I've written before about our fine third-party write-in alternative, Randy Stufflebeam.
But many who call themselves our friends and sympathizers have been trying to get us to overlook Topinka's contempt for conservatives by warning us that without the support of social conservatives -- that's us pro-life, pro-family, God-fearing people -- Blagojevich will be re-elected, and don't we all just know how unthinkable that is?
I offer the proposition that, for pro-life, pro-family voters, the re-election of Gov. Blagojevich would be preferable to the election of Ms. Topinka.If you long for an end to abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research, and state funding for them too...
If you hope against hope that Illinois doesn't become the midwest capital for homosexual "marriage"...
If you fear that the triumph of social liberalism will threaten your right to express your conservative, morally-correct views, or teach those views to your children, and will even threaten your religious freedom...
... then the Republican nominee for Illinois governor in 2006 is not in your corner. Indeed, her oft-stated contempt for people like you, and the contempt of those with whom she surrounds herself for people like you, is a matter of well-documented record.
You don't have to pay attention to Illinois Republican politics for long to realize that the party is dominated by people who, it appears, really don't care about life and family issues, consider them unwinnable politically, and are annoyed by us "moral values", pro-life, pro-family, religious voters and the necessity to appeal to us as part of their base.
Every time a pro-life candidate loses any race, no matter the circumstances, they remind us that pro-life candidates can't win in Illinois. Winning pro-life candidates to any office are never accepted as evidence to the contrary.
Therefore, for the good of the party, Judy Baar Topinka must not be Governor.
The election of Judy Baar Topinka, with her pro-abortion, pro-gay "rights", pro-embryo-destroying-research, anti-life, anti-family, anti-conservative platform and worldview, would serve to force virtually every issue relating to life, family and moral values off the table, adopting the Democrat position on all these issues. These issues would become forbidden topics in Republican circles in Illinois for at least the next decade, certainly through the election of 2010, and probably longer. The Illinois GOP will have officially stopped being a pro-life party.
Notice that I say it's for the good of the party, not just for the good of our political goals, that Topinka must not be elected. "Why is that?", I hear you ask.
I could just glibly assert that the good of the pro-life movement is the good of the party, but you might not buy that. So let's try this:
Imagine for a moment a Governor Topinka. She provides no leadership on pro-life issues. She vocally discourages pro-life legislation, possibly even threatening vetoes of it. She exerts her tremendous influence as governor to keep pro-life legislation from coming to her desk. She'll be in office for four years, and is virtually assured of being renominated in 2010, when she may very well be re-elected. After 8 years of tilting the party to the left on social issues, what amount of pro-life energy would be left in the state GOP?
If you're pro-life, and the Republican Party of your state is not, would you remain a Republican? Or would you turn to truly pro-life parties such as the Illinois Constitution Party, or others that would no doubt form?
I'm a lifelong Republican, but I don't support pro-abortion candidates. There's no benefit for me or my political goals. Pro-abortion Republicans do too little to help pro-life causes when they come up.
"But wait!" you cry. "There are pro-life Democrats, and the Democrats aren't a pro-life party!" Nominally true, but are there really? If they vote for Democrat candidates (like Blagojevich, or Obama, or Kerry, or Gore), then in what sense are they pro-life? And if they vote for pro-life candidates (such as Brady, Bush or Keyes), then how is it that they say they're Democrats?
Just the same, if you say you're pro-life, and you vote for Topinka, then in what sense are you pro-life?
But what if the election of Topinka results in an exodus of social conservatives from the Illinois GOP? Whether we just stay home and forget about politics or get active in third party efforts, the result would be the same. The Republican Party would be instantly relegated to minority status.
And that would be bad.
The unhappy choice we're left with is, do we support the Republican nominee, who will force a large, vocal and energetic bloc of voters out of the party? Or do we vote our consciences, at the risk of Blagojevich's re-election?
At least with Blagojevich as governor, it'll be a Democrat doing his best to quash pro-life initiatives. And not one of our own.
(Of course, by this analysis, it would be to the long-term advantage of the Democrats to support Topinka for governor over their own nominee. Fortunately, no Democrat will read so far into a pro-life opinion piece as this.)
