There is a battle going on within the Republican Party between Conservatives and the current “establishment” such as Charles Krauthammer and Karl Rove. Rove argues for nominating the most electable candidate they see for a certain constituency, while Conservatives argue we must use the Reagan rule of principled politics and articulate solid Conservative principals in all races — win or lose. The recent nomination of Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell over establishment moderate Republican Mike Castle has brought this rift to a head. I have an enormous amount of respect for Rove, having met him on a couple of occasions, and Krauthammer has always been one of my favorite National Review columnists.  Their principals are in line with those of the Conservative movement, but their desire to elect Republicans without Conservative principals is problematic.

Conservatism is based in the country’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These documents must be the basis for building a movement to counter and defeat the massive bureaucratic state liberal progressives would use to control and suppress the individual. Conservatives stand for what the Constitution and Declaration articulate in their original form: limited government, individual liberty, the individual’s right to private property and the right to abolish government when it no longer represents them. Throughout his career, Mike Castle has consistently failed to live up to Conservative ideals. He supported cap and trade, which would hinder small business owners and cash-strapped families by driving up their energy prices, food prices and taxes. Castle didn’t support the repeal or defunding of government-run health care, which seeks to hinder the way the individuals access life-extending drugs and medical care through the Health and Human Services discretionary board.  Castle was rejected for his support of measures that seek to expand the government’s control and endanger our liberty.

Established Republicans from the Bush Administration have had a questionable record of Conservatism and have shattered the Republican Party. Their passage of Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act which, although relying on subsidies and tax breaks, didn’t seek to reduce the size of government, but rather increased the addiction to entitlements and furthered dependency on a bankrupt, fraudulent and unsustainable welfare program. Rove and Bush should have been committed to easing future generations off of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid incrementally. However, no one is advocating pulling the rug from under current recipients who have been conned by previous governments. They’re insistent on expanding their own power and controlling the individual through endless taxes, regulation and bureaucracy so they can reach utopia, which exists only in their minds.

Primary elections are an important tool used to weed out unsatisfactory candidates. The elections of Christine O’Donnell, Joe Miller, Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul among others proved they have the conservative credentials needed to halt the growth of an insatiable government. The GOP establishment needs to join Jim DeMint in raising money for these candidates to make sure they get elected and stop squabbling among themselves.