Immediately after the Family Heritage Alliance publicly endorsed Mike Rounds for U.S. Senate, I briefly shared the gist of what I am about to say with Dale Bartscher, but I felt it important that since the entire FHA board backed this decision, the entire FHA board should hear this directly and completely.
Since the Family Heritage Alliance was formed nearly four years ago, I have been a moral and financial supporter.
However, your recent public endorsement of Mike Rounds for U.S. Senate has caused me to seriously rethink that support.
Mike Rounds was many months ago chosen and purchased with over $2.5 million by a political establishment which is pretty much as morally and intellectually deficient as the one wielded by the Democrats. He was forced on rank and file Republicans with the influence of heavyweight endorsements and massive amounts of money; all that was left at that point was to wait for the low-information electorate to obediently complete the formality in the primary. As is so often the case, the money and the hype accomplished the goal, and the deal was done on June 3.
Or so the establishment hoped.
Unlike most elections, this time around, conservatives still have a choice even after the primary is done. That is, unless conservatives are going to choose to dutifully do as they are told, just as the low-information crowd does.
At a minimum, if FHA didn’t like any of the other candidates for U.S. Senate, or if FHA thought a candidate more dedicated to conservative Christian values could not win, you could have simply said nothing at all about the race. Yet you deliberately chose to endorse a man with a record of fecklessness and betrayal.
When I heard the word “principle” in the endorsement of Mike Rounds, I was frankly astonished. Why? Because Mike Rounds has clearly told us with his words that he is a “pragmatist,” not a man of principle. What’s more, he has clearly demonstrated this repeatedly with his actions.
Consider his record:
– Mike Rounds vetoed South Dakota’s first abortion ban in 2004, sending the message to the opposition that the pro-life community was divided and lacked resolve to save lives.
– After he grudgingly signed the second abortion ban the South Dakota Legislature sent to him, he was nowhere to be found while the rest of the pro-life community in South Dakota worked tirelessly for its passage.
– Mike Rounds voted against an abortion parental notification bill while in the South Dakota Legislature.
– In 2007, Mike Rounds made human papillomavirus (HPV) sexually-transmitted disease vaccinations–a risky, rushed-to-market drug falsely marketed as a panacea for cervical cancer and the HPV sexually-transmitted disease–available to girls 11-18 at $9.2 million taxpayer expense. We don’t need dangerous vaccinations at taxpayer expense to protect against that which responsibility can protect cheaper and more reliably, especially when doing so may actually undermine sexual responsibility.
– Mike Rounds continues to support the EB-5 foreign investor visa program, despite taxpayer losses and a suspicious death surrounding this scheme which is fraught with bankruptcy, national security concerns and “crony capitalism.”
– It is well known that Mike Rounds has met few taxes he didn’t like, and has refused to promise not to vote for tax increases. He received a 56% Cato Institute rating on taxes, and a 41% rating on spending from Cato. Several Democrat governors have better scores.
– Mike Rounds increased the size of government while the chief executive of South Dakota
– Mike Rounds pushed for a minimum wage increase in 2007, a socialist tool that meddles with the free market and causes economic problems for businesses and workers.
– Mike Rounds supported the unconstitutional government health care program SCHIP, and called for more funding for the program.
– Mike Rounds supported government health care structures through Zaniya Project promotion of statist “solutions” that even its own research found unnecessary.
– Mike Rounds supported an ObamaCare-style health care exchange bill (HB 1166 in 2007), and an ObamaCare-style mandate bill (SB 131 in 2007). It’s little wonder that, other than empty words, he would be AWOL in the fight against ObamaCare.
– While claiming to be opposed to ObamaCare, when ObamaCare was freshly passed, Governor Mike Rounds sent his minion to the legislature with instructions to kill the anti-ObamaCare Health Care Freedom Act. This was done at a time when the states critically needed to send a message of rejection of ObamaCare to Washington.
– Mike Rounds attended a meeting with President Obama that was intended to “polish” the sale of ObamaCare to the American people, to make this unconstitutional and tyrannical legislation seem more palatable.
– Mike Rounds served on a government health care task force with former Democrat Senator Tom Daschle, one of the architects of ObamaCare and other socialized health care schemes.
– Mike Rounds opposed the efforts of Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Mike Lee and others to defund ObamaCare last year. The last time I checked, “opposition” to something involved more than just saying you are opposed…or even opposing those who oppose what you CLAIM to oppose.
And of course, Mike Rounds has excuses for why he has been on the wrong side of so many issues. But then, feckless people usually do. However, discerning people don’t have to buy the excuses.
