In a news story running this morning, former Missouri GOP Sen. John Danforth is hoping to take the Republican Party back from the religious right. The report, which is headlined “Ex-senator wants to save GOP from itself,” misses the point. The GOP does not need to be saved from its conservative base. What it needs to be saved from is its leadership which has driven the base to apathy.

The news story goes on to note that Danforth feels energy is “wasted” debating issues like gay marriage and also “diverts attention from important matters like the budget that are the proper province of government.”

The Christian Science Monitor, which served as host to the Wednesday breakfast in which Danforth made his comments, quotes the former senator as saying, “I am not going to give up on my party. I just want it to get back to its moorings … I just want them to disengage themselves from the Christian right.”

In another similar attack, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), blasted religious conservative leaders such as Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.

“The national representatives of the social conservative movement used to be sophisticated and tolerant. Today, they are sophomoric and angry. It’s an embarrassing spectacle seeing leaders bullied around by the likes of James Dobson, or watching the Christian Coalition team up with MoveOn.org in support of bigger government.”

Now is not the time to be blasting the very people whom the Republican Party is counting on for votes this November. Republican leaders should be reaching out to their constituents, not trying to alienate them.

As a Christian, I appreciate the Republican Party’s attention to issues such as protecting innocent human life. I see these issues as a core part of our platform. To blast conservative leaders for putting these issues at the forefront is not only bad for the Party, it is bad politics this close to the election.

Liberty Letters Comment: So goes an editorial by Bobby Eberle at GOPUSA this morning - but another indication of Republican Party betrayal of its founding principles, yet another reason why we either need to more fully assert ourselves within the party, cleaning house of these unprincipled budget only guys (who, by the way, are every bit as liberal or more when it comes to 'growing' Washington and centralizing power there and at the U.N.), or open the door for a legitimate third party.

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