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An Open Letter to All Conservatives
By Kevin Fobbs and Lisa Sarrach
February 4, 2004

It started last Fall with an interview in a New Hampshire newspaper with RNC chair Ed Gillespie. A quote taken out of context gave Rush Limbaugh grist for the mill that Conservatism reborn under Reagan, mastered with the takeover of Congress in 1994, and now in the hands of George W. Bush, has been dealt a death blow.

Education, Affirmative Action, Medicare, Immigration, Gay Marriage, Spending. The president is under attack from his base, traditional conservatives and evangelical Christians who are up-in-arms. A couple weeks ago in a front page story in the Washington Times, conservative groups were voicing their displeasure, promising a lot of griping at this week's C-PAC conference, a bastion of conservative activists, pundits, and conservative legislators. They are threatening to pull their financial support for the president's re-election. The fight has been joined.

We have a question. Are conservatives suffering from short-term memory loss? Did we learn nothing from the aftermath of the Reagan Revolution, when we failed to close the deal, the Contract for America, Impeachment? Does the word "overreaching" ring any bells? Conservatives all across this great land, please, pay attention. You're on the precipice of blowing it all over again.

There is only one thing more important to us than the re-election of George W. Bush, our children and our children's children. We need to continue the march back to morals, personal responsibility, and parental involvement. We need to stem the tide of depravity, promiscuity, and the marketing of sex to our kids that is washing over them from our TV screens, our schools, and our shopping catalogues. We have much work left to do and we need this president to have any chance at all.

This is our opportunity, once and for all, and for a generation to close the deal. Today, we have the House, the Senate, albeit just barely, and the White House. We have huge opportunities to shore up the Senate with a filibuster proof majority. We will be able to increase our margin in the House, and re-elect the president who has done more for our agenda than anyone. That includes what President Reagan accomplished during his first three years. A filibuster proof majority will break the log jam over the judicial nominees and start the process of remaking the Court and to start taking out some of these activist jurists, who are making new law on a daily basis.

The first real Education reform since Brown v Education. The first Medicare reform since its inception. The first step back from Roe v Wade since its inception. The first, second and third tax cuts since Reagan. Bringing Faith back to aid the helpless, homeless and abused. All this while keeping us safe after we were attacked and lost 3000 Americans, sending our economy and our world into a tailspin.

We challenge any disgruntled conservative to match this president's record with any Republican president in the first three years of a term. Any takers? We have been given the greatest of gifts in this president. The right man, in the right place, at the right time. We all said that after 9-11. We felt blessed to have a strong leader, a comforter in chief, someone who was going to take it to our enemies and not waiver.

Now at the beginning of this election year, we have a potential revolt. There are a lot of very smart people out there who appear to be misguided, with no long term vision. and are not seriously reflecting on the possible consequences of their actions. Our nation is under attack at this very moment, and it's not just from al Quaeda, but from the people who still haven't gotten over Florida in 2000. The same people who are making ads comparing the president to Hitler. The people who would prefer we give over our sovereignty to the U.N. That we give over our children to MTV and Britney Spears and Madonna. The people who are making "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," mainstream.

Wake up fellow conservatives. There is plenty to contest over after November of 2004. We'll be right there with you. Plenty of work to finish; plenty of futures to assure. Lots of legislation either to get enacted or to amend. We'll have many a substantive discussion and debate. We'll win some, we'll lose some. We'll fight the good fight. But we have to get there first in order to fight another day. We have to win, not just for our agenda, but also for the country, and our greatest resource, our children. Please don't lose the forest for the trees, again.

Sincerely,

Concerned Conservatives

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Kevin Fobbs is President, Lisa Sarrach is Vice President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic, and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. Visit their web site at www.NuPac.org.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.