June 5, 2011 

At the outset of every presidential campaign season, establishment republicans pull out their party big wigs to admonish conservatives - particularly evangelicals - that the party cannot win the White House if their candidates are too Christian, or by implication, believe they should uphold the Constitution, traditional marriage and oppose abortion.  It happened again Friday as approximately 400 party leaders gathered in Washington D.C..

Long time establishment republican fund raiser and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said, "We can't expect our [presidential] candidate to be pure. Winning is about unity, not purity."

There it is folks. The very foundation of what is wrong with both parties is not inspiring, principled leadership that people can get behind and follow, but political expediency; not principle, but a supposed expedience called "unity"!

Who does he think he's kidding?  The Republican Party has been divided for the better part of two decades now on moral issues!  The fiscal and 'social' moderates versus the moral and fiscal conservatives (Evangelicals and principled conservatives). 

Political expedience is the very thing the Tea Party and most observant Americans are complaining about.  To Governor Haley Barbour and his establishment republican friends, the end justifies the means. Governance is no longer about wisdom and principle. It's about  raw political power to control and take advantage.  Someone should have told that to Ronald Reagan!

To these republicans, and democrats as well, "We will tell you conservatives anything to get your vote, but we have no intention of dealing with the moral, social and ethical issues you are constantly wanting addressed.  We don't believe that a majority of the voting public care enough about those issues and if our candidate includes those issues, we will lose.  And furthermore, we don't think they are that important either!"

I believe just the opposite, and I believe you do too!  The so called 'social' issues are what holds the fabric of a society together, not the pursuit of money. They drive fiscal and physical restraint, respect for human life at all stages of life, the education of our youth, and our ability to impact everything around us, for good.

The line Haley Barbour bought, and sold at the Friday gathering, is the lie that establishment republicans have believed and continue to believe, inspite of what the voters said last November.  Simply put, "They still don't get it!"  To our peril and theirs.

Their message to we Christians?  Don't be too pro-life, too oppositional to same sex marriage, Planned Parenthood, deviants in the military and on our streets, parental rights, virtue in our leaders or the right to pray at graduations, etc.  We're not interested!

Never mind that the establishment republicans for years have participated in the big government debacle that led to their spanking in 2006 and from which we may not recover; never mind that they always courted the social conservative vote but delivered little on their promises. 

It is time for Evangelical Christians to stop listening to the politics of expedience, get behind candidates for public office whose lives demonstrate virtue, a belief in upholding the Constitution, traditional moral and family values, fiscal restraint, limited government, and heaven forbid . . . the God of the Bible!