Newt to GOP: 'Shrug...off' conservative purists

Via Politico:

Newt to GOP: 'Shrug...off' conservative purists

Asked Sunday how the Republican Party should deal with conservatives who advocate "ideological purity," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had simple advice: "You shrug them off."
"Reagan shrugged them off," Gingrich told host Harry Smith on CBS's "Face the Nation," noting that the former president was regularly criticized for his "deviance from the conservative purity."

"My advice is that Colin Powell is a great American, I am proud he is a Republican," Gingrich went on. "And Dick Cheney is a great American. I am proud he is a Republican. I am glad both of them are Republicans.

Shurg off conservative purists? BITE ME, Newt! I am getting beyond sick and tired of the RINO infestation in the Republican party. They think they can grow the party by appealing to a bunch of fickle moderates. Moderates change like the wind. They flock to whomever they perceive as the winner. That is why it takes them forever and a day to make up their minds on a candidate. They are just checking which way the political winds blow, so that they can jump on the winning horse at the last possible minute. There is no retaining people like that.

Never the less, the mental midgets in the leadership of the Republican party expects the base to throw away their principles and beliefs to chase after these fickle and elusive "moderate voters".

The very next time I get a piece of mail with Newt Gingrich's name on it, I am breaking out my red Sharpie and I am going to write in big block letters "SHRUG OFF, NEWT!" and mail it right back to wherever the hell it came from! Maybe then they will get the message. Meanwhile, I will be proudly funding real conservative candidates like Palin, Bachmann and Rubio.

Oh, and another thing, about that Reagan nonsense Gingrich spewed. It was people like Newt, Reagan was talking about in his classic 1975 CPAC speech, Let Them Go Their Way. The speech is almost 35 years old and is even more true today. Why? Because it was built on solid conservative principles not the issue of the day. Here are the killer lines of that speech, they were true then and even more so today.

Americans are hungry to feel once again a sense of mission and greatness.

I don't know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, "We must broaden the base of our party" -- when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people's earnings government can take without their consent.
Let our banner proclaim a genuine tax reform that will begin by simplifying the income tax so that workers can compute their obligation without having to employ legal help.

And let it provide indexing -- adjusting the brackets to the cost of living -- so that an increase in salary merely to keep pace with inflation does not move the taxpayer into a surtax bracket. Failure to provide this means an increase in government's share and would make the worker worse off than he was before he got the raise.

Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people. Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

And we must make it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of "peace at any price."

We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.

Ronald Reagan,
CPAC 1975