Dan Calabrese So you support “true conservative” Christine O’Donnell over dastardly RINO Mike Castle in the Delaware Senate race, because you won’t be satisfied with a Republican majority. You want only real, rock-ribbed conservatives in the Republican caucus. And some day, because of your brave, principled stand, we will have a governing majority of conservatives running this country. That’s your plan, is it? Good luck. The ascension of such an ideologically monolithic governing majority is impossible. Not just here, but anywhere that has free elections. It will never happen. Delusion. That doesn’t mean key conservative priorities can’t be passed. But it can’t be done by electing only pre-approved ideological purists to office, because that can’t be done. Ask our allies. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has to cobble together a majority that includes the Labor Party in order to govern. In Great Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron would not be prime minister at all if he had not reached a deal with the Liberal Democrats to join his government. That’s because Cameron’s Tories didn’t win a majority of the seats in Parliament, and they had to find a coalition partner. Do you ever wonder why all this “cobbling together” is always going on around the world? Why these coalitions are necessary before parties in parliamentary systems can form governments? It’s because most countries are ideologically divergent, and their political parties even more so. That makes it almost impossible to elect a majority of legislators from one party. There is basically no such thing as a governing majority that hasn’t been cobbled together from among ideological groups who have fundamental differences, but, for the sake of governing, can find enough common ground to reach a deal and form a coalition. In the United States, where we have only two competitive political parties, one of the two always has a majority, but that doesn’t mean you have a governing majority of people who all think alike. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are home to a widely diverse group of ideological perspectives. As the Democrats have discovered since last year, you can have enormous majorities in both houses of Congress, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to just pass whatever you want, because a) your members have a wide variety of different points of view; and b) a lot of them come from districts that will turn them out of office if they go too far in supporting an ideological remaking of the country. That’s why we got ObamaCare, but haven’t gotten Cap and Trade or Card Check. We have Democratic majorities, but we don’t have a liberal governing majority. American conservatives, smelling the coming Republican monsoon in this year’s November elections, are not satisfied simply to see Republicans take control. They want only “true conservatives” with a rating of 98 or more from the American Conservative Union. And even if they nominate a “true conservative” who has almost no chance of winning the general direction, like Ms. O’Donnell in Delaware, that’s somehow better than electing a RINO like Castle because it will maintain the purity of the Republican caucus. It will also ensure that the Republican caucus remains in the minority – forever. It can advocate the right things forever. It will never achieve any of them. The last few presidential elections have shown us that America is a 40-20-40 country. About 40 percent of Americans will almost always vote Republican. About the same number will always vote Democratic. The other 20 percent decide the elections. So let’s consider the 40 percent who vote Republican. Of those, the vast majority are probably pretty conservative, but not all of them. Some of them don’t like the idea of a Democratic president, but aren’t opposed to electing a Democrat to the House or Senate, perhaps as a check on a potentially too-conservative president, or perhaps because they vote Republican mainly because of national security, and they don’t have to worry about their senator being commander in chief. Either way, you don’t have anywhere near 50 percent of the electorate embracing the mantle of so-called true conservatism. And in certain states – like Maine, Delaware or Massachusetts – you might have a shot at electing a Republican once in a blue moon. But it won’t be someone like Jim DeMint. It will be someone like Olympia Snowe or Scott Brown. Or Mike Castle. Now, this doesn’t sit well with you, because these RINO jerks don’t support your conservative agenda. Aside from voting with the Republican caucus for the purpose of organizing the chambers, what good are they? Well, that’s where you come in. Moderates, for the most part, go with public opinion. What are the biggest conservative priorities right now? Getting spending under control and repealing ObamaCare? Those would be my choices. So what you need to do, then, is create a political environment in which the likes of Snowe, Brown and Castle can’t help but vote for those things. Can that be done? Sure it can. But you have to get more of the nation – particularly that 20 percent who will always be independents – so see the wisdom of the conservative position. Then, the RINOs will support your agenda because you’ve turned it into a mainstream agenda. To my way of thinking, there is nothing radical about sharply reducing the size of government or even privatizing entitlements. I think it’s radical not to do these things, because when I look at the long-term costs of these programs, it scares the living daylights out of me. The larger general public might be getting there, but it’s not there yet. Conservatives, here’s your task: Bring the public along, and then all the RINOs will follow suit. You can’t build a governing majority without some RINOs, however much you may hate them, and however much Mark Levin tells you you’re a detestable sellout if you believe me. And you can’t govern without the consent of the American people, no matter how big your majority is. Ask President Obama about that. So no, defeating Castle in the primary and sending Christine O’Donnell to be slaughtered in the general is not a moral victory, nor is it a victory for principle. It’s no kind of victory at all. It’s your refusal to understand that governing majorities are always cobbled together, and successful governance follows when effective leaders get the people behind what needs to be done. Don’t worry. The RINOs will get on board. But a Democrat never would. Become Dan’s friend on Facebook . Become a fan of The North Star National on Facebook . Buy Dan’s novel, Powers and Principalities. To book Dan as a speaker, contact Lourdes Swarts at Speakers Access.

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Memo to conservative activists: A governing majority without RINOs is impossible