The Buckley rule vs. Reagan's 11th Commandment
The gridlock in picking a GOP candidate
By Richard Cohen, WashPost, Updated: February 4, 2013
It’s not easy being a Republican. I learned this from a story in Sunday’s New York Times about a group called the Conservative Victory Project which wants to stop the party from choosing nominees who, say, think there is such a thing as “legitimate rape” or that a pregnancy due to rape is “something God intended.” In order to do this, it turns out, the new organization wants local Republican organization to follow the Buckley Rule. This is where things get complicated.
The Buckley Rule is named for the late William F. Buckley, the longtime editor of the National Review and inexplicable possessor of an accent from “Downton Abbey.” His rule went like this: Support the most conservative candidate who can win. (This sounds vastly more impressive in Latin.) The operative words are “who can win” since a touching belief in witchcraft (Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell) or some antediluvian ideas about rape and conception (Todd Akin, Richard E. Mourdock) can and have had a deleterious effect on the Republican vote caused, mainly, by nausea. In fact, had these candidates not been nominated, the GOP might now have three additional seats in the Senate.
The trouble is that the Buckley rule can run afoul of Ronald Reagan’s “11th Commandment” which, paraphrased, goes like this: Never, but never, speak ill of a fellow Republican even — and here take some liberties — if they confess to dabbling in witchcraft or believing that if a witch gets raped and becomes pregnant, this is what God (or you know who) intended. I think I have done the commandment justice, don’t you?
This a dilemma because to ensure that witchcrafters and medievalists of all sorts do not get to represent the GOP in Senate races, you have to speak ill of them by, of all things, telling the truth. And since, as we all know, a commandment carries more weight than a rule and, just to added heft to the commandment, it came from a president and not a mere magazine editor, I would venture that it is both controlling and takes precedence…whichever comes first, or something like that.
(More here.)
It’s not easy being a Republican. I learned this from a story in Sunday’s New York Times about a group called the Conservative Victory Project which wants to stop the party from choosing nominees who, say, think there is such a thing as “legitimate rape” or that a pregnancy due to rape is “something God intended.” In order to do this, it turns out, the new organization wants local Republican organization to follow the Buckley Rule. This is where things get complicated.
The Buckley Rule is named for the late William F. Buckley, the longtime editor of the National Review and inexplicable possessor of an accent from “Downton Abbey.” His rule went like this: Support the most conservative candidate who can win. (This sounds vastly more impressive in Latin.) The operative words are “who can win” since a touching belief in witchcraft (Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell) or some antediluvian ideas about rape and conception (Todd Akin, Richard E. Mourdock) can and have had a deleterious effect on the Republican vote caused, mainly, by nausea. In fact, had these candidates not been nominated, the GOP might now have three additional seats in the Senate.
The trouble is that the Buckley rule can run afoul of Ronald Reagan’s “11th Commandment” which, paraphrased, goes like this: Never, but never, speak ill of a fellow Republican even — and here take some liberties — if they confess to dabbling in witchcraft or believing that if a witch gets raped and becomes pregnant, this is what God (or you know who) intended. I think I have done the commandment justice, don’t you?
This a dilemma because to ensure that witchcrafters and medievalists of all sorts do not get to represent the GOP in Senate races, you have to speak ill of them by, of all things, telling the truth. And since, as we all know, a commandment carries more weight than a rule and, just to added heft to the commandment, it came from a president and not a mere magazine editor, I would venture that it is both controlling and takes precedence…whichever comes first, or something like that.
(More here.)
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