California Conservative

My father, who used to practice law said you could always tell a good deal when everyone got up from the table a little bit pissed off. It wasn’t a good deal he said, when one side was pleased and the other side was angry.

Listening to the coverage leading up to the recent election in Iraq I was reminded that this lesson could be applied to politics. The Iraqis are trying to birth a new democracy in the face of tremendous adversity. At one point the Sunni minority’s leaders said they would not participate in voting for the new constitution. The majority, Shiites and Kurds, placated them with a promise to amend the new constitution to to protect the minority’s rights from the new Federal government. This parallels the ratification of the US constitution which I am told would not have passed without the promise of the Bill of Rights.

Here in California, as a conservative, I am reminded repeatedly that my politics are in the minority. Except for Governor, statewide offices are held almost exclusively by Democrats, as are majorities in both houses of the State Legislature.

How can Conservatives gain a larger share of power in State government? Conservatives, because they operate from a set of core principles have a hard time with compromise. Sitting on the sidelines with ones principles is noble, but it hasn’t gained much. If it worked, Tom McClintock would be Governor today. Some compromise is necessary.

There are a number of people calling themselves Republicans who are considerably liberal. They are commonly referred to a RINOs (Republican in name only), who are willing to look like liberals to win. Then there are hard core conservatives who’s opinions are so ingrained, they won’t even engage in meaningful dialog.

Somewhere in between are pragmatic conservatives who still operate from core beliefs, but are amenable to some compromise to achieve a share of power, and further their principles.

When Davis got recalled, we got a Republican Governor who is liberal on some issues. But his notoriety and a lot of hard work have brought us to the special election, where a number of conservative issues have a chance to pass. Without his election, we would not be having the special election. Willingness to compromise has brought us forward.

Remember, if everyone gets up from the table a little pissed off, a good deal is at hand. Conservatives have been getting up alone from the angry side of the table for far too long. But by staying the course, being willing to compromise when necessary, the agenda is advanced, a little bit at a time.

Cross-posted at SactoDan BLOG

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 at 6:04 am and is filed under Arnold, Author: SactoDan, California, Elections, Op-Ed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.