Should Conservatives leave the Republican Party?

Conservatives, get ready for 2012:

Q. Should you join a third party or work within the Republican Party?

1. Newt Gingrich hints at Third Party by 2012: "He predicted the rise of a third party by 2012 if Republicans don’t get their act together." On Fox News (March 11, 2009) Newt Gingrich said: "Look, I think there are a lot of Republicans who've bought into the system. I've said for a long time the two parties in America aren't Republican and Democrat, the two parties in America are a party of big government and political elites and a party of the American people, which is very different. It's the Ronald Reagan party. And sadly, a number of Republicans belong to the right wing of the party of big government. They're quite happy to be taken care of. They don't mind getting all the pork they can. And they've become, frankly, part of the problem, not part of the solution."

2. "If [the Republican party split and a Third Party emerged in 2012] did happen, it could be a very good thing from the point of view of progressives and the country. It would split the center-right vote, freeing the Democrat to move to the left and ultimately making victory more likely." [Daily Kos]

3. "These then are the two crucial mistakes that any third party challenge of the establishment must avoid: 1) pursuit of "instant victory," which clones the party, and 2) pursuit of "instant idealization," [i.e., sounding too utopian or too radical] which marginalizes the party. If a third party wishes to become viable and succeed, it must offer radical enough change to avoid cloning with the Demopublicans, but not so radical that it becomes marginalized like the Libertarian and Constitution Parties." [Nelson Hultberg, Americans for a Free Republic in Dallas]

 Origin of Republican Party elephant symbol

A. Consider history: 

1. The Party is the route to political office

Two national parties emerge by late 1830s: "Two vigorous and distinct political parties had emerged [in the United States] by the late 1830s, the Whigs and the Democrats. Both parties were national parties in the scope of their following and in the policies they advocated. . . . Two other developments of the 1830s helped to strengthen and increase the role of political parties. One was the adoption of the national convention as a means of nominating candidates for the highest offices of the land. . . . The second development was that of national-state-local party organizations. . . . Daniel Webster admitted, reluctantly it appears, that 'The existence of parties in popular Governmnents is not to be avoided, and, if they are formed on constitutional questions, or in regard to great measures of public policy . . .  it may be admitted that, on the whole, they do no great harm.' Parties had become the main, if not the only, route to political office." [page 94]

Both parties split in 1860: "But the final blow [that ultimately drove the South out of the Union] came as the result of the organization of the new Republican Party, a sectional party of the North, as it turned out. A party was organized in Michigan in 1854 under that name and spread rapidly to other states. . . . The party drew its following from Free Soilers, Northern Whigs who abandoned their party in droves after the Kansas-Nebraska Act, dissident Democrats, anti-slavery people generally, and minority parties. . . . While no political party which hoped to elect candidates could please the abolitionists, [the new Republican Party] was bent from the beginning toward the containment of slavery." [page 137]

"The Republican Party had taken shape as a sectional party, and the nomination of Lincoln as standard bearer did nothing to change that fact. His election to the presidency, then, signified the rallying of the people of the North to a party opposed to the aims of the South.

"A unified Democratic Party might conceivably have changed the results in the election of 1860. Certainly, it was the only party with a national following still in the field. . . . At any rate, a goodly number of Southern delegates withdrew from the Democratic convention when it appeared that [Stephen A.] Douglas might carry the day . . .  It is conceivable, however, that if the Democratic Party had united behind Douglas, he might have won states in the North which left the Democratic fold to vote for Lincoln. The breakup of the party made it certain long before the election that Douglas could not win." [pp. 140-141]
"The [contest over the Constitutional question of] secession had now ended; civil war followed. [page 142]

A basic history of the United States, Volume 3

The sections and the Civil War: 1826-1877

by Clarence B. Carson (1985)

2. Factions Fizzle

The Bull Moose Party and the Election of 1912

". . . what he [Theodore Roosevelt] feared was happening was the break up of the Republican Party. Thus, he exercised his influence mainly in trying to hold the party together, while reaffirming his progressiveism. Taft tried to use what influence he had, generally to get the regular Republicans elected to office. Neither had much success . . . The rift among Republicans was near to being an open rupture when Senator Robert] La Follette engineered the formation of a National Progressive Republican League in January 1911. . . .

The election of 1912 was the electoral peak of the progressive movement. Progressives were unable to prevent the renomination of Taft, but with the possible exception of Taft, the presidential candidates were Progressive to socialist. . . . Roosevelt tried for the Republican nomination, but when he failed to get it, he accepted the nomination of the Progressive, or 'Bull Moose,' Party, a splinter off the Republicans. . . .

Wilson won a landslide victory in the electoral vote. . . 
The Democrats gained control of both the House and the Senate. . . . 
The main result of his [Roosevelt's] third-party candidacy was to lead the more radical reform elements out of the Republican Party, leaving the more conservative elements in firmer control than ever. 
The Republican Party, purged of its radical impetus, returned to power in the 1920s." [pp. 165-166]

A basic history of the United States, Volume 4

The growth of America: 1878-1928

by Clarence B. Carson

3. Walking out is the path to capitulation  

The Minorityites and the Soviet Congress

 ". . . it was only because Lenin obtained a majority in elections to the Party central organs that he could call his group the Majorityites, or Bolsheviks, while the 'opportunists' naturally became the Minorityites, or Mensheviks." [page 78]

"The paradox of Bolshevism--the Majorityites--was that theirs was a dictatorship of the minority, a fact observed by Martov in 1919 . . . " [page 82]

"The Party went on splitting itself, expelling 'factions', 'deviations' and 'platforms', incapable because of its fanaticism of seeing these as differences of opinion rather than obsessions, as creative endeavours rather than fossilized dogma. The splits continued until, by the beginning of the 1930s, all that was left was a Stalinist monolith that was utterly incapable of changing. The situation could only lead to disaster." [pp. 83-84]

"The Mensheviks had seen democracy as an end; the Bolsheviks merely as a means. The Bolsheviks wanted to create a mighty, enclosed party, while the Mensheviks has wanted a party or association of liberally thinking people who rejected coercion." [page 89]

"When the Second Congress of Soviets met . . . The Menshevkis refused to occupy the four places allotted to them, in protest against the Bolshevik seizure of power that had taken place the previous night . . . Martov's nerve snapped and he declared: 'We're leaving!' His supporters shouted and stamped their feet in the face of their defeat. It was not the Bolseviks who had snuffed out Martov's candle: it was his own decision to leave the Congress." [page 96]

"The democratic wing of the Social Democratic Party then made a false step: they left the Congress, or, more precisely, conceded the political scene to the Bolsheviks and their supporters among the Socialist Revolutionaries. [Nikolai] Sukhanov noted: 'We left not knowing where or why, cutting ourselves off from the Soviet . . .Moreover, in going, we left the Bolsheviks a totally free hand and complete masters of the situation.'" [page 161]

Lenin: a new biography

by Dmitri Volkogonov (1994)

My conclusion: 
1. Don't confuse the Party with the Movement.
2. Organize within the Party, or stew outside without a voice and without a vote.

Read the Republican Principles

Read Robert Reich (as quoted in Richard Vigurie's America's Right Turn):

[Robert B. Reich, from a 2004 op-ed for the New York Times]

• There is a distinction between party and movement.
• It is crucial to build a political movement that will endure after particular electoral contests.
• In order for a presidency to be effective, it needs a movement that mobilizes Americans behind it.
• Any political movement derives durability from the clarity of its convictions. 
• There's no better way to clarify convictions that to hone them [over time] in political combat.