Senator Jim Demint: "Big Tent" Republican Party Must Be Supported By The "Strongest Pole" Of "Freedom"

Republican Senator Jim Demint had the following to say regarding those calling for the Republican party to moderate it's position and create a "bigger tent":

"Despite notable successes at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave., it seems to me that Republicans in Congress and in the Bush administration forgot a simple truth. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you aim for principled reform, you win elections in the bargain; if you just aim for elections, you get neither. No Child Left Behind didn’t win us 'soccer moms,' but it did cost us our credibility on locally controlled education. Medicare prescription drugs didn’t win us a 'permanent majority,' but it cost us our credibility on entitlement reform. Every year, another Republican quality was tainted: managerial competence, fiscal discipline and personal ethics. To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a 'big tent' party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — must be freedom. The federal government is too big, takes too much of our money, and makes too many of our decisions. If Republicans can’t agree on that, elections are the least of our problems. If the American people want a European-style social democracy, the Democratic Party will give it to them. We can’t win a bidding war with Democrats. Freedom will mean different things to different Republicans, but it can tether a diverse coalition to inalienable principles. Republicans can welcome a vigorous debate about legalized abortion or same-sex marriage; but we should be able to agree that social policies should be set through a democratic process, not by unelected judges. Our party benefits from national-security debates; but Republicans can start from the premise that the U.S. is an exceptional nation and force for good in history. We can argue about how to rein in the federal Leviathan; but we should agree that centralized government infringes on individual liberty and that problems are best solved by the people or the government closest to them."
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