Who Are the Real RINOs?

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May 18, 2005

Who Are the Real RINOs?

I have a friend in New England with whom I sometimes talk politics (I know, it's dangerous). She's a Republican, and says she always will be.

She has just one problem, though. She feels that some of the elected officials and other leaders who associate themselves with the Republican name are somehow not genuinely Republican. She says that they're taking the party (and the country, since they dominate two branches and have designs on the third) in the wrong direction. Many other of my Republican friends feel the same way.

Now, I know that you are familiar with the term "RINO" and know that it doesn't refer to large (well, as compared to me, but small if a Blue Whale is your reference) African (or Asian) mammals of the family Rhinocerotidae. And, since you're keen, you know that the term is typically leveled at members of the GOP who are seen by their detractors as "not being conservative enough" or "lacking traditional family values," whatever in the world those phrases mean.

Let's look, though, at this from another angle. Who has taken the name from whom? I doubt I can hold your interest long enough to veer through the entire history of the party, and the pendulum swings it has surely endured; but let's keep it to the "modern" post-WWII era (yeah, we had to come up with a descriptor that sufficiently delineated ourselves from previous times; after all, we must be "modern" if we can murder each other by the gajillions with holocausts and nuclear weapons; but, as the saying goes, I digress). (Oh, and I know that the term "modern" was used well before WWII. I was seizing an opportunity for wanton sarcasm.)

To my arguably under-informed mind, a straighter line could be drawn from Dwight D. Eisenhower to John McCain or to Colin Powell than from DDE to Pat Robertson (White RINO) or to Alan Keyes (Black RINO).

The Republicans who were around in my parents' generation were known for affluence (which arose, some say, from Hard Work), fiscal prudence, Big Ideas, Opportunity, philanthropy (surely beget of aforementioned affluence), moderation, Civil Rights, and so forth. There are still some of these types of people around today, so wouldn't it seem that if they use, and run for office with, the name "Republican," that the name fits? And that they are not some breed of impostors? The principle of continuity would suggest so.

Through the 1950s, Democrats reigned hegemoniously over the "Solid South" and were known for their unfettered racism. Today, many of those "Solid South" Democrats (or their descendants) call themselves Republicans. Come again? Let's talk about the "in name only" part. One could argue that since hordes of uneducated, bigoted, poor, white Southerners/Heartlanders crashed the country club, and fastened themselves upon the Grand Old designation, they are the "in name only" set. I'm not deciding that for the reader, I'm merely pointing out the existing space for discussion of the matter.

If you hear, then, someone's admonishment to "just say no to RINOs," ask yourself which faction really owns the name, and the answer to that may guide you to decide who's "in name only." As mesh points out, the constant crusade for partisan "purity" is not likely to win the kind of lasting support that a moderate with, yes, I'll say it, "broad-based appeal" is likely to garner. Neither will a "purer" (again, by whose dogma?) partisan be more representative of his or her state in an office like United States Senator.

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