I have to ask you: why in the world should Christians and conservatives give a pass to someone with an “R” after their name, when we would condemn a “D” for doing the same thing? Are we really so desperate for an illusion of victory that we will stoop to hypocrisy?
Your public endorsement of Mike Rounds has seriously damaged the integrity and credibility of your organization. You have aligned yourself with a pathetic record, and if he is elected, your endorsement will continue to associate you with the betrayals of conservative values that are sure to continue.
While none of us are perfect, if Mike Rounds is what “conservative” means today, then our state and nation are in even more dire trouble than most of us ever realized.
My friends, Mike Rounds’ actions are not the actions of a conservative. These are the actions of someone who likes to enjoy the accolades and benefits of aligning themselves with conservatism, without actually doing the heavy lifting of being conservative.
As discerning Christians, we are to judge not on words and illusions, but on fruits. Mike Rounds does not bear the fruit of a reliable conservative who will defend the truth, especially not in a culture that has become hostile toward the truth.
Why in the world would you believe anything that is said by a man who claims to be pro-life, yet vetoed South Dakota’s first attempt to end abortion in our state and only grudgingly signed a second bill when the legislature forced it on him a second time, and was largely absent during the defense of that legislation?
Why in the world would you believe anything said by a man who claims he wants to rein in and shrink government in Washington DC, when here in his own state he expanded government, left the state with a $127 million structural deficit, and never met a tax or fee that he didn’t like?
Why in the world would you believe anything said by man who claims to support family values and faith in the public square, when his surrogates and sycophants viciously attack conservatives and Christians as “kooks,” “extremists,” “fringe,” “divisive,” “superstitious,” “racists,” bigots,” “haters,” “nut jobs,” “wingnuts,” and a string of vile words that I won’t begin to catalog here? Though he carefully guards his “Mr. Nice Guy” persona, can the apples really fall that far from the tree?
Why in the world would you align your organization with a spineless squish who has repeatedly betrayed conservative and Christian priorities, especially when there is a candidate in the race who is unapologetic about supporting the values you claim to champion?
Could it be because you perceive the better candidate to only have a slim chance of victory in the general election? If we chose sides based on the perceived chances of victory, then the American Revolution would have died in the womb and all the freedom and prosperity we enjoy today never would have come to fruition.
Knowing that at least some of you understood beforehand Rounds’ fecklessness and betrayals of conservative and Christian principles, I can only conclude that you have openly embraced this squish for one reason: to maintain access to the halls of power in a “Republican” controlled state and political establishment.
Did Christ seek access to “that fox,” or did he stick by what is right? Did Christ embrace the snakes, vipers, and whitewashed tombs of his day as “the lesser of two evils,” or did he stand on principle?
As long as we allow a corrupt establishment to fear-monger us into backing feeble candidates who will sell out our values for political expediency, we will continue to be their powerless lapdogs. “Access politics”, while sometimes useful, is ineffective with intransigent pragmatists who have no respect for you and view you as their obedient lapdog. As Ronald Reagan once said, sometimes in order to get them to see the light, you must first get them to feel the heat. Obedient lapdogs leverage no heat.
God has not given his people a spirit of fear, and we should not be among those who shrink back from the truth. As long as we conservatives and Christians continue to obediently reward with our support those hypocrites in our midst who make a mockery of the values we hold dear with their “pragmatism” and betrayal, our great nation will continue its slide into corruption and oblivion.
To stop this slide, we must cease rewarding “the lesser of two evils.” We must clearly come down on the best side of what is right and stop behaving “pragmatically.”
A candidate who cannot be relied on to do the right thing might possibly be worth our grudging and desperate vote, if there is no better alternative available, but they are definitely not worthy of our public endorsement and support.
I realize it is unlikely that you will rethink and rescind your endorsement of Mike Rounds at this point, though I certainly hope that you will, since our ailing country will not be saved by electing weak nest-featherers like Mike Rounds. Only bold leadership can pull our nation back from its self-destructive course, and Mike Rounds is no leader–as his record illustrates, he isn’t even a good follower of the right path.
However, if you insist on continuing to back him, I hope you’ll remember what you’ve done when, if he gets elected, Mike Rounds takes a pass on, surrenders on, or joins the other side in opposing your stated values. And I hope you’ll remember it when he lets you down a second time….and a third….and a fourth…and….
*** Bob Ellis *** Is a conservative writer and Life and Liberty News contributor
More commentary from Bob Ellis can be seen daily on the American Clarion
