My very first political campaign was the 1980 presidential election. I distributed flyers for Reagan. I was six and I used my little red wagon. I grew up in a socially conservative house. My mom has been the director of a crisis pregnancy center since I was ten.
My first election that I voted in was the ’92 presidential election. My friends and I shot the television with suction darts as we watched the returns come in. I was (for a brief moment in time) a College Republican. Perhaps this was an anomaly at my school, but my CR group consisted of a bunch of really stupid boys. There is only so much young male humor and hubris a girl can take before running screaming from the meeting room. I spent the rest of my political career in college focused on pro-life issues. I interned and later worked for I national pro-life organization.
I was the epitome of a single issue, conservative Christian voter. Was.
I realized there were many pro-life politicians with whom I completely agreed with on life issues, but not on other issues. Sometimes not on any other issue.
I am still very, very pro-life. Probably philosophically even more pro-life than I was when I started this journey. But I no longer describe myself as a single issue voter. In fact, I don’t vote primarily on social issues at all. Sort of.
I will not now nor probably ever vote for someone who advocates killing the unborn, elderly or disabled. If their stated philosophy is identical to mine, yet they support abortion and euthanasia, they don’t even get consideration.
But I’m not a single-issue voter. I may be a single issue starter or a single issue filterer, but candidates have got to have more going on than being pro-life.
I am becoming more and more interested in the political philosophy of the candidate over the particular issues. This isn’t to say that I am not interested in the issues a candidate promotes or opposes, but I am also interested in why he or she does so. The issues that seem vital today may be irrelevant or at least further down the “what’s important” list next month. For example, all those things that were crucial in the 2000 election were pushed to the back after 9/11. A list of a politicians positions 12 issues wasn’t a good indication of how a politician would react to the challenges presented to our nation.
To me,the more important questions on national security are not “Do you support the war in Iraq? Do you support the war in Afghanistan?,” but rather “What is our role in the world community? How do we relate to other nations and what roles to diplomacy and military take?” And so on. Not just how do you react to the problems at hand, but how will you answer tomorrow’s challenges and what is your reasoning .
I’m also more wary of political pandering than I was in years past.
For example, Mitt Romney is now pro-life. This is a rather recent development. Why?
Al Gore
Jesse Jackson
Bill Clinton
All these men once proclaimed to be pro-life. (There are others, but these three came to mind most quickly.)
Shocking isn’t it. Why did they become abortion supporters? Was it a thoughtful analysis of the issue? Or was is that they wanted to move up in politics and no Democrat is going to get national support without the support of the abortion lobby?
This history makes me uneasy with Romney’s pro-life views. His pro-abortion views served him as a politician in Massachusetts. Now he wants to move up to the national level and he knows no pro-abortion candidate will get very far in the Republican party nationwide. (See Giuliani, Rudy. How’s that working for you Mr. Freedom is Authority?)
I’m not saying Romney’s change of opinion is necessarily insincere, just suspect. Why did he change?
I can’t just vote for the guy (or gal) I’d like to have a beer with, i.e. It’s been described as producing the benefits of Propecia (long term maintenance) generic levitra vardenafil and it doesn’t involve the negative effects last in excess of ten hours, the person ought to seek out help. There are plenty of people who can notmanage to fill prescriptions because of the rising prices. tadalafil cheap Precautions : Kamagra is an anti-impotence pills must levitra tablets be taken with the normal water. Avoid products that are made from farm raised salmon or other cultivated sources, as they might contain potentially carcinogenic contaminants, like PCBs, or residual amounts of antibiotics and growth hormones that are used to farm cialis india the fish. have something significant in common with. Neither being a Christian, woman, Texan, or excessively snarky ensures my vote.
How about Huckabee? He’s a PASTOR, for pity’s sake. Surely I can trust him? The more I learn about his political philosophy, the more I wonder if I could vote for him in the general election, much less the primary. Spunky has done an excellent job of demonstrating why Huckabee isn’t good news for homeschoolers, despite what HSLDA may say. She’s also pointed out some other troubling aspects of Huckabee’s positions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’s a nice guy and a fine Christian, but his nanny state politics scare the poop out of me. Honestly, I’m more afraid of a nanny-state Republican (in power) than a nanny-state Democrat (in power.) Because you know Dems will go along with many of those “for your own good” policies, and a Republican can bring enough fellow Republicans along to pass more meddling laws. (See No Child Left Behind.)
In fact, Huckabee’s political philosophy is more disturbing than Romney’s, because Huckabee seems to truly believe government can and should be involved in he minutia of our daily lives. Romney seems like just another politician, conservatish, who will probably not piss off the base too much. (No, I’m not for Romney, he just isn’t as offensive to me philosophically as Huckabee. Because he doesn’t appear to have a philosophy to offend.)
I’m libertarian-ish. I believe that government should have as small a footprint as possible in individual lives. However, I’m not a “turn the clock back to 1792” type of gal. So, as much as I admire Ron Paul for his principle, I don’t agree with him philosophically. I do think the U.S. needs to have a presence outside our borders. I do think that we need more than the few cabinet positions listed in the Constitution. We have to engage ad reform our current government, not try to do away with it. Is that more pragmatic than philosophical? Well, part of my philosophy is to live in the real world. (I’m talking to you, Truthers!) But I do think Ron Paul does great job in the U.S. House of Representatives as “Dr. No.” He reminds us (and hopefully our Congressional Representatives) of our excesses and perhaps encourages us to rein them in. Well, a girl can hope.
So where does that leave me. I was a pretty solidly socially conservative Republican voter. Now I am philosophically conservative. I will probably vote Republican. Well, assuming Giuliani’s fairy godmother doesn’t deliver the nomination in a pumpkin. Also, I’d have to think long and hard about McCain. I’m rather fond of my first amendment rights. I do love his snark, though. But I would like to vote for someone who is thoughtful and thoroughly conservative. And also can win. Where’s that fairy godmother?
