An Open Letter to My True-Believing Friends

Hello readers.  Not all of you.  Just the ones who think I’m an idiot. You know, the ones who have been writing to me saying, “Dear Bernie, You just don’t get it.”

I started getting these love letters after my last piece about purists vs. realists, true-believers vs. those of us who want the most viable – read that as the most electable – conservative to win.

Be assured, purists, that we, like you, would rather see Christine O’Donnell win in Delaware than one more big-spending liberal who will vote "yes" on anything President Obama sends his way.  But unlike you true-believers, we understand that the kind of Republican who can win in Alabama or Missippi or Texas or Idaho, probably isn’t the kind who can win in Maine or Massachusetts or Delaware.

So listen up out there all of you who think I’m clueless (and think the same about Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer, while we’re on the subject):  We get it.  We’re not selling out our principles.  We believe in the things most fiscal conservatives believe in.  But we want to win.  So we can live with a few “moderate” Republicans, if that’s the price we have to pay for taking control of Congress.

We understand Jim DeMint when he says he’d rather have 30 conservatives with him in the Senate rather than 60 Republicans “who don’t have a set of beliefs.”  Can you say "Straw Man," Senator DeMint?   How about this, Senator, as a more realistic question:  Would you rather have 60 Republicans, most of whom are good conservatives with a few RINOs thrown in, or would you rather have 30 rock-solid conservatives and 70 liberal Democrats?

So, my purer than the driven snow friends, enough of your righteous indignation.  It's getting old.  You don’t have a monopoly on principle and you certainly don’t have a monopoly on political smarts. Let’s see what happens on November 2.  I hope the voters are so fed up with the Democrats that they’ll vote in every Republican on the ballot.  Yes, including the more colorful ones who who say really dumb things -- the kind of things that if a liberal Democrat had said them, you'd be calling him, or her, all sorts of nasty names.