Could Reagan Survive A GOP Primary Today?

Hypothetically, if Ronald Reagan were running for president in 2012 he would have a difficult time winning the GOP primary given the current Republican base's penchant for destroying its most viable candidates. After all, he was divorced, a former Democrat, a former actor, the oldest candidate but he had once made statements condemning Medicare which would have lost him the senior vote.

Reagan's 11th commandment was Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican should have been heeded in the GOP debates but it wasn't and the knives are out for Texas Gov. Rick Perry who entered the 2012 race as a front runner. After the third debate, articles began to appear suggesting that Perry is "toast" because his performance at the debates was deemed weak on immigration and his executive mandate on an HPV vaccine which was never implemented.

What would have been preferable would have been for all the candidates to furnish their own proposals for recovery and to focus on their common opponent - President Obama. Only Newt Gingrich recognized the danger of the party disemboweling itself with ill-informed allegations and falling into a trap set by the media elite.

The mainstream media has the tea party candidates in their crosshairs and deliberately identify the grassroots movement as an extreme right wing element which it is not. Forgetting or ignoring the impetus for the tea party in 2009 is what may lead the party to another defeat next year. It was not immigration that drove Americans to take to the streets and rally for reform. It was the magnitude of the government spending and overregulation that has pushed our great nation to the brink of bankruptcy and high unemployment. It was creeping socialism and a government takeover of our lives that prompted the rise of the people along with a disregard for our national security and it is those issues that need to be dealt with in the debates rather than furnishing Obama with ammunition to use on whoever wins the GOP nomination.

In 2008, the strongest candidates that could have won the election by the strength of their experience and vision fell by the wayside and the media selected one of their favorites John McCain as the GOP candidate. McCain never went after Barack Obama the way a Rudy Giuliani or a Fred Thompson would have and way too many single-minded Republicans stayed home rather than vote for the RINO McCain.

The Republican menu of candidates this year is quite formidable with several excellent choices for the party and yet I can see it crumbling because of stubbornness, ego and stupidity. With strong support from all Republicans anyone from this crop can defeat Obama but it will take full cooperation and a realistic look at who the adversary really is.

In a 2007 column delineating the divide among Republicans and titled, "How the GOP Lost Its Way", Craig Shelley wrote in the Washington Post, "Reagan argued that it was our government's duty to 'humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship.' Reagan was pro-legal immigration, pro-patriotic assimilation and in step with other populist conservatives."

No matter what some have surmised about Rick Perry, I believe that all the candidates share that same Reagan principle. Different states have different problems and what Perry did in Texas by allowing tuition for the children of illegals was the same as what Mike Huckabee, a conservative favorite, did in Arkansas. The Washington Post columnist Glenn Kessler wrote in 2007 about Huckabee trying to rewrite his Arkansas record: "In January 2005, Huckabee proposed making 'any student graduating from a high school in Arkansas' eligible for state financial aid. He said it was 'terribly unjust' to deny such aid solely on the basis of the student's immigration status, 'a status that he had no decision in and no control over.'" Yet while running for government in 2007, he denied that this was his policy. It is interesting that Gov. Perry did not try to do so in the debate which is I believe an affirmative sign of his character.

Kevin McCullough of Fox News wrote a column last week (Perry's Rivals Are Telling Untruths About the Governor and Immigration) which said about Perry: "And it will be a cold day in Hades before he ever signs a federal version of the 'Dream Act.' He believes in fencing, technology, state's rights, and workplace incentives. Which more or less means he believes in the same enforcement techniques as all the rest of the GOP field."

It should be a no-brainer that whomever the media and liberals attack the most is the one that represents its strongest opponent. Sarah Palin has been the target of the most vicious, incredibly hateful attacks since she ran as McCain's VP in 2008. The attacks continue even though she has not entered the 2012 race and the question is why? The answer is because these attacks work and now the polls indicate that her most ardent fans are against her entering the race with some regarding her biggest flaw as having hosted a television reality show.

Now Rick Perry has a bull's eye on his back and porn magnate Larry Flynn is offering a million dollars to anyone who can document that they had a sexual relationship with Perry- either male or female. That Rick Perry is unashamed of his Christian faith and never fails to call for God's help to overcome adversity is just another red flag to the intellectual elite that he is very dangerous to their leftist agenda. Ronald Reagan felt the same about God yet he was criticized for not being a regular churchgoer. Here are a few of Reagan's quotes that Republicans need to remember:

"Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face."

"Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure."

"We are never defeated unless we give up on God."

"We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule."

"If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under. "

The smartest thing that Republicans can do right now is have a moratorium on all debates and straw polls. It is far too early to pick a candidate to run against President Obama next year. The first GOP primary is scheduled in New Hampshire in February 2012. Let the candidates go out and campaign outlining their proposals for recovery without hammering and belittling each other. Let's judge them all on their vision instead of what media manipulators want us to think about them personally and above all - let us not forget Reagan's 11th Commandment. C

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com