Man Up!

 

— by retired State Senator H.L. “Bill” Richardson

— by retired State Senator H.L. “Bill” Richardson
 

Many believe the future of the Republican Party is riding on one issue and one issue alone. The question is — will the Republican leadership totally repeal ObamaCare? Many believe that if the Republican leadership blows this, then kiss your political future goodbye — not to mention our freedoms as well. You have the issue in your hands, the Republican numbers to implement repeal and public support just waiting for your leadership. The question is, do you have the will and the guts to stand up to the following: the back-biting Washington D.C. establishment, the Lenin-loving liberal media, and the choir of “moderate” RINO compromisers in your own party?

Or will you trot out the list of excuses, “Oh, we might get the votes to pass the repeal but Obama will veto the bill.” Or, “we don’t have bi-partisan support” or “the public likes some parts of socialized medicine.”

So what! The Republicans now control the bloody pulpit; now show us the guts the Democrats displayed in shoving ObamaCare down our throats.

The voting public spoke loud and clear, they didn’t elect Republicans so they could preen, kiss up and compromise with the “progressive” Lenin-lovers in the other aisle.

Do what’s right. Socialized medicine is evil. Keep your campaign promises. Be honorable men and women. Pass the repeal, put the ball in Obama’s court, make him veto the will of the people and then override his veto. That will take care of him in 2012.

Vetoes can be overridden, it’s been done in the past and it can be done again. It can be accomplished because it has been done under more difficult odds that you Republican leaders are facing today.

Consider an example from 1977. Both houses of the California legislature and the governorship were controlled by very liberal, very anti-death penalty Democrats. The governor, Jerry Brown, was even an activist against the death penalty when his father Pat Brown was governor. As governor, he publicly stated he would veto a death penalty bill if passed. [Just like Obama said he would veto any repeal of ObamaCare.]

Nobody thought it could be done. The press, the political pundits, academia, even the general public who wanted the death penalty were skeptical. How was it even possible that it could succeed? Certainly not in liberally minded California, where the Assembly liberal leadership held a 50 Democrat to 30 Republican advantage, and the Senate advantage was 24 Democrats to 16 Republicans.

Senator George Deukmejean introduced the death penalty bill, SB 155. It received mild attention by the media. I co-authored the bill and formed a political action committee named Law and Order Campaign Committee [LOCC]. Its purpose was to drum up public support for tougher laws and for the death penalty legislation. LOCC went directly to the public with direct mail in order to build support for SB155. The results were excellent. What funds received were quickly rolled over into new mail — time and time again this was repeated until tens of thousands of voters were reached and asked to sign a single petition and return it immediately to LOCC headquarters where their signatures would be personally shown to the legislators. Twenty-seven immense bags of mail containing close to 200,000 petitions were dramatically carried the floor of the Senate and Assembly.

With every subsequent mailing, direction was given on which specific legislators were to be contacted by phone, or which ones needed a personal contact. Pressure was directed at specific legislators’ offices, especially their district offices. The volume of calls jammed the district phone lines, causing great anguish to staffs in both their districts and at the capitol.

The death penalty bill began to attract wide public attention; even the press took notice — so, when we called for a press conference, the media showed up in droves. They had to — our direct mail had been so effective they had to report it.

To finish the story, the legislation passed both houses, Governor Brown vetoed the bill and we overrode his veto by the necessary two-thirds vote.

Liberal California had the death penalty once more.

If the Republicans in Congress fail to repeal ObamaCare they may well be committing political suicide while creating a third party in the process. Man up! What’s to compromise? Compromising with socialism is like compromising with cancer, even a little bit of it will eventually kill — aren’t we sick enough already? The future of America is in your Republican hands — man up!