GOP values pass test

Scott Brown’s Senate victory may help revive interest in the Republican Party in the Bay State.

By Kerry J. Byrne / As You Were Saying . . .
Saturday, January 30, 2010

The modern Democratic Party has rejected these bedrock American values. Maybe it’s time for the Bay State’s lifelong Democrats to finally reject the party that no longer represents them.

So you’re a Bay State voter weaned on the mother’s milk of Democratic Party orthodoxy of the past half century. You’ve faithfully pulled levers for Democrats in one election after the other to the point that before Scott Brown, Massachusetts had sent no GOP senator to Washington since 1972.

So now you’re torn. You know that Democrats abandoned you and your values long ago with their crushing taxes on families, their over-regulation of small business and their reckless race toward Big Brother-style socialism. And you agreed with Brown’s common sense bedrock-American platform: small government, low taxes, strong military.

But you were trained from childhood to think of “Republican” as a dirty word (shocking, considering that Republicans liberated the slaves, gave women the right to vote and pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress - but I digress). This Bay State mindset is why Brown ran as an “independent voice” instead of a Republican, despite peddling a fiscally conservative platform.

So you’re not ready to make the leap. You’re not ready to admit that (gasp!) you might be a Republican. Well, I’m here to help. Consider my “You Might Be a Republican” quiz. Here goes:

If you’re sick of being overwhelmed by an endless wave of local, state and federal taxes, you might be a Republican.

If you want your children’s schools run by local parents and local administrators instead of distant bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., you might be a Republican.

If you prefer a strong American military to a weak American military, you might be a Republican.

If you believe strong, stable families are the building blocks of a strong, stable society, you might be a Republican.

If you want your tax dollars to pay for our military to kill terrorists and not pay for lawyers to defend terrorists, you might be a Republican.

If you favor individual charity and volunteerism over corrupt government handouts, you might be a Republican.

If you want the government to live within its financial means, much like your family must do, you might be a Republican.

If you think it’s OK to say “Merry Christmas” to people around, you know, Christmastime, you might be a Republican.

If you believe you have the right to defend your home and your family from criminal intruders, you might be a Republican.

If you resent bureaucratic do-gooders in D.C. telling you how to raise your family, you might be a Republican.

If you admire the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people, and reject the belief that growth comes from Washington’s largesse, you might be a Republican.

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