Richard A. Viguerie:
Conservatives Continue Their Boycott of GOP

For over two years, Richard A. Viguerie and others have been calling for conservatives to cease supporting the Republican Party and its leaders. (See his 2006 book, Conservatives Betrayed, pp. 199-216, and the October 2006 Washington Monthly feature, “Time for Us to Go: Conservatives on why the GOP should lose in November,” by Christopher Buckley, Bruce Bartlett, Joe Scarborough, William A. Niskanen, Bruce Fein, Jeffrey Hart, and Richard Viguerie.)

“Conservatives are in open rebellion against the GOP,” says Viguerie in a statement released today, “and have been since 2006. That’s why prospects for the Republican Party are so bleak this year, just as they were in 2006.”

Viguerie adds:

“It should be abundantly clear to all that conservatives no longer give blind loyalty to the Republican Party. We have other options, and we are using them. Some will vote for the Constitution Party candidate, some for the Libertarian Party candidate, and many others will decide that November 4 is a fine day for going fishing or playing golf.

“Conservatives—the base of the Republican Party—are sitting on the sidelines, discouraged and angry. They are not getting out the vote or making any efforts to rescue the party that has deserted them.

“That’s why the big news on Tuesday was not Hillary Clinton’s win in West Virginia. The big news was the third straight loss of a ‘safe’ Republican House seat, this time in Mississippi.

“The conservative boycott is why the Republicans have lost three special elections this year—in Illinois, Louisiana, and now Mississippi—in three of the most conservative House districts in the nation. The Democrats didn’t win because those districts had suddenly turned liberal. The Republicans lost because the base of the GOP—conservatives—is so discouraged and angry over the Big Government policies of the national party.

“In my book Conservatives Betrayed (p. 215) and for the past two years, I have also urged conservatives to support only conservative causes, and to stop their financial support of the Republican National Committee and the GOP campaign committees until the Republican Party returns to conservative principles.

“Conservatives are doing exactly that, too. That’s why the fundraising efforts of the Republican candidates and committees are being eclipsed by the Democrats. And that’s why John McCain, with his lack of any conservative vision or principles and his pandering to the liberal mainstream media, is raising only a small fraction of what either Obama or Clinton is raising.

“Conservatives will not return to the Republican Party until the GOP has a thorough housecleaning of its current leadership, and returns to principled conservative stands on the issues.”