A few years ago, I posted an essay here about specific problems that arise when the highest elected officials of a political party abandon their espoused principles. Specifically, I called the current President a Bad Republican as well as a bad President.

I also acknowledged that, by saying as much, I was being a bad Republican, myself.

If you want to know why I consider the younger President Bush to be a bad Republican, check out the link above to that essay. The list, unfortunately, is too long to repeat here. As for why posting it made me a bad Republican, it all comes down to Ronald Reagan's so-called "11th Commandment": a Republican shall not speak ill of another Republican who is running for office.*

But a better explanation is found in Robert A. Heinlein's little treatise, Take Back Your Government. As I mentioned in my previous essay:

I'd never heard a compelling argument for voting for the party as opposed to the person until I'd read this book. Heinlein's point is simple: your party's choice of candidates represents a compromise. You and your fellow local party members agree on many things, but not everything, and it's your points of agreement that form the foundation of choosing one candidate over another. This means that you will occasionally choose candidates with whom you agree less than other candidates, but that's the nature of the game. Once you get to the general election, you are in a very real sense obligated to vote for your party's candidate, if only because he or she represents the best compromise that you and your like-minded fellows could arrive at -- even if he or she wasn't *your* first choice. To not follow through and vote for your candidate is to renege on your agreement with your fellow party members. It weakens your party, and the very structure of the political system within which you are working.

But if I'm a bad Republican, then the neo-conservatives who have hijacked my party are substantially worse. In an Associated Press story attributed to Liz Sidoti (and repeated, for the time being, at Yahoo News), a "prominent Christian leader said Thursday that 'my conscience and my moral convictions' prevent him from voting for Rudy Giuliani should he win the Republican nomination."

The "prominent Christian leader" in question is James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family, and his big beef with Giuliani is that the former New York City mayor does not believe that Roe v. Wade should be overturned by the US Supreme Court.

Dobson has a conservative radio show that, according to the AP article, enjoys a listenership number around seven million people. If I'm a bad Republican for voicing my discontent to tens of people, then Dobson is an outright traitor to his party. He is not just saying that the Republicans should nominate a candidate other than Giuliani (which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do during the nomination phase of the election); he is telling his listenership that it would be better to allow a Democrat to win than to support a Republican who differs with the Religious Right on this particular issue. He is not just advising a handful of readers; he is appealing to millions of his followers.

These are the very tactics that have allowed the neo-conservatives to hijack our party. They are dedicated, organized, and tenacious. They can get out the vote when they want to. And by golly, you'd better kiss their ideological ass if you want them to want to help you. McCain didn't kiss their ass in 2000, and they exerted their influence hard and fast to get his strongest opponent onto the top of the ticket. And if the rest of the Republican party doesn't kiss their collective ass this time around by selecting a candidate who drinks their particular brand of Kool-Aid(tm), then by golly, they'll abandon the Republican Party until it comes around and remembers what to kiss, and when.

Don't get me wrong: I don't know that Giuliani is the best this party can do. Truth be told, I have yet to see a candidate for either party who really appeals to me. (McCain, my candidate of choice in 2000, is grimacing a lot these days as he puckers up for the neo-conservatives.) But to preemptively announce that you'll abandon your party (and, by strong implication, take your millions of listeners with you) if the party doesn't follow your dictates on a particular issue, well, that's hardly bargaining in good faith now, is it?

Here is what Dobson is saying to me and all of the other Republicans:

"Selecting a candidate means compromise. No candidate will ever completely satisfy any one of us. If, by means of caucuses and primaries, we select a candidate that you agree with on some issues and not others, well... you should still vote for them, because that's the compromise we reached. But if you select a candidate of whom I don't approve, well, then fuck you, buddy, you'll just have to go along without any help from me."

The Republicans are not the only party to have ideologues on the tail trying to wag the whole dog (or, in this case, elephant). The Libertarian Party has been completely bereft of any hopes of ever having any kind of real representation in the government because the "big L" libertarians refuse to compromise with any "little L" libertarians who acknowledge that dismantling the entire government might be impractical. And as for the Democrats, they've got the self-styled "Progressives" whipping their party apart in exactly the same way as the neo-conservatives are with the Republicans.

Here is my question for Dr. Dobson: if you are not duty-bound to actively support, in good faith, the candidate chosen by your party, then why should I, as an active member of that same party, bargain in good faith with you to select a candidate at all?

* I am given to understand that either the RNC or my state branch of the Republican Party has decided that the so-called "11th Commandment" is no longer in force. If, indeed, it has been repealed, then perhaps I'm not a bad Republican after all. Unless, that is, you still subscribe to Heinlein's philosophy as I outlined it above.