SALT LAKE CITY, January 25, 2012—To the disappointment of many true conservatives, the Republican nomination contest is down to three RINOs.
In fact, there was never a non-RINO in the race.
Of the top ten candidates at any particular time, every single one of them has been labeled "a Republican In Name Only" for utter deficiencies of political character. Kind of makes one wonder whether any member of the party can dissociate himself from the pejorative.
Because pejorative it is. The term RINO first appeared in the 1990s when many on the Right saw their party moving toward the center. Some RINO legends might well deserve the moniker: George Bush gave us a tax increase after promising not to.
Just as the Left has rendered the label "racist" meaningless, RINO means nothing because it means everything.
Romney, of course, is a RINO because he had the audacity to run for office in a deep blue state and actually try to get elected. Because, in 1994, having realized that nobody could get near elected office in Massachusetts who ran on a platform of ending lawful abortion, he declared that he would not seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, he is insufficiently Republican. Lest one forget, the original planks of the party in 1856 included strong anti-abortion language. There are no true Republicans north of the Mason-Dixon line or west of the Sierras.
Being realistic makes one a RINO.
Newt Gingrich is a RINO because he once sat next to a Democrat on a lovely piece of furniture, an ottoman or something like that. Because he believes that that government can and should do certain things that it has been doing for 70 years, like regulate banks, the man is a pure-bred RINO. He totally ignored, for several years, the clause in the official Republican Party Redbook about never advocating government action, even if large majorities of the American people favored it.
Being political makes one a RINO.
Rick Santorum is a huge RINO because he was in the Senate when George W. Bush was president. Bush lost in a landslide 2008, even though he wasn't running for re-election, and even though Santorum wasn't in the Senate anymore. Senator Santorum, when he was in office, voted for No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D, the worst pieces of RINO legislation ever. As all true Republicans know, the party is 100% in favor of leaving children behind to gather up discarded prescription drugs to give to their grandparents so that the federal government won't have to pay for them.
Santorum, to his credit, tried to make up for it by supporting Arlen Specter in 2004 over his primary rival, Pat Toomey. But that was the worst thing he could have ever done. After all, Specter was guaranteed to win while Toomey, though much more conservative, was a riskier proposition in 2004. Winning is selling out.
And being loyal makes one a RINO.
Ron Paul is hard to label a RINO because he's never really claimed to be a Republican anyway.
So it is down to three men for the Republican nomination, RINOs all. They each try to convince us that they are real conservatives. But we are too smart for them. No matter how many times they invoke Ronald Reagan, they won't trick us into voting for any of them.
We know that Reagan was the biggest RINO of all, having signed legislation sent to his desk by a Democrat Congress. He probably even negotiated with them in good faith at times.
We'll not vote for any of them if that's what it takes to show the establishment. No RINOs allowed!
Even if Barack Obama wins a second term, we can sleep peacefully at night, under the pall of massive debt, the shadow of a government that barely resembles its constitutional outline, and the despair in the knowledge that we might have a generation left before collapse, knowing we didn't join the RINO herd.
Only then will we be free from RINO oppression!
Or, perhaps Republicans, and even conservatives, will realize that politics is always messy, full of compromise and complexity, and that there has never been anything close to a perfect conservative.
Learn more about the author at Rich-Stowell.com
Rich is a teacher and a soldier. In addition to writing the "Rich Like Me" political column at the Washington Times Communities, he is the author of Nine Weeks: A Teacher’s Education in Army Basic Training; Tunnel Club; and Not Another Boring Textbook: A High School Students’ Guide to their Inner Conservative, which you can follow on Facebook.
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