On first moving from left to right on retiring from the practice of law, I was quickly disabused of the idea that the right knew what it was doing; while it was clear that I shared their values, I was completely unimpressed with the manner in which they advanced those values. There was almost a complete lack of passion on the right, coupled with the fearful manner in which they approached even the most insignificant confrontations. My attention was first almost forcefully directed to this problem by the pathetic campaign that Bill Simon ran against Gray Davis in California’s 2002 gubernatorial election. Gray Davis was ripe for the picking, but Simon’s campaign couldn’t pull it off. As I wrote in the column that I did for a local newspaper at the time:

“This was clearly Simon’s race to lose -- not Davis’ to win -- and, through an unending demonstration of unrelenting stupidity, he managed to do just that.”

Romney’s loss may have been even more disturbing, for we had an almost inspiringly competent candidate against an incumbent with one of the worst first-term records imaginable, but, unfortunately, Romney, in his effort to not look like George Bush, just mailed it in.

Consultants don’t create the candidate’s values, they reflect them. That is, we get the consultants we both want and deserve. Why is that? Because the right doesn’t play to win; it plays not to lose. And, if you play not to lose, more often than not, you will lose, i.e. if you are on defense, you are losing, and the Republican Party is always on defense. Why? Because they are too fearful of confrontation – this, in sharp contrast to the Democrats, who thrive on confrontation (even though they have nothing other than character assassination with which to confront you). There is an old saying that comes to mind -- it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. The Republican dog is possessed of very little fight, and most of the time it is not even in the fight. This is quite disheartening to many of its supporters; I vote Republican out of default, not out of desire. The Republican Party is not the best game in town; it’s the only game in town.

Republicans just don’t get it; it’s not personal, it’s all about power, and they are in the way of the Democrat’s thirst to acquire it. As a consequence, they must be destroyed, and any means necessary to accomplish that objective is quite acceptable, no matter how dirty, dishonest, unethical, or even illegal (as long as they don’t get caught). Why don’t the Republicans get this simple and obvious truth? After all, the Dems have been practicing this politics-of-personal-destruction approach for the better part of the last 40 years -- ever since the McGovern campaign in 1972 when the party was taken over by its most radical elements.

Perhaps it goes back to the label which, it is alleged, that Samuel T. Francis hung on them, i.e. “There are two parties in Washington – the stupid party [the Republicans] and the evil party. Every once in a while the stupid party and the evil party get together and do something that is both stupid and evil. In Washington, that is called bipartisanship.”

Unfortunately, that is too often the case, but it still doesn’t explain why, after all these years, Republicans, with a center-right majority electorate, keep losing elections – unless the left screws up so badly that the electorate can see over the heads of a biased media what exactly is going on. One man has been trying for years to let the right know that politics is a street fight, and you engage in it with whatever tools are necessary to achieve victory -- that man is David Horowitz, an enlightened and unflinchingly courageous defender of America. In his latest book, Take No Prisoners, Horowitz provides a bible for the true believers of Democracy as to how to engage in political battle. For starters you don’t, as the saying goes, bring a knife to a gun fight. To say that the Republicans have been bringing a knife to this encounter is to flatter them; actually, they show up with a water pistol. If I sound harsh, it only modestly reflects my displeasure with the Republican Party. Our country faces an existential battle, and the Republicans are too scared to fight fire with fire. I find the left shameless and worthless; the right clueless and gutless. The Tea Party is the only entity that gives me hope for America’s future.