Conservatives Lost More Than An Election

By Chuck Baldwin
November 7, 2008


That Barack Obama trounced John McCain last Tuesday should have surprised no
one. In fact, in this column, weeks ago, I stated emphatically that John McCain
could no more beat Barack Obama than Bob Dole could beat Bill Clinton. He
didn't. (Hence a vote for John McCain was a "wasted" vote, was it
not?) I also predicted that Obama would win with an electoral landslide. He did.
The real story, however, is not how Barack Obama defeated John McCain. The real
story is how John McCain defeated America's conservatives.
For all intents and purposes, conservatism--as a national movement--is
completely and thoroughly dead. Barack Obama did not destroy it, however. It was
George W. Bush and John McCain who destroyed conservatism in America.

Soon after G.W. Bush was elected, it quickly became obvious he was no
conservative. On the contrary, George Bush has forever established himself as a
Big-Government, warmongering, internationalist neocon. Making matters worse was
the way Bush presented himself as a conservative Christian. In fact, Bush's
portrayal of himself as a conservative Christian paved the way for the betrayal
and ultimate destruction of conservatism (something I also predicted years ago).
And the greatest tragedy of this deception is the way that Christian
conservatives so thoroughly (and stupidly) swallowed the whole Bush/McCain
neocon agenda.

For example, Bush and his fellow neocons like to categorize and promote
themselves as being "pro-life," but they have no hesitation or
reservation about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in reckless
and unconstitutional foreign wars. By the same token, how many unborn babies
were saved by six years of all three branches of the federal government being
under the control of these "pro-life" neocons? Not one! Ask the more
than eight million unborn babies who were killed in their mothers' wombs
during the last eight years how "pro-life" George W. Bush and John
McCain are.

As a result of this insanely inconsistent and pixilated punditry, millions of
Americans now laugh at the very notion of "pro-life" conservatism.
Bush and McCain have made a mockery of the very term.

Consider, too, the way Bush and McCain have allowed the international bankers
on Wall Street to bilk America's taxpayers out of trillions of dollars. Yes,
I know Obama also supported the Wall Street bailout, but it was the Republican
Party that controlled the White House for the last eight years and the entire
federal government for six out of the last eight years. In fact, the GOP has won
seven out of the previous ten Presidential elections. They have controlled
Supreme Court appointments for the past thirty-plus years. They have appointed
the majority of Treasury secretaries and Federal Reserve chairmen. They have
presided over the greatest trade imbalances, the biggest deficits, the biggest
spending increases, and now the worst financial disaster since the Great
Depression.

Again, the American people look at these so-called "conservatives"
and laugh. No wonder such a sizeable majority of voters yawned when John McCain
tried to scare them by accusing Barack Obama of being a "big taxer."
How can one possibly scare people with a charge like that after the GOP has made
a total mockery of fiscal conservatism? That's like trying to scare someone
coming out from a swim in the Gulf of Mexico with a squirt gun.

Then there was the pathetic attempt by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to
scare gun owners regarding an Obama White House. Remember that John McCain is
the same guy that the NRA rightly condemned for proposing his blatantly
unconstitutional McCain/Feingold bill. McCain is also the same guy that tried to
close down gun shows. He even made a personal campaign appearance for a pro-gun
control liberal in the State of Oregon a few short years ago. In fact, the Gun
Owners of America (GOA) gave McCain a grade of "F" for his dismal
record on Second Amendment issues. Once again, Chicken Little-style paranoia
over Barack Obama rang hollow when the alternative was someone as liberal as
John McCain.

But the worst calamity of this election was the way conservatives--especially
Christian conservatives--surrendered their principles for the sake of political
partisanship. The James Dobsons of this country should hang their heads in
shame! Not only did they lose an election, they lost their integrity!

In South Carolina, for example, pro-life Christians and conservatives had an
opportunity to vote for a principled conservative-constitutionalist for the U.S.
Senate. He is pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and pro-traditional marriage. He
believes in securing our borders against illegal immigration. He is against the
bailout for the Wall Street banksters. His conservative credentials are
unassailable. But the vast majority of Christian conservatives (including those
at Bob Jones University) voted for his liberal opponent instead.

The man that the vast majority of Christian conservatives voted for in South
Carolina is a Big-Government neocon. He supported the bailout of the Wall Street
banksters. He is a rabid supporter of granting amnesty and a pathway to
citizenship for illegal aliens. In fact, this man has a conservative rating of
only 29% in the current Freedom Index of the New American Magazine.

Why did Christian conservatives support the liberal neocon and not the solid
pro-life conservative? Because the conservative ran as a Democrat and the neocon
is a Republican. I'm talking about the race between Bob Conley and Lindsey
Graham, of course.

Had South Carolina's pastors, Christians, evangelicals, and pro-life
conservatives voted for Bob Conley, he would be the new senator-elect from that
state. In fact, Bob was so conservative that the Democratic leadership in South
Carolina endorsed the Republican, Lindsey Graham! No matter. A majority of
evangelical Christians in South Carolina stupidly rejected Bob Conley and voted
for Graham.

Across the country, rather than stand on principle, hundreds of thousands of
pastors, Christians, and pro-life conservatives capitulated and groveled before
John McCain's neocon agenda. In doing so, they forfeited any claim to truth,
and they abandoned any and all fidelity to constitutional government. They
should rip the stories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of their
Bibles. They should never again tell their children, parishioners, and radio
audiences the importance of standing for truth and principle. They have made a
mockery of Christian virtue. No wonder a majority of the voting electorate
laughs at us Christians. No wonder the GOP crashed and burned last Tuesday.

Again, it wasn't Barack Obama who destroyed conservatism; it was George W.
Bush, John McCain, and the millions of evangelical Christians who supported
them. And until conservatives find their backbone and their convictions, they
deserve to remain a burnt-out, has-been political force. They have no one to
blame but themselves.

And since it is unlikely that the Republican Party has enough sense to
understand any of this and will, therefore, do little to reestablish genuine
conservative principles, it is probably best to just go ahead and bury the
scoundrels now and move on to something else. Without a sincere commitment to
constitutional government, the GOP has no justifiable reason to ever govern
again. Therefore, put a fork in them. They are done. Let a new entity arise from
the ashes: one that will stand for something more than just "the lesser of
two evils." As we say in the South, That dog just won't hunt anymore.

Chuck Baldwin