel Webster said that while he personally opposed the issue of slavery, he was not going to force his morality on others. Leaders in both the Democratic and Whig Parties followed suit. Whig-defector Abraham Lincoln saw opportunity.

Abraham Lincoln approached the "fringe" third parties with a bold idea. Let's join forces. Combine efforts. Create a unified platform grounded in the values to which these fringe groups were committed. He mobilized groups such as the Free Soil Party and the Free Labor Party to form a coalition of people who were more committed to a set of principles than they were a political party. And the Republican Party was born.

And, well, you can guess the rest of the story. The Whigs never won an election after that. The Republican Party emerged as an unstoppable force championing the principles of freedom and limited government on which this nation was founded.

Until now that is ...

It seems the modern Republicans' "Big Tent" has gotten so crowded that the tent stakes popped up and the whole thing is about to collapse. It's often hard to distinguish some Republican voting records from the liberal Democrats'. But the collapse can be prevented if Republican leadership is willing to see the writing on the wall, willing to acknowledge that our true strength lies in candidates who are authentic Reagan Republicans ... eager to fight the suffocating swell of government expansion, eager to fight for a strong national defense, to reign in runaway spending that is bankrupting our nation ... eager to protect these policies that protect the preciousness of human life. After all, that is why freedom is so important.

The outcome of election day 2009 could not have made this message any more clear. Republican candidates who boldly stand for conservative principles won huge, even in the Democratic strongholds. And yet, liberal spin doctors are trying to paint a different picture, especially when it comes to the NY-23rd.

NY-23 is the district in which the Republican leaders backed a liberal Republican, also referred to as a RINO (Republican in Name Only.) In the true spirit of grassroots activism, voters rallied behind a conservative Republican who then ran on an independent ticket. As all three candidates remained neck and neck, the RINO jumped ship and backed the Democrat. Some spin doctors are trying to say that the Conservative was the spoiler in this race.

Huh? Did they not see the same results that I did?

The fact is that Republicans received the majority of the vote in NY-23. The RINO remained on the ballot and took 6% of the vote. The Conservative won 45% and the Democrat won 49%. Last time I checked, 6 plus 45 equals 51 ... the majority. The majority of the voters in NY-23 voted Republican. Had the RINO endorsed the Conservative, I believe the outcome would have been different.

So who's the spoiler now? And what message does that send?

Please allow me to quote a Delaware Tea Party Leader to answer that second question. "Republican Party, you've been put on notice! Have some guts and remember your roots or go the way of the Whigs."

I couldn't have said it better myself. -###-

Christine O'Donnell is a US Senate Candidate in a 2010 Delaware primary race against a RINO.

YEXT CREDIT: Christine O'Donnell for U.S. Senate • PO Box 3987 • Wilmington, DE 19807 • (302) 468-7010

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