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J. C. Watts Would Help Pull Republican Party Together

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 12, 2008

Updated: 02/11/2008 07:12 pm

Friday, Feb. 8's, Feedback has got to be unique. After opening the paper to the op-ed page, I began to read it first.

Imagine my surprise until I figured out my letter she was criticizing, found on the right side of the same page, must have been on-line earlier.

The only error in my letter was that it was printed after Mitt Romney's campaign was in fact over. Unfortunately, his best speech was his withdrawal address. Had he spoken like that earlier, it might have been different.

I agreed that Sen. John McCain was too liberal for me, but I disagreed that he is as liberal as Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. There is a difference but it is precisely her attitude I was addressing.

We're unhappy losing so we want to throw the game board on the floor. But this is not a game; it is our country!

Fine, everyone has a choice. But I wish those who criticize me either on the left or the right would actually read what I say before they advise me what I should do.

I know the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Bill was too liberal. I said so! I also know it didn't address my wife's - or rather my particular problem, because these laws affect me as much as her.

My complaint was that Republican legislators refused to deal in the minutia and negotiate with Democrats on any immigration bill so the Democrats did what they wanted and we got a bad bill no one could support.

Had Republicans worked to make a good bill, it would have passed. After all, we were in the majority at the time. Then we would have gotten a secure border.

If Congressmen like Tom Tancredo were sincere, they could have achieved that much because America wanted it. Instead, he entertained ego-inflated talk show hosts at the cost of a secure America.

Now Republicans are a minority in part because so-called conservatives cared more about their careers than their country. Now both are in crisis.

Why didn't they push for border security/immigration reform, Social Security reform, tax reform, spending and earmark reform and term limits?

If these legislators are not interested in doing the meticulous job of fighting for specific language within our laws, they are in the wrong business and not doing us justice.

In 1994, Republicans took over in large part on the idea of term limits because we did not want our legislators to get inflated egos and power. What happened?

Now we have talk show hosts with inflated egos and a sense of inflated power. Conservatives may be right on most issues, but we were never a majority. Consequently, we need to learn the art of negotiation.

We need to start over with term limits so legislators will have to concentrate on their current job rather than their future careers.

We have a few good Republicans who kept their 1994 promise and left Congress after a self-imposed three-term limit including John Kasich, Steve Largent and J. C. Watts.

After they left, we were stuck with these career politicians with their inflated egos.

If McCain is smart, he will choose someone like Watts to be his running mate. He is a soft spoken, modest conservative.

After this bizarre political campaign, he is the kind of man we need to pull the party and more importantly, the country together.

John T. Boyle

Hernando Beach

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