A parade of Washington, D.C. and
state politicians came to speak before a throng of mostly 20-something
conservatives at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)
this past week. Many of those who think they are going to run for president
spoke, with personalities ranging from Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina to Rand
Paul, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal.
One senator who has been at the
vanguard of the illegal immigration fight however, was strangely missing from
the official program — Jeff Sessions from Alabama.
In a
not-authorized-by-those-who-run-CPAC speech that Breitbart.com hosted, Senator
Sessions laid out the case for a new Republican Party, a party of the people rather than the big corporate
interests that use their financial power to choose nominees. Cigar smoke-filled
backroom deals are no longer de rigueur of the ruling class, but in
today’s modern world of communications that image is passé.
The Washington Times shed light on the modern manipulation of the political
process by men of money in an article titled, “GOP
must embrace pro-immigration policy, big donors say,” quoting Mitt Romney’s 2012 finance director Spencer Zwick
as saying, “If someone wants to be taken seriously running for president, in my
opinion, they need to be in a similar place.”
Sessions responded forcefully to the
donor community’s push for Republican candidates for president to toe their
amnesty line saying, “Contributions and supporters are always important in
presidential elections and other elections too, but votes trump money.”
Continuing in his presentation,
Sessions answered Zwick’s statement with basic truths that the American
worker’s wages have declined, workforce participation has shrunk and that the
U.S. Congress owes its allegiance to the American people, not corporate
interests. He went on to argue that a Republican candidate for President who
supported the big donor immigration policies would find him or herself on the
wrong side of Americans who work for a wage or a salary on a core personal
pocketbook issue.
“The American people are pleading
for their country to do something about their problems for a changes, wages are
down, we’re down nearly $4,000 in median income since 2007. This is a
catastrophe. Middle class Americans have had a $4,000 decline in their wages.
This needs to be the party for the working American.”
In
a 2013 memo to his fellow Senators
urging opposition to flooding the legal workforce with millions of new workers,
the senator from Alabama argues that Republicans will win elections if they can
appeal to “working Americans of all backgrounds,” pointing out that,
“Low-income Americans will be hardest hit.”
Sessions’ message of conservative
populism, putting the needs and concerns of the people who have become
increasingly alienated from their own government, must be heeded.
This does not mean that Republicans
should step away from pushing for lower taxes and limited government, but to
the contrary, they should make the forceful case that the bigger the
government, the more it becomes the tool of those wealthy enough to manipulate
it to their own ends.
In 2014, America’s voters rose up
and gave the Republican Party a mandate to stand up to President Obama and stop
him from finishing his fundamental transformation of America. Voters made it
clear that they wanted Republicans to stop Obama’s executive amnesty. They made
it clear that they rejected Big Government health care. They made it clear that
they were trusting Republicans to challenge Obama’s Big Government schemes and
stop them.
If Republicans follow the pathway
that Senator Sessions is laying out, those voters will not be disappointed.
However, if they continue to capitulate to the rejected Harry Reid, a historic
opportunity to recast the Republican Party as the party of the people will be
lost.
It might not be the message that
Spencer Zwick wants to hear, but it is certainly the one that the American
people will applaud. With Congress near an all-time low approval rating, that
would be a sound that they haven’t heard in quite a while.
Rick Manning is President of
Americans for Limited Government.
http://netrightdaily.com/2015/03/struggle-soul-republican-party/
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