Choosing the most conservative candidate

Who is best suited to inherit Ronald Reagan's legacy?

By Alisa Farenzena
From the February 2008 Print Edition

As conservatives, we haven’t had a clear choice in this year’s presidential primary race. As we close in on California’s primary this Super Tuesday, we must finally make a decision about which candidates are and aren’t conservative enough to support. There is much talk about Ronald Reagan from every corner, but we must carefully scrutinize any candidate’s claim to be the heir to the Reagan legacy.

In a tough race such as this one, it is helpful to first rule out who is not a conservative at all.

Reagan wanted to keep the government out of people’s everyday lives. Anyone claiming to be a conservative should hold this view. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, however, imposed a mandatory universal health-care scheme on the citizens of Massachusetts, allowing the state to meddle in a very personal area of people’s lives. Romney’s position on health care is indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton’s. Yet Romney is even more dangerous than Clinton because, when she tried to get her socialized health-care plan approved in 1993, she failed miserably.

Plenty of voters seem to be fooled by Romney because he seems to be saying conservative things right now, but we need to take a step back and look at the values he has held prior to his run for president. Upon further examination, he looks a lot more like fellow Massachusetts flip-flopper Senator John Kerry than any type of conservative — Romney has changed his opinion on everything from immigration to gay marriage.

Incidentally, Romney seems to be a little too close to another liberal senator from Massachusetts. On the January 18 episode of “The Tonight Show,” Romney told Jay Leno, “Frankly, I like Ted Kennedy.”

The other candidate who holds no claim to conservatism is former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is nothing more than a tax-and-spend liberal in Republican’s clothing. Sure he cut some taxes as governor, but he also raised countless other taxes — the sales tax, gasoline taxes, a per-day tax on nursinghome patients, and the list goes on. Since he increased taxes, he was also emboldened to increase spending. The Club for Growth reports that, from 1996 to 2004, Huckabee increased state spending 65.3 percent, “three times the rate of inflation.”

Given this track record, it would be a travesty if Hucakbee received the GOP nomination. The only useful purpose he has served is to ruin Romney’s momentum by winning in Iowa. Thankfully, he was able to do this without picking up any momentum of his own, as he couldn’t even win in South Carolina, with its large evangelical population.

With the two liberals eliminated, it’s time to consider the three remaining candidates, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Ron Paul.

While Representative Paul has an excellent record on taxes, a decent record on spending, and good ideas on illegal immigration, his record on free trade is unacceptable. The Club for Growth reports that he has vetoed many free-trade agreements with various parts of the world, among them Singapore and Australia. This failure to embrace a key component of capitalism, not to mention his unrealistic view of the threats America faces, overshadows Paul’s other, more conservative views.

While on the topic of embracing capitalism, it is appropriate to note Former Senator Fred Thompson, who dropped out of the race on January 22. He represented the state of Tennessee with true conservative principles, standing against taxes and most spending, for free trade, for entitlement reform, against excessive government regulation, and for school choice.

Thompson also has a decent plan to deal with illegal immigration, focusing on self-deportation through reducing incentives to break our immigration laws. He wants to reduce the jobs incentive, although his plan seems not to go far enough. He also wants the federal government to deny “grants as appropriate to states and local governments that violate federal law by offering public benefits to illegal aliens, as prohibited by 8 USC 1621(a)” and “education grants as appropriate to public universities that violate federal law by offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens without also offering identical benefits to United States citizens, regardless of whether or not they live in the state, as required by 8 USC 1623,” according to his campaign Web site. This last part would affect UC Berkeley, which is currently in violation of federal law.

Thompson is the only real conservative we have seen so far. Unfortunately, he has removed himself from the race because he did not win a single primary and saw South Carolina as crucial to his credibility as a serious contender for the presidency. Therefore, we’ll have to hitch our wagon to a different star if we want to defeat liberals Romney and Huckabee in the California primary.

Of the two remaining candidates, Giuliani and McCain, former New York Mayor Giuliani has good conservative principles. He inherited a $2.3 billion budget deficit, which he turned “into a multi-billion-dollar surplus, while cutting taxes and delivering eight consecutive balanced budgets,” according to a former Web site of Giuliani’s. He even cleaned up a city that used to have a homeless problem rivaling Berkeley’s and San Francisco’s.

Giuliani is not perfect. In New York, he did have a troubling stance on gun rights. Yet there’s no way he would pursue an anti-gun agenda on a national level; to do so would be political suicide. Therefore, this flaw aside, Giuliani would make a fine leader for the Republican Party.

Arizona Senator McCain has angered many conservatives. Yet we must grant credit where credit is due; McCain has stood against wasteful spending and for free trade. He has even changed his tune on George W. Bush’s tax cuts, where he previously betrayed conservatives.

The area where McCain has betrayed us the most has been his support for amnesty for illegal immigrants. Yet even that must be put in perspective. Reagan, too, OKed amnesty in 1986 when he signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. Signing IRCA was a terrible decision, proving that even Reagan was flawed.

That is why conservatives may have to re-examine McCain. Giuliani is preferable, so we should hope that he wins the California primary. Yet we will have to see any local polling for California in the few days before February 5. If there is a good chance that a Giuliani vote could hand your congressional district to Romney, you may need to hold your nose and vote for McCain. I’m just thankful that my district looks to be headed for a Giuliani win.

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