CNSNews: Each year the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project asks governors from all 50 states to issue a proclamation declaring Feb. 6 "Ronald Reagan Day" in their respective states. Today, the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project proudly commends the 40 governors -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- who have chosen to honor President Reagan's 102nd birthday.
The 10 governors who chose not to honor Reagan...Democrats.
Despite them, and in spite of them, along with the Republican establishment that fought him at every turn, Ronald Reagan vastly improved the direction of what the Republican Party should have stood for throughout the 20th century. It would do the currently divided party good to remind itself of the same today. Conservatism is your strength!
Fighting for freedom and liberty with Barry Goldwater in '64...
...then onto the moment when the party realized they nominated the wrong guy in '76...
We finally got the RIGHT guy in 1980...followed by two, count'em, two, landslide victories with conservatism!
Will it take the Republican Party this long, or longer, to get its act together to choose the right man for the right time again? To 'preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth'...? Or will the Republican establishment go along with the Democratic statists to 'sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness'...?
I remind the establishment of Reagan's own words...this is especially pertinent for the Rove's, the Kristol's (who may be coming around, coincidentally), the McCain's and Graham's, the Boehner's, Cantor's, McCarthy's and McConnell's...
"Americans are hungry to feel once again a sense of mission and greatness.
I don 't know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, "We must broaden the base of our party" -- when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.
It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?
Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?"
On this, Reagan's 102nd birthday, let conservatism reaffirm itself...with or without the party operatives.
