The missive below was penned by Sean Hackbarth and signed by him, by other prominent new media people, and by me.
Dear Conservatives:
In a few weeks, thousands of us will gather in Washington, DC, for CPAC. For three days, friendships will be rekindled, and new ones formed. Strategies will be developed.
It is a cliché that the Conservative Movement is a “Big Tent.” Well, clichés are sometimes true. Our movement is filled with people who have their individual approaches to improving our country. Economic conservatives want to cut taxes, national security conservatives want to maintain a top-notch military, and social conservatives want to strengthen America’s moral roots. All make valuable contributions.
This conservative coalition guided the nation through the tough economic times of the 1970s and early 1980s and into the prosperity of the 1990s and early 2000s. We gave America her backbone, enabling her to win the Cold War. The fusion of economic, national security, and social conservatism has proven successful.
We are never going to agree on everything. Our Conservative movement is too messy for that to happen. We leave the lock-step thinking to the Left.
Some social conservative groups have decided to skip CPAC because GOProud is one of over 90 participating organizations at the conference. This is disappointing. In our broad conservative coalition we need each other to defeat the Left.
CPAC gives all the branches of conservatism a place to make their cases, to talk, to debate. It is the only time of the year all branches can come together face-to-face-to-face in mutual respect.
The Left’s idea of diversity rests on identity politics and political correctness. Ours rests in the confidence we can hold differences of opinion on some issues while upholding a fundamental set of core values: liberty; faith; community; individuality.
Many of us will have deep disagreements on an issue or two. Instead of avoiding each other we need to keep talking.
Don’t forget, we have much more in common with each other than we have with the Left.
The Left wants the government to control the deeply personal issue of our health care. The Left wants the government to pay for abortions. The Left wants the government to spend more and drive us deeper into debt. The Left wants to borrow and tax and centralize the economy. The Left wants to treat terrorism as a criminal matter rather than an act of war.
We stand against that, and are fighting for freedom, strength, and dignity.
We will be at CPAC; we hope you will as well. November’s elections were the start of getting America back on the right track. We need to come together in friendship and respect to continue our progress.
Sincerely,
Sean Hackbarth, The American Mind
Elizabeth Blackney, Media & Communications Strategist
Founder & Managing Director, GeNoticed
@medializzyChip Hanlon, President of Red County
John Ruberry, Marathon Pundit
Teri Christoph, Co-Founder, Smart Girl Politics
Rebecca Wales, Vice President of Communications, Smart Girl Politics
Joy W. McCann, Little Miss Attila Online Magazine
Jimmie Bise, Jr. Weblogger at The Sundries Shack and host of The Delivery Podcast
Fausta Wertz, Fausta’s Blog
Ali Akbar, Political strategist
Emily Borkholder , Assistant Communications Director, Hoosier Access
Mark Warner, Marketing and Sales Director, Hoosier Access
Kevin McKeever, President, Bank of Kev Productions
Full disclosure: Mr. McKeever is my colleague and team leader at Bank of Kev, though I signed the letter before he did.
Of course, there are another 100 bloggers who either just joined the CPAC new media effort and therefore haven’t heard about the letter–or simply didn’t bother to sign. And yet they’ll be there in D.C. next month.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Talk about wishful thinking.
The problem, of course, is that the whole point of CPAC was to give social cons a place to gather and exchange views. Then, libertarian and conservatives of other stripes came along. Now, the social cons are told, “Don’t be a H8ter! Just get along with the GOProud folks.” It is dishonest and more than insulting to have things put in those terms.
David
I’m not sure that I agree with that, and I’ve been going to CPAC for years. I mean, there have always been socons there, but a lot of gay-friendly folk as well–Ann Coulter, who’s got a lot of gay friends; Rush Limbaugh, who’s obviously not anti-gay; the Buckleyites, who tend to support legalization of drugs; Goldwater, whose son was gay, and who was sternly opposed to discrimination in the military.
And the GOProud platform has nothing in it that would collide with the agenda of SoCons–it doesn’t have gay marriage as an objective, and wasn’t even actively against DADT, as the Log Cabin folks were. (Why do you think the two groups split?)
If there is an actual position taken by the GOProud folks that you disagree with, please tell me what it is. Because so far not one of the people who have squawked about the GOProud participation have been able to give me a point of material disagreement with that group. After a certain point, it starts to sound like those who are withdrawing simply don’t like gays, period.
If you mix just a little big government/spending folks to the “fiscal conservatives”…you’ll just get a bigger tent!
Then, you could add a little homosexual agenda folks to the “social conservatives”…you’ll just get a bigger tent!
Then, maybe add ANSWER or Code Pink folks (whatever) to the “security conservatives”…AND BINGO!
YOU’VE GOT THE DEMOCRATS.
NO THANKS!
Okay, Ed. Thanks for playing. Of course, I could give you a “slippery slope” argument that goes in quite the opposite direction (and has, arguably, led to a complete disaster here in the Golden State, the land of GOP purity).
But I have to pluck my eyebrows right now.