Longtime Libertarian Republican from California stays in the GOP, inspired by Sarah Palin

by Adam J. Bernay

I was just getting ready to leave politics. My hand was on doorknob, it was starting to turn. I had felt in my gut, it was time to go. Time to make like a newborn and head out, as my brother (the paramedic and Army medic) would say.

I have grown more and more disgusted with the Republican Party over the past four to six years. I was all for them in 2001 and 2002; I saw a group of national and state Republicans who really seemed ready to lead us away from big government, towards energy independence, and more generally in a self-reliant direction. Sure, George W. Bush has campaigned on a taxpayer-funded prescription plan for Medicare, but there was a lot of good stuff he’d campaigned on as well.

In 2003, I started seeing a change, and not for the better. California Republicans – for the most part – supported Arnold Schwarzenegger over State Senator Tom McClintock in a post-recall gubernatorial election we had in the bag. We should’ve taken the opportunity to put a guy who really matched our values, and saved the big guns of Schwarzenegger to take out Barbara Boxer in 2004. I told the CRP leadership this in 2003, and I was ignored. (Although frankly, who can blame them? They were star-struck and I was some punk twenty-eight-year-old County Committee member.)

On the national scene, we had started seeing non-defense spending binges not seen since the hey-days of LBJ and “The Great Society,” along with the creation of a massive federal police organization (with much potential for police-state-style abuses) in the Department of Homeland Security and the ridiculous supposedly “non-law-enforcement” Transportation Security Administration taking jobs that weren’t and didn’t need to be governmental and making them federally-hired union employees. The GOP was becoming Democrat Lite – all the great taste of Democrats, but less filling, and with two $300 tax rebates! (Which, I keep pointing out, ain’t the same thing as a tax cut.)

So, in this election cycle, as I saw the circular firing squad take out decent candidates, bad candidates, and party unity; as I saw Bob Barr become The Guy and then The Nominee in the Libertarian Party; and I saw more and more big government rhetoric coming out of party leaders like Mike Huckabee… well, I was about to quote Reagan: “I didn’t leave the party; the party left me.” I was about to re-register Libertarian Party; I had already been openly declaring support for Bob Barr.

And I know I am not alone. I have spoken to many disaffected Republicans and former Republicans who have been saying the exact same things, these past few weeks and months.

Then came the news last Friday morning that liberartarian-leaning Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was going to become McCain’s vice presidential nominee, and I stopped. And I watched. Their speeches that morning, and the speeches that followed, first in Pennsylvania, and then yesterday in Missouri, were brilliant, and they made me pause in my planned bolt out the door to the Libertarian Party. Pause, mind you. Not stop. The Republican Party basically has one week to stop me and bring me back. Though, So far, so good.

If the Republican National Convention shows me – from the speeches, from the platform, from the general miasma – that the party is ready, on a national level, to be the Republican Party again, then I will give it one more shot at keeping me around long-term.

I think it is that way for a lot of us. Our hand is on the doorknob. We are ready to walk out and become independents or capital-L Libertarians or capital-C Constitutionalists or capital-R Reformers. You have one shot at keeping us around, GOP, and even invigorating us to be proud Republicans again. Try not to blow it.

Note - Adam Bernay is a longtime Libertarian Republican activist, dating back to the mid-1990s. He has been involved with the Republican Liberty Caucus, particularly in California, in numerous capacities, since about that time. He also serves as a GOP Precinct Committeeman in Fresno. Mr. Bernay is also a certified practicing Rabbi of the Messianic Jewish Faith.