Guest Post: Jake Cox on the Primaries

One of the major attributes of the Republican Primary is obviously to find a candidate most suited to electrify the base, win over the independents, and ultimately eliminate Barack Obama as President of the United States. Seems rather difficult though as we move forward considering the random selection of frontrunners through the beginning of the contest as well as with the long drawn out assumption that Romney is our eventual nominee, until the recent party division of Newt V. Mitt. But one question remains, who is our best candidate? A difficult question for any single conservative to answer as one candidate was a "Massachusetts Moderate" and the other a philanderer of family values. (My lack in mentioning the other two goes to show their true importance in this race).

But in a recent blog post by Thomas Crown of The Red State in response to a call by Jennifer Rubin for Newt to remove himself, Crown highlights a new possibility; No more Mitt. In his blog post, he asks for Romney to remove himself from the race and systematically disseminates his entire demeanor in a way that all but depresses any republican supporter. Not only does Crown call for Romney to step down off the platform to make room for a new republican opening, but he all but admits to the base that we are going to lose this race.

"God willing, then. Then we will have someone else, someone more credible, someone — let us be honest — with worse hair, step forth to defeat the amphibian, with the chameleon out of the field. That person will then go on to lose to Barack Obama, but the downticket races will be saved." --- Thomas Crown

This attitude, which has become more and more depressingly common place among the conservative elite will all but destroy the party come November. Though I do approve of more candidates entering the race and providing more opportunities for the party to vet more appropriate candidates, I think the attitude will inherently be our downfall.

The pessimistic attitude is often shared in primaries, but at times is not always so detrimental to any particular ideology. Take 2008 when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton faced off, head-to-head in one of the most politically violent battles in recent history. Though each got bloodied and every political insider was calling for party division, the Democrats came out on top and dominated in the general election. Now why is this?

Simple; party unity. At the end of the day the candidates and the voters realized a common goal of placing one of their own in the White House. Ultimately, that should be the goal of the Republican primary. Yes, it is fun to utterly dismantle and watch as candidates not in your favor fall in to disarray. But we should be able to recognize when our time has come to stand together as an organization and support our nominee. As much as we may dislike him, he is the closest thing to our party values and would do his best to defend our traditional ideals.

As for Mr. Crown's assessment that Romney should step down and allow another Republican candidate to assume the thrown, I feel is a bit irrational. He insists on blaming Romney for what will happen to our party should Newt receive the nod. But again, this pessimistic attitude will plague our voters and discourage positive political and ideological discourse. Like I said, I support another candidate entering the race if he/she considers themselves a serious contender, but requesting the removal of a candidate who has won over independent support, built roughly a 30-35% base amongst voting members and has competed successfully in New Hampshire will only alienate support and prove to the moderate electorate that we really are an ideologically driven party of "No".

My solution, if I were to be placed in charge, would be to encourage dirt digging by the candidates, but in a manner that wouldn't disrupt the positive flow of dialogue and political discourse. What we want in our primary is to vet those who are both emotionally and ideologically driven in a manner that may harm us, not benefit us. Romney or Newt I think serve as excellent candidates for the party as of the moment, though I must admit I didn't support either of them until just recently. Barack Obama will concentrate on our weakest link. If we can figure that out now, we have more than enough time to reverse that track and indulge in a positive conversation of how to resolve and polish it for the American public.

In the end, we must accept the blood spilled in the name of conservatism. But the real question lies with the base, can you support someone you fought against to defeat someone you hate?