A Virginian Pilot editorial today about the state GOP’s knotted britches over Russ Potts’ candidacy makes the kind of broad brush statement with which Democrats should take issue.
The overall message [from the party] is that Republicans who don’t hew at all moments to the party’s “low-taxes, limited government” mantra aren’t welcome. Party elders ought to think long and hard about whether that’s a message they want to convey.
In fact, as we’ve seen many times, the GOP is not about limited government. Instead, the GOP is about inserting government into many aspects of our personal lives. The GOP wants government to say who we can marry, who can adopt children, who makes decisions for incapacitated loved ones, whose religion can be injected into public life, what we teach our children about morality, what science is legitimate and a host of other decisions. Moreover, they are willing to spend us into debt to pay for its priorities. The GOP isn’t about limited government and low-taxes; it’s about big government and irresponsible big spending.
It seems the Democrats in Virginia this year would do well to point out that the GOP wants to impose itself into many areas of our personal lives, that the GOP is about Big Brother government run amok. And even in state races as we have this year in the Commonwealth, inserting Congressman Tom DeLay into the campaign speech may well pay dividends.