Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s brief opening video message may have been the most historically significant event of the first evening of the GOP midterm convention.
The Pennsylvania Senator’s hostility to the anti-Israel, anti-national security, anti-common sense elements that now dominate his party led him to contribute to this first-ever Republican event.
Fetterman’s talk was notable for three reasons.
First, he’s a Democrat from a key swing state who broke ranks with his own party — and spoke highly about and endorsed his Republican incumbent colleague Dave McCormick. Fetterman’s entire talk was only 64 seconds. It is worth watching.
The key moment was Fetterman’s explanation for why he was participating in the event and endorsing a Republican.
“Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I’m a commonsense Democrat. I’m always going to stand with America,” Fetterman said.
“I’m always going to reject the extremes, and socialism, and that anti-American way of life. Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done. And he’s going to fight for Pennsylvania.”
Fetterman’s bold statement gives every Republican a Democrat he or she can quote to prove this rejection of socialism is not a solely partisan view. Furthermore, Fetterman’s embrace of Sen. McCormick is a good example of bipartisanship and the potential to build a new coalition around commonsense conservative values, free enterprise, and national security.
Fetterman’s appearance is part of a 42-year tradition which includes former Sen. Zell Miller, who endorsed President George W. Bush in 2004, and Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s endorsement of President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
All three explained their decisions to reject the Democrats and endorse Republicans as a belief that country and principle take precedence over party line loyalty.
Ambassador Kirkpatrick was a brilliant intellectual who had been a major adviser to Sen. Hubert Humphrey. She was dismayed and then alienated by the anti-war Democrats, the weakness of President Jimmy Carter, and the inability of the left to oppose communism or understand how it threatened their lives. She emphasized in her convention speech that she was a lifelong Democrat and she would remain one. But first, she characterized the emerging party of former Vice President Walter Mondale as “San Francisco Democrats.” She went on in a powerful repetitive drumbeat of specific examples of the Democrats’ destructive behaviors and saying, “But then, they always blame America first.”
This notion of blaming America first became one of the definitive patterns of big government socialism and the radical left. You see it every day in Democratic rhetoric and analysis — including some Democrats who have blamed America’s own policies for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
I knew Miller since he was a young state senator in 1964. He was always a staunch conservative Democrat. He was deeply shaped by the Marine Corps and wrote a book: “Corps Values: Everything You Need to Know I Learned in the Marine Corps,” which published in 1996. As governor of Georgia, he lived in Atlanta. He told me once that he assumed I exaggerated about how bad the Senate Democrats were in Washington. After a couple of years in D.C., he invited me to breakfast to apologize. Miller had concluded the Democrats were actually worse than I had described.
He got so frustrated he wrote a book defining the limits of his commitment to the Democratic Party: “A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat.”
When Miller endorsed President Bush, he spent a large part of his speech emphasizing how far the Democrats had come from the strong national security positions of Presidents Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. In a theme that many Democrats have found useful, Miller asked: “What has happened to the Party I’ve spent my life working in?”
Miller took his party’s nominee and just went after him. Over more than two decades, he said, Sen. John Kerry had become “more wrong, more weak, and more wobbly.” Miller explained his own clear personal political structure. First came his family, then the United States and its security. Only after those were satisfied would Miller consider partisan issues.
The role of weakness in national security, confusion about who America’s friends and enemies are, and hostility toward the military and police forces we need to be safe all came together and drove these Democrats to endorse Republicans.
As people learn more about the big government socialists and their allies, there will be more Fettermans, Millers, and Kirkpatricks supporting the GOP as America’s party.
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