Furthermore, if we don't make a stand today in Illinois, the national party, faced with the candidacies of media darlings like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, will be confronted with the same choices in 2008.
So what do we do?
This is a time for tough love. The Illinois Republican Party needs an intervention. We pro-life, pro-family voters can't be the enablers of the Topinkas of our party. It's time to regretfully write in Stufflebeam for Governor, and send the message that the GOP will win as a pro-life party, or not at all.
And if enough of us do that, we'll even get a pro-life governor. We'd be doing well by doing good.
Just as in a shooting war, we cannot win by surrendering. If we want to end abortion, we cannot vote for any pro-abortion candidates, especially not Republicans.
7 comments:
Right on! Great post, Paul.
Brilliant! You wouldn't want to move to Massachusetts, would you? We need your thinking here...
(sigh)
Well, Lynne, that's the beauty of the internet, Massachusetts is welcome to as much of my thinking it can stand.
But no, I wouldn't want to move, thanks all the same.
Nice blog you got there, btw. Welcome to my blogroll!
Thanks! You're on mine, too...
I know I'm really, really late responding to this post, but I just found your blog, which I think is really great. I stumbled across this post while looking at your "Posts to Remember" section. I do agree that Bill Brady would be a great governor.
My question is: knowing what you know now, and seeing the absolute fiscal destruction that Blago seems determined to wreak upon this state (not to mention cramming stem cell funding down our throats and persecuting pro-life pharmacists) would you still have urged pro-lifers not to vote for Topinka?
I was never a fan of hers, but at the time she seemed to be the lesser of two evils in every way. If I recall correctly, Planned Parenthood endorsed Blago because they didn't consider JBT pro-choice enough! She actually agreed with parental notification, for one thing. What does that tell you?
I work for a state agency (not executive) and know firsthand that Blago's blatant disregard for law and procedure, not to mention the way he exploits people for his own political gain, is amazing. Even the most devout Democrats I know cannot wait for him to be gone.
I am Catholic and very pro-life and do plan to vote for McCain/Palin, but two years ago, I voted for Topinka and I would do it again. Blago has been a total disaster not just for pro-life, but for everyone. He will ruin this state to the point that no one will want to raise their families here.
Don't tell me I 'should have' voted for Stufflebeam or some other third-party guy because you know as well as I do he could not have won. He would only have been a spoiler and given Blago a bigger margin of victory. (Look at Rich Whitney.)
Sorry to go off on this, and I must emphasize that I really like most of your blog, but this is one of the few posts I have found so far that I TOTALLY disagree with. You were basically telling pro-lifers to destroy the Illinois Republican Party in order to "save" it. Think it worked?
Therese -
Welcome to the blog, and thanks for commenting!
I certainly won't try to tell you what you should have done, but I have no regrets about anything I've said or done either.
My point here, and I think it's a valid one, is that the IL GOP is contemptuous of social conservatives, neglectful of life issues, and I have no obligation to vote for its candidates if they won't appeal to me on the issues I consider important.
Also, I'm pretty sure it wasn't my opposition to her that doomed Topinka to defeat.
Did it work? Ask me in two more years (plus a month). I hope you'll still be reading.
You are indeed right about the IL GOP's contempt for social conservatives. I get really discouraged thinking about it.
I will add, though, that the one vote in my life that I really, really wish I could take back was my vote for George Ryan in 1998. I knew Glenn Poshard was pro-life too, but I felt like it was "safer" to stick with the "proven" pro-life party. Well, we all know how that turned out.
I hate to see the pro-life movement chained so tightly to the anchor of the conservative wing of the GOP. Crooked or incompetent Republicans who claim to be pro-life only end up discrediting the cause and making it harder to elect pro-lifers in the future.
That's one reason why I believe in supporting genuinely pro-life Democrats wherever possible (which, granted, isn't often) -- but that's another story. I'd really love to see the pro-life movement span BOTH parties someday.
At the same time, sometimes I wonder if pro-life people like us are at some point going to have a moral obligation to move to a "red" state where our votes will actually make a difference; but then who will be around to try to make things better here? It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it. Anyway, thanks for the response.
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