By John Mark Hancock
Copyrighted - All Rights Reserved
A Special Salute & Thanks to All our Veterans Today!

KNOXVILLE - The mantra in Washington, DC, now is for both parties to come together and form a "centrist" government that fashions compromises and governs from the middle. However, Republicans and Democrats are not supposed to be "centrist". They are supposed to be leaders, who have convictions and stick to their beliefs. If the more popular opinion agrees with them, they win; if more popular opinion differs from them, they lose.

Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who says he is now considering becoming an Independent or Democrat, and several other members of the 109th Congress called themselves Republican, but acted and voted in line with Democrats. They were the epitomy of a RINO (Republican in Name Only). 

Chafee and several others like him ran as Republicans when they saw a move away from Democrat-controlled Congress back in the mid 1990's so that they could be in the majority party. Many of these Republicans, who were just out for themselves and not for principle, lost their individual races, because they failed to do what they promised to their constituents during his last campaigns, which is stand on conservative reform of government.

The Republican Party has not moved any further right than the Democrat Party has moved further left. In fact, the Democrats have far more hardline liberals than the Republicans have hardline conservatives.

Fortunately, most of those liberals are old and tired, as we will see with all of the new chairmen of committees in the House that new Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most liberal Speaker in history, will appoint. The future and the bright stars in Washington are the new conservatives, who have ideas rather than rhetoric.

We shouldn't want leaders of either party to move to the middle; rather, we should laud those who stand up and argue for their own true convictions. When a political leader's convictions align with the population of our country's needs, wants, and desires at election time, he or she will win that election, except in ultra-liberal enclaves like Massachusetts, where Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank will always win no matter what kind of outrageous comments they make or scandals they create.

Chafee was and is a weak politician. He was a Democrat through and through. Why did he accept so many Republican dollars in the late stages of his campaign, only to continue to abandon his supposed party? He is a cheap politician, not a respected statesman. If he was really principled, he would have changed his party affiliation a long time ago.

However, it became convenient for him when the Republicans were in total power to remain a member of the GOP so that he could "use" the system for his own power. Now that the Democrats have that legislative control, he claims to have somehow got religion and that he should quit the the party that put him in power. Good riddance to such weak sisters like Lincoln.

Chafee's only qualification for his position was that his father was a beloved Senator who died in office. Many voters thought he would carry on his Dad's principles. He has done nothing to indicate that his departure from Washington and the Republican party will be notable, and certainly his departure will not be mourned.

The lesson that Republicans should take from the election is that leadership, principle, and conviction are craved by the electorate. Unfortunately, the GOP forfeited the trust of the voters by losing sight of its conservative principles. The people will, however, be sorely disappointed by the Democrat replacements they chose on Tuesday. Look for a return to power of the Republicans in 2008 if they choose the right Presidential candidate, certainly not the wishy-washy John McCain.