What Is a Conservative?

 

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

I have just arrived home following an almost 5-hour drive across a few miles of Kansas and nearly three hundreds miles of Missouri.  Rosie slept through much of the drive, and while I would have liked to have slept also, I forced myself to stay awake by constantly adjusting the air-conditioning, slamming down unsweet iced teas, and listening to the radio.  Both of the states that I was in today will be having their primary elections this coming Tuesday, so there was an abundance of radio airtime used for playing last-minute political advertisements.   Nearly all of the ads that I heard today were promoting Republican candidates, and since Tuesday will be "primary" (intra-party) elections, a preponderance of the advertisements featured Republicans attacking other Republicans - something that was easy for me to enjoy!

One message that I heard repeated at least four times by four different Republicans  - across various locations and radio markets - had to do with what it means to be a conservative.  The four ads were almost identical, leading me to suspect that the message had been cranked out and distributed to candidates from a higher echelon - GOPpers at the state or national level.

In each of the ads the candidate would speak directly to the listening audience in a serious voice and say, "I am a real conservative.  I am pro-life and I support Second Amendment rights."  Those two things appear to be the basic criteria for regarding oneself as a conservative, but I am guessing that being white and Christian are both such obvious requirements for being a conservative, that they don't even need mentioning.

Of course being "pro-life" and supporting gun "rights" are incongruent and illogical, but logic does not weigh heavily on the conscience of a conservative.  (Apologies to the late Barry Goldwater!)

Three of the candidates whom I heard spouting their conservative bonafides sounded like older men, and the fourth was an angry young woman.  She wanted the world to know that she had never run for office before - and therefore was not a "politician," but she was running for The Missouri State Senate because the incumbent from her district had voted for some monetary support to Planned Parenthood - and that enraged her!  Yeah, running for office in order to defund a major provider of women's healthcare certainly sounds like a bold "pro-life" move!

Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote!