Here are a few highlights:
This past week Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling announced that he was dropping out of the race for Virginia's governor, but left open the door to his running as an independent. He issued a disappointingly divisive statement that Richard Viguerie called Bolling's Charlie Crist moment.
Bolling took an unfortunate and cheap shot against his primary opponent and now-presumptive Republican nominee, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Bolling's statement was a dénouement of betrayal to his conservative voters and supporters. We have come to expect that from establishment Republicans who somehow feel entitled to support from principled conservatives -- right up to the point that they no longer need us...
In his exit from the governor's race, Bolling insulted those of us who believe in and fight for small-government principles. He would do well to strongly endorse Cuccinelli and make amends with conservatives who would have voted for him had he been the Republican nominee for governor.
Ken Cuccinelli's statement about Bolling's exit was nothing but gracious. Cuccinelli is a gracious guy who also happens to be a fighter for principles. It is this latter trait that his opponents will try to use to define him "as a radical, angry, impractical ideologue" and as the "new face of the far right."
The fact is that Ken is a compassionate and kind man. He is also a principled official. He is pro-women, pro-children and pro-environment. He also understands what Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78, which is that the Constitution is our "fundamental law" designed to protect liberty. Liberty isn't anti-anyone. It is pro-everyone...
Establishment Republicans can learn from Cuccinelli. He translates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness into policies to govern in the 21st century. Establishment Republicans may pay lip service to those First Principles, but their policy choices often wind up betraying them whether for expediency or by a lack of courage and leadership. Often, they fail to understand the intellectual and moral underpinnings of our First Principles in the first place.
Ken is, like Reagan was, a perpetual student of the reasons why America's form of government is based in the consent of the people. We have a structure of government designed to protect liberty under the rule of law that in the first place actually governs government itself before government may lawfully and morally make, enforce and adjudicate laws for the people.
Ken understands and articulates that well-paying jobs are a better way to feed a family than food stamps, that prosperity under free markets best sustains the environment, that strong families are the best progenitor for a good education and a healthy economy, and that equality among all people is preserved only when government is constrained by a paramount law governing those in government, who by human nature have the prejudices and other moral foibles of those who lack government's awesome power.
In his exit from the race, Bill Bolling said, "The party has to decide whether we're more interested in engaging in great ideological debates, or winning elections and earning the right to lead."
In 2012, the Republican Party failed to engage in any great ideological debate. In Ken Cuccinelli, Republicans have someone who has proven that engaging in the debate is essential to winning elections.
