Republicans are scared.  They desperately want to show the political world a unified front for their team, from president to county tax assessor.  Frightened?  Desperate?  Are these the themes emerging from the just concluded Texas Republican Party State Convention?

          There were more than a few references to “Dallas in ’06.”  Texas Democrats have made it their strategy to accomplish in Harris County what they accomplished – by default, I may add – in “Dallas County in ’06.”  For those just enrolled in Texas Politics 101, in the off-year 2006 elections, many Dallas County Republicans voted their disapproval of their national party’s record by staying away from the polls, thereby allowing Democrats to take control of countywide offices and even one state House seat.  No analyst has explained why this phenomenon failed to occur in other metropolitan areas.  Nonetheless, one senses a palpable nervousness now among Texas Republicans that not only will they not retake Dallas County but that they will lose offices throughout the state, especially in the legislature.

So, what do they prescribe for their indigestion?  Here is where it gets interesting.  The Party’s leaders and elders suggest a strong dose of unity.  “Unite!” they urge.  “Unite behind John McCain.   Like it or not, he’s our standard bearer, our best chance to keep Barack Obama out of the Oval Office.”  (Many shuffling around Houston’s George Brown Convention Center this past week sported lapel buttons that read “NOBAMA.”)  One cannot help but form a mental picture of that memorable scene from Braveheart in which William Wallace appears at a convention of the leaders of all the clans: “Unite us!  Unite the clans.”  Will the plot repeat itself in the Republican Party?  Will John McCain be betrayed?  The answer may depend on how well he watches his back.

          While America waits for the answer, new activists, and some old ones with new ideas, are replenishing the Texas GOP.  At one Congressional District Caucus, for example, an informal survey of a random row of eight seats across showed three filled with individuals experiencing all the thrills and agonies of their first state convention.  Yes, a goodly percentage of delegates, old and new, had supported Congressman Ron Paul in the primary.  These delegates, as well as some of the Old Guard, think that the most conservative approach to the Party’s indigestion is to lay off the sweets and the coffee, to stay away from the fats.  Especially the cream-filled earmarks, that double-latte of No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D Prescription Coverage, and, of course, the fat of war.

          Ah, the war.  Or is it the War?  The word hung in the air like the humidity outside the Convention Center.  And, as with humidity, some people just get used to it.  Some even prefer it over other climes.  Folks on and off the stage spoke lovingly of “our” troops, seemingly forgetting that “our” troops belong, firstly, to families, to faith communities, to friendships and neighborhoods.  Only secondly do they belong, if at all, to the nation-state.  Least of all to any political party.

          But while the War was mentioned often (there were a number of platitudes let loose, such as, “We’re fightin’ ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em over here”), it was never discussed beyond the superficial.  The virtues and vices of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan (and now possibly in Iran).  The fact that “our “ troops are caught in a civil war between “their” two Shiite parties, the Sadr and the Badr, before this fall’s planned parliamentary elections.  The million or more war widows and orphans and other refugees potentially destabilizing Syria, Jordan, and other countries.  The all but disappearing and persecuted Iraqi Christians.  The recently reported higher than usual suicide rate among veterans.  The almost unbearable strain multiple deployments place on soldiers and their families.  The one billion dollar Baghdad embassy and the permanent military bases now under construction near that country’s oil deposits.  The hundreds of billions of dollars already borrowed and spent (no taxpayer alive today has had to open his wallet to pay for the War; future generations will do that).  No one raised any of these vital issues when given the opportunity to address the delegates.

          And that’s unfortunate.  Because these issues go to a question that separates the Party’s leaders and elders from what one elder delegate politely called the “new blood.”  And that question is whether launching a constitutionally undeclared, unprovoked war against a sister nation-state is conservative.  In other words, does an unjust war ever make for a true conservative foreign policy?  Even some of the long-serving delegates understand that this is the question, but they contend that, regardless, we must “support our troops” by keeping them in harm’s way, well-equipped and well-trained to be sure, until the “job is done.”  This despite the fact that the President and his generals haven’t a clue how to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty” in a country that has never had the philosophical or historical foundation upon which to build a free and popular government.

          Which leads one to the next question.  After I reach across the back seat and poke my brother in the eye, what should I do next?  Keep poking him until he goes blind and can’t hit me on my side of the car?  Wait till Dad hears about that!

          I believe the Republicans have a better shot at it than they think.  For when people get scared and desperate, they are capable of doing extraordinary things, like win elections.  Will the Texas GOP unite?  Or will “Dallas in ‘06” become “Texas in ’08.”  John McCain is the best person – perhaps the only person – who can cure this indigestion.  Senator Obama has no foreign policy other than to “hope” that a “change” in Presidents magically will bring peace and democracy to the tribes of the Mesopotamian desert.  That leaves a void for Senator McCain to fill.  If he will formulate and articulate a clearly thought out, contextualized, conservative plan to bring “our” troops home to their families as soon as militarily possible, with their (not his or Bush’s) dignity intact (the 99-year plan won’t cut it), he could both unite his Party and cut the fat.  If he can do this, Texas Republicans will race to November with confidence.  

Jeff Turner is a Dallas lawyer and a fellow in constitutional studies at the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth.  He also was a seated alternate delegate to the Republican State Convention.

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