An Open Letter to Phyllis Schlafley

Dear Ms. Schlafley,

I have long been a Republican activist and the journey has brought me many great memories. One of them was a call I made to Eagle Forum to ask for your endorsement of a candidate – and you answered the phone. It was your home phone number.

We’ve come a long way since then. As a homeschool dad of more than 20 years and a GOP activist, my path has crossed with Eagle Forum many times and I’ve learned to value the research and wisdom you have provided over the years. Now, more than ever, we in the conservative movement are confronted with a choice and a possible challenge to stand our ground on principle and for the convictions we cherish.

The mainstream media is cheering on what they perceive to be a “realignment” taking place within the GOP. They crow over the failure of talk radio and many in the conservative punditry to persuade their followers to pull the lever for Governor Mitt Romney. The problem is that the realignment, if any, is not taking place in a shift toward the left, but in a direction of inclusion and broadening of the conservative wing of the party that with leadership could give us a permanent governing majority within the party – and within the country.

In order to recognize this realignment on the conservative side, we have to distinguish between the angry class warfare of John Edwards’ “Two Americas” and instead look toward a rhetoric that, while respecting the importance of free market economies and the role of business in providing jobs, innovation and growth, also respects the fact that these economic drivers do not function in a vacuum. We have to be a party that can relate to the working class “Reagan Democrats” and take the leadership role of persuading them that business is their partner and not their enemy.

In order to recognize the realignment on the conservative side, I believe we have to distinguish between the neo-Marxist “universal healthcare” offered by the Democrats and the creative approaches offered by Republicans on the conservative side. Programs and policies that spur competition, improve quality of care and promote wellness are a top priority – not cradle to grave minimum care at maximum taxpayer costs. Former Governor Mike Huckabee pointed out in his book, “Stop Digging Your Grave With a Knife & Fork”, that it doesn’t make sense for the government to become our nanny when the industry itself can find its own economies of scale through prevention and wellness. He cites the cost of providing weight loss and management training and follow-up for a total cost of $3,000 makes more sense to an insurance company than paying $38,000 for open heart surgery. In Huckabee’s view, the government’s role can and should be much more limited – providing incentives for business and industry to take a common sense approach to wellness, reducing the cost of healthcare overall by giving consumers the wheel. Free markets work every time they’re tried.

In order to recognize the realignment on the conservative side, I believe we have to distinguish between a philosophy that grants citizenship to people who criminally invaded our country and who seek concessions from us in ways that jeopardize our security and contaminate our culture, and a philosophy that secures the border while removing incentives illegals have for coming here. Among these, increasing – and enforcing – penalties to businesses that hire illegals making it more beneficial to hire Americans, implementing a Fair Tax that cannot be avoided by the underground economy, and the immediate deportation of any illegal who has committed a felony. And no amnesty. A plan partially modeled on a proposal by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, was adapted by Governor Huckabee as his own position and plan for immigration reform. It is among the more popular plans in the field.

Perhaps the most important consideration of the conservative realignment is the recognition that conservative issues cannot always be bound up in the notion that appointing strict constructionist judges will protect us from the abusive and tyrannical behaviors of the court in recent years. Some issues are too important and fundamental to our national sovereignty, and to our national conscience to allow the courts to have jurisdiction at all. Rather than pursue the overturn of Roe v. Wade, we need to support the Human Life Amendment. Rather than trust the courts to rule on the meaning of marriage, we need to unite in an effort to define marriage within the constitution itself, forever settling this issue outside the jurisdiction of justices who may “grow” in office.

In order to realign the conservative movement around its own core principles, we need to be willing to fight Senator McCain’s nomination. There are possible scenarios by which this can happen, one of which I trust you would not be favorable to. Given the opportunity to unite conservatives behind a candidate who is fundamentally right on our core issues and risking a protracted floor fight in a brokered convention, I would much rather see Governor Romney release his delegates to Mike Huckabee. If you could take a moment to speak with Governor Huckabee and consider an endorsement, that would be helpful. However, if it comes to a brokered convention, you can count on me as a “foot soldier” in the fight. In the end, the “realignment” I spoke of above is not a realignment at all. It is a call to recognize that this election is about choices and I do not believe conservatives are seriously making a choice for McCain. Without unity behind the remaining conservative, we will need to take a bold stand at the convention and send a message to the establishment and to the media: The realignment is not toward the moderate views of John McCain, it is back to the roots of the Reagan Coalition that made the GOP great.

If you need delegates committed to this purpose, I ask only that you point me in the right direction to getting selected and taking this message of realignment to the establishment leaders in the Indiana party. I believe the stakes are too high to allow for the harshness of the campaign through Super Tuesday to keep us divided. If we cannot mend fences and unite right now, we are electing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton by default.