This past Saturday, Mar. 8, there was a special election in Illinois to fill a vacancy in the House of Representatives for the Fourteenth Congressional District that was left empty by the retirement of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. A Democrat was able to win the seat in what should have been a safe election for most any Republican candidate. Many commentators, especially Republican activists, have tried to cite local concerns as the reason for this upset, but the problem for Republicans throughout the country lies much deeper.

President George W. Bush has done a poor job in his seven years in office. He ran as a compassionate conservative, and yet he has performed less than compassionately and less than conservatively in executing the duties of the office entrusted to him by the American people. His presidency has been dominated by a disastrous war to remake the Middle East in the image of America. Despite massive Republican gains in 2004, President Bush failed to capitalize on the opportunity to enact any legislation that would have helped restore America to her Constitutional roots and the values of our devoted forefathers.

President Bush has only helped to further many causes championed by his political adversaries, and he has done so without even winning their gratitude. On the economic front, he expanded federal involvement in education and health care. On the moral values front, he failed to substantially address any of the issues that would help shore up the collapsing integrity of the American family. On the foreign policy front, President Bush altered the traditional conservative stance to remain apart from conflicts that are not directly related to the national interest.

President Bush cannot be distinguished from the politics of the Democratic Party in these areas. It is in precisely these same areas that the apparent Republican nominee for President in 2008, Sen. John McCain, lacks credibility. The lack of a conservative vision is that much more acute with Sen. McCain. Sen. McCain has displayed over and over again with his votes and his posturing that he has no interest in a conservative vision for America. Even in areas where President Bush was vainly advocating for a conservative position, Sen. McCain resisted going along with him.

Sen. McCain fought against President Bush’s temporary across-the-board marginal tax reductions, he helped throw a wrench into Bush’s attempt to nominate conservative judges, and he advocated for a campaign finance law aimed at curtailing freedom of speech during election seasons. Sen. McCain has been a leading advocate for an insecure immigration policy and outdoes President Bush in his proposed war policy in the Middle East.

Conservatives may agree with all of these arguments, but relent and propose that Sen. McCain would be far better than Sens. Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. This may be true on a policy level, as the positions of Obama and Clinton are far from conservative, but, on a strategic level, considering the choices remaining, their potential presence in the White House would be far more beneficial for conservatives.

The reason for this logic is simple. A President McCain will divide conservatives along the lines of party loyalty versus philosophical loyalty. Conservatives will feel pressured to back the policies of President McCain because he is their party’s standard bearer. This will be harmful if President McCain is proposing policies that are left-of-center, including a national health care plan or a weak immigration policy.

A President Obama or President Clinton will leave intact the opposition of Republicans in Congress. A conservative will not be pressured to vote for President Obama’s health care plan or immigration policy. If events work out poorly in the first two years of a Democratic presidency, there may be an opportunity for conservatives to win a majority in one or both houses of Congress.

This situation is truly not ideal for conservative voters. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle warned that governments can be overturned when a large number of high-spirited people are excluded from the governing class. This is all the more so the case when the excluded class is comprised of a remnant faithful to the ideals of our ancestors. This is not to say that the American government is about to be overturned, but that in the long run it is not prudent to marginalize such a large segment of the American body politic.

What counts most in the end is not that there are conservatives in government, but rather whether our leaders are loyal to the law of God and the principles of our forefathers. The law of God teaches what is right to produce the harmony of man with God and of man with man. The principles of our forefathers teach the practical ways that the Law can be implemented in a constitutional republic such as that which we cherish in America. It is far more important that our leaders bind themselves to the instruction of God, as it is the only safe and true way to produce justice and harmony throughout the land.

Eric Magazu is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].