Principles before GOP politics
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 11/30/2009 7:00:00 AM
The "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates" was drafted by Jim Bopp, vice chairman of the RNC. It requires that GOP candidates prove not only with their campaign speeches, but also with their voting record that they embrace at least eight of ten conservative principles (listed below).
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Results from our related poll
Why wouldn't the RNC ask GOP candidates to embrace all ten conservative principles?
Bopp tells OneNewsNow he has yet to get RNC chairman Michael Steele's opinion on his proposal because the resolution was leaked prematurely by "people who are trying to undermine the effort." He says the resolution is designed to ensure the party puts its money where its mouth is.
"The Republican Party needs to reclaim its conservative bona fides," argues Bopp. "The problem is that we lost our way on fiscal conservative policies at the end of the Bush administration with expanding government and increasing debt, and then support of bailouts. So we need to show that we are serious about governing as conservatives."
Bopp says the Republican Party's message is compromised when the party supports liberal Republican candidates like DeDe Scozzafava in the 23rd Congressional District of New York.
The ten conservative principles, as distributed by the RNC, are as follows:
(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill.
(2) We support market-based healthcare reform and oppose Obama-style government-run healthcare.
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap-and-trade legislation.
(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check.
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing healthcare rationing and denial of healthcare and government funding of abortion.
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.
