McCotter calls for unification of GOP, not purges

In an interesting opinion piece published on the website of the conservative magazine Human Events, U.S. Congressman Thaddeus McCotter of Livonia makes a plea for party unity, urging the party to turn away from movements to “purge, deplete and ‘recreate’ it in one’s arbitrary image.”

McCotter has previously commented on the need for the GOP to fix itself. And Michigan Republicans suffered a serious break after the Presidential campaign of John McCain decided to pull out of Michigan last fall. That lead to a public battle putting stress on several factions in the state GOP.

McCotter, who sits in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, and serves as the Chair of the House Republican Policy Committee. He is also a focused conservative, battling communism, fighting government growth, and opposing taxes. He is also sponsoring a bill to create a tax deduction for pets, as Michigan Messenger reported in Aug.

He is also considered a likely Democratic National Congressional Committee target in the coming 2010 elections. He barely won his seat in 2008, beating an underfunded opponent with 51 percent of the vote.

In his Human Events piece, McCotