Jim Jeffords and Me

On the wall of my office, in a prominent spot among the memorabilia I have accumulated over the years, is a framed letter from my longtime hero, Barry Goldwater. The letter was a response to the only fan letter I have ever sent anyone, a fan letter prompted by Goldwater’s position on gays in the military (“You don’t have to be straight, you just have to shoot straight.”).

I thought about my admiration for Goldwater when I read the statement Jim Jeffords issued upon leaving the GOP last week.  Like Jeffords, I was not “born into the party.” Like him, I joined “because of the kind of fundamental principles that Republicans stood for.” And like him, and so many others, I have been disheartened by the national party’s desertion of those principles.

The party of Goldwater believed in limited government. The party of George W. Bush wants government to dictate my most intimate childbearing decisions. Goldwater’s letter says of the GOP “We have always believed in separation of Church and State,” but the party of George W. Bush wants to use tax dollars to support religious education, and wants to appoint federal judges who will rule in accordance with the theology of its preferred churches.  

The party of Goldwater believed in self-sufficiency, and was wary of welfare, but nevertheless recognized an obligation to the disadvantaged. The party of George W. Bush still believes in self-sufficiency for the poor, but has no visible compunctions about welfare for the rich.    

The party of my youth believed in free markets, not in subsidies and favored tax treatment for big business and political supporters. It believed in fiscal responsibility, in balanced budgets—principles that would make paying the national debt a higher priority than a politically motivated tax cut.

None of this makes the Democrats look better, and that is the dilemma faced by Republicans like Jim Jeffords and me. In a very real sense, we have been disenfranchised. For longtime Republicans of the Goldwater variety, the last few years have been tough. There is a reason George W. Bush ran as a “compassionate” conservative, as a “uniter not a divider.” He understood that the party has come to be seen as lacking any compassion, as divisive and mean-spirited. What he didn’t understand is that the problem is more than image and the solution must be more than rhetoric.