SPECIAL GUEST EDITORIAL

The Conservative Revolution of 2010
by Jesse Kelly

“This morning the British army in Boston…disgracefully quitted all their strongholds in Boston and Charlestown, fled from before the army of the United Colonies, and took refuge on board their ships…The joy of our friends in Boston, on seeing the victorious and gallant troops of their country enter the town almost at the heels of their barbarous oppressors, was inexpressibly great.” - - As reported by an American newspaperman after the first Washington-led, American victory in Boston, 1776.

Just think about what conservatives have accomplished in 2010. Not in my wildest dreams could I have thought that a fiscally conservative candidate could be Massachusetts’ newest senator. Like General Washington’s victory at Dorchester Heights, the war for the future of liberty in America won its first great battle in the Bay State.

Like many of you, I saw the storm clouds gathering for over a year. The previous administration began an attack on our constitution and our free market system through big government conservatism. President Obama continued the assault on our liberties by putting big government into overdrive. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Giffords all supported nationalizing our industries, taking over our healthcare and strangling us with environmental regulation. The free citizens of Southern Arizona and these United States are saying, “NO MORE!”

Pundits on every cable news channel are likening this year to 1994; however, they are missing the fundamental difference between that year and this: 1994 was a Republican revolution, 2010 is a CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION.

No sitting congressman or senator is safe this year. Not Harry Reid, not my opponent, Gabrielle Giffords, not John Murtha, not John McCain. Both Republican and Democratic voters are shouting, “This is not about political teams, team elephant or team donkey! This is about limited government, fiscal sanity and free market solutions to our nation’s problems!” It is fundamentally important for incumbents and challengers alike to realize the following fact: if Republicans are conservatives, they will win. If Republicans are merely tax cutters, but have a record of out-of-control spending, they will lose. If Democrats are conservative, they will win. If Democrats vote with Pelosi, they will lose.

The greatness of the conservative revolution of 2010 lies in its ability to act as a driving force for America far longer than its Republican counterpart 15 years prior. The Republican revolution of 1994 was successful in its onset, but failed to be a lasting movement because it was not wholly and completely rooted in conservatism. Identity without ideology is empty, and the longer the Republican Party occupied the seats of power in Congress, the easier it was for them to stagnate and whither from the vine.

In the conservative revolution of 2010, candidates like me see the Republican Party as an organized medium for my actual ideology, conservatism. Where some want to label Republicans as “the party of no,” conservatives will always be full of pragmatic, new ideas, rooted in the first principles of the Founders. While Republican values are malleable and ill-defined, conservative values are fixed, well reasoned, and applicable to everything from political theory to everyday living.

As a conservative and as republican, I announced my candidacy in early 2009 because I saw the revolution ahead of us could not only be victorious, but also glorious. In my race, in Arizona’s 8th congressional district, I am battling against a big government Republican in the primary and a big government Democrat in the general. It’s time to open up the western front in the conservative revolution of 2010.

Jesse Kelly is a candidate for Congress in Arizona’s Eighth District. His website is http://www.votejessekelly.com