COLUMN: Weeding out the RINOs

If the proposal is adopted, candidates who disagree on more than two of ten basic conservative principles would not receive monetary support from the RNC and the party would be freed from the obligation of endorsing those candidates.

The purpose is to return the Republican Party to its conservative roots and weed out the RINO (Republican in Name Only) candidates.

As a conservative Republican, I can appreciate the party’s concern over the voting records of some of the GOP’s more prominent RINOs. However, these politicians have already misled the voters once by identifying themselves as Republicans. What is to stop them from lying again and claiming they agree with enough of the proposed tenets to meet the conservative threshold? Absolutely nothing.

The backers of the proposal claim the measure is necessary to restore trust in the Republican Party and to effectively oppose Obama’s socialist agenda.

It seems very noble to proclaim you wish “to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life,” but I cannot help but wonder why they waited so long to decide it was important that Republican candidates espoused these principles.

Any candidate identifying himself or herself as a Republican should have no problem with the ten basic conservative principles identified in the proposal:

• supporting smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill.

• supporting market-based health care reform and opposing Obama-style government run healthcare.

• supporting market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation.

• supporting workers' rights to secret ballot by opposing card check.

• supporting legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.

• supporting victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.

• supporting containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.

• supporting retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.

• supporting protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion.

• supporting the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

However, we have RINOs currently in office who fail this litmus test on several points.

The fact that members of the GOP believe this purity test is needed demonstrates once again why you cannot vote for a candidate strictly based on party affiliation. We all know candidates may say one thing and do another, but voters have to at least try to figure out exactly where these politicians stand rather than trusting the (D) or (R) beside the name on the ballot.

At least the GOP finally seems to recognize they have a problem. They are only months, if not years, behind the voting public in doing so. Hopefully, this “purity pledge” will lead to a better crop of Republican candidates, but only time will tell if the “pure” candidates are true conservatives or only more RINOs.