(by Tim Ewing, Publisher, Rare Jewel Magazine)

On the heels of Election 2004 let us take a peek at what party politics could look like just a few years from now.

I believe we are on the cusp of major Party realignments, the likes of which have not been seen since early American parties like the Federalists, Whigs, and Free-Soilers dissolved into irrelevancy and oblivion, until the Republican Party ultimately emerged from their ashes. Founded in 1854, two years later the new party fielded its first presidential candidate, and four years subsequent elected Abraham Lincoln.

Following is a rather blunt assessment of where we stand with the current two-party political system and the role that Christian Patriots can play in restoring our nation's Christian foundation. This commentary is intended to stimulate your thinking and stir you to response... please email us your reactions and comments.

Democrat Party:

Especially since the years of FDR and the New Deal, the Democrat Party has favored big-government policy and expanded public programs to eliminate all pain and suffering of our citizens. These "feel good" politics sell very well to the general populace which somehow doesn't recognize that this lurch toward socialism is in the long run only a boon for elite power-brokers who desire to control the purse strings of our country, unconcerned that their actions consign America to the ash heap of history as an economic has-been.

At the hands of such Marxist machinations, America will become the land of mediocrity. The game plan for the Elites is to create an economy where more than 50 per cent of our citizenry substantially are dependent on government handouts... ensuring that the Elites who promise the most handouts will remain in power (as we will see below, the Republican Party has now adopted this same strategy for holding power).

A dramatic change has occurred in recent decades to the Democrat social platform. The party has been hijacked by those who promote abortion on demand, the homosexual agenda, the elimination of Christian influence on public policy, and the extended reach of the State--instead of parents--as the chief authority over America's children.

The "feel good" fiscal and economic policies of the Democrat Party have been expanded to include "if it feels good, do it" social policies. In the name of tolerance and a misguided understanding of freedom, the Democrat Party leaders will continue to devolve the law of our land and the sacred institution of the family toward the lowest common denominators--in attempts to make everybody happy... creating a culture where "everything goes."

Election 2004 should have sent a clear signal to Democrat Party leaders--that America's historical Christian values DO matter, and as long as this party continues to embrace immoral public policy, at the same time morphing our Christian nation into a secular State, the Democrat's influence on America's future will continue to shrink.

Prediction: Value Voters who, for various reasons, nevertheless voted for Kerry in 2004, will vote Republican in 2008 because the Democrat Party will choose a candidate even more liberal than Kerry. The Democrat Party will continue to stake out extreme liberal ground on social and economic/fiscal policy, and will become very bold (yet cunningly deceptive) about its push for making the United States subordinate to a World "government" such as the United Nations--all in the name of Peace and Tolerance within the world community.

Republican Party:

In 1994 the Republican Party took control of both Houses of Congress in dramatic fashion, trumpeting the "Contract with America" that many Republicans trusted them to fulfill. But the GOP has abandoned the platform (a call for limited government) that put them in power and has instead adopted the strategy of the Democrats to build an ever-expanding government in order to win votes and stay in power. Republicans have fallen to the temptation that the only way to remain in power is by promoting the "feel good" economic platform of the Democrats.

And it worked, Republicans controlled Congress for the following decade; Election 2004 increased their majorities for at least the following two years. This came, unfortunately, at the price of severely damaging America's financial health in the process.

Under the Republicans, the national debt grew larger than ever, and at a faster rate than ever. In an exquisite coincidence of timing, mere weeks after winning Election 2004, the GOP Congress enacted an emergency law to raise the legally mandated debt-ceiling... once again. When Bush came into office, the ceiling was just over $6 trillion; four years later it topped $8 trillion. Yes, a war has an effect, but most nations cut other spending, even if it hurts, in order to finance wars. Why do our "leaders" bother to pass spending-control laws when they blithely, routinely, almost happily bypass those laws? This is leadership?

Christian Patriots are guided by moral and social concerns, but we are motivated no less by the Founding Fathers' vision for a very limited Federal Government. On economic and fiscal issues, differences between the two major parties evaporated. Both Bush and Kerry enthusiastically campaigned on big plans for dramatically expanding government spending... healthcare, education, security, and more. They seemed determined to top each in the number of, and totals for, extravagant programs and promises. President Bush could not keep all his promises while shrinking the size of our federal bureaucracy--hence the preemptive move to raise the debt ceiling (again, sheepishly after the election). Democrats wag fingers of accusation at Republicans' atrocious spending record, but they simply grasp at anything potentially critical of Republicans. Had the Democrats been in power, they too would have spent like crazy.

Today, the primary difference between Democrat and Republican Parties is the social platform. Values Voters grew to predominantly support the Republican Platform; according to Barna Research, in 2004, Evangelical voters supported President Bush by a margin of 85% to 15% over Kerry.

However, the Republican Party has a history of taking Christian Patriots for granted, most recently evidenced by its showcase of pro-abortion and gay "marriage" advocates who spoke prime-time at the Republican National Convention in August. President Bush also failed to take a bold stand against abortion during the televised presidential debates. He danced as if on egg shells when asked whether he thought Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Then, just a few days before the 2004 election, President Bush told Charles Gibson on ABC television that he personally favors civil unions for same-sex couples... which is simply marriage by another name.

Why did President Bush put his full support behind the social-liberal Senator Arlen Specter rather than the conservative Pat Toomey in the 2004 Republican Primary in Pennsylvania? Specter, advocate of partial-birth abortions and much else, has long promoted infanticide; we should be less angry, perhaps, at Specter himself, and direct our ire at his enablers. Certainly President Bush and his advisors knew that a struggle over the role of the courts and the quality of judges was inevitable--Specter was in line to head the Senate Judiciary Committee. The blood on Specter's hands from the virtual assassination of Robert H Bork--who surely would have been one of American history's great jurists, a strict constructionist who respects human life and Christian morality--has not been expunged, or even regretted, by Chairman Specter.

It is no surprise, then, in the face of widespread outrage over Specter's elevation to the chairmanship, that President Bush was completely silent. That silence extends to the fact that Bush has yet to stake out a position for the next four years on any of the Values issues in light of the "mandate" he received on November 2 (see "Two Americas" in the November 11th issue of Rare Jewel Insight).

The Republican Party's attempt to become the "Big Tent" Party will result in a party that stands for everything while losing its ability to stand for something.

The Republican party's complicity in Specter's elevation will be a watershed event in its history. The move away from the Republican Party by Christian Patriots will begin, signaling the downfall of the Republican Party and the rise of a third major party.

Prediction: Republican Party leaders will largely ignore the reality of the social and fiscal concerns of Values Voters, and continue to take those voters for granted. But this time it will cost the GOP. Christian Patriots will "walk by faith and not by sight" as they take their votes out of the Republican Party and either "stay home" or support candidates who put core values, consistent with our nation's Christian foundation, ahead of political expediency.

This will come at the risk of causing a Democratic presidential candidate to win, such as what occurred when Ross Perot took enough conservative votes away from President George H W Bush to put Bill Clinton into office. And there are, frankly, many similar examples--with "happy endings"--in American political history. F Clifton White and other conservatives were willing to accept the inevitable as Barry Goldwater famously lost in a landslide against Lyndon B Johnson... only to wrest control, and mold the future generations of, the Republican Party.

This time, the Republican Party will split, but yet remain a major party only because it will pick up social moderates who are big-government supporters for whom the excesses of the radical Democrat Party are repugnant.

A Viable Third Party?

Should Republican leadership fail to rightly discern and respond to the moral mandate of the 2004 election, then millions of Christian Patriots will unfortunately sit on the sidelines in 2008--some will look to new leadership, perhaps in the form of a third party.

In the 2004 presidential election, Constitution Party candidate Michael Peroutka garnered more than 130,000 votes... an increase 30 per cent-plus higher than the party's candidate in 2000. The Constitution Party--which is patriotic, traditionalist, pro-life, anti-big government--is positioned to grow by leaps and bounds, given the mass exodus of Values Voters from the Republican Party.

Prediction: In 2008 the Constitution Party presidential candidate will receive more than 1-million votes. By 2012 it will have a legitimate chance to win the presidency.