If a small group of Conservative Christians meeting recently in Salt Lake City has its way, the Republicans can kiss the 2008 elections goodbye. The group, which includes several of the party’s most influential leaders, has been urging Evangelicals in the party to bolt the G.O.P. and form a third party.
If that should happen, it would hand over control of the White House and both houses of Congress in November, 2008, because the Republican Party could not possibly sustain the loss of the Conservative Christian vote. The proposed breakaway is the direct result of the Evangelicals’ opposition to Rudy Giuliani, the party’s front-runner in the presidential race.
Giuliani’s stance in support of abortion rights and gay rights is the principal cause of the third-party talk. When he heard about the uprising in Salt Lake City, Giuliani, according to the Associated Press, “brushed aside talk of a third-party effort” and countered with this statement:
“I’m working on one party right now — the Republican Party.” He refused to elaborate on the issue.
Someone with considerable clout and the highest reputation in the G.O.P. had better take hold of the situation and lecture the Evangelicals on the facts of political life. They could not possibly win any election as a third party, but, even worse, they would be dooming their own Conservative values in insuring a Democratic victory.
All the Conservative group needs to do to realize the damage they may be doing to the Republican Party is to study the history of other third-party efforts of the past century and a half. Without fail, third-party movements, whether of Republican or Democratic origin, have resulted in failure at the polls by the party from which they rebelled.
What these political rebels have failed to understand is the history and importance of the two-party system in America. As the nation progressed from the days the forefathers created the Constitution, it gradually began fashioning its political future — and that future was solidified by the emergence of two major parties.
Until the Great Depression and FDR’s Socialistic New Deal and LBJ’s equally Socialistic Great Society came along, the two political parties, one Republican and the other Democratic, had their differences, but, in essence, both revered the Constitution, the state’s rights philosophy, and the importance of individual freedom and liberty.
The steady buildup of Big Government and Socialistic legislation has added a great danger to our free republic — and, unfortunately, the occasional rebellion from the two-party system and movements to form third parties that actually defy the once-great tradition of “two parties that get along under the Constitution.”
The Evangelicals considering a switch from the Republican Party to a third party had better think twice before engaging in a movement that could cut their own political throats. They need not only a better appreciation of American history but some frank talk from leaders of the Republican Party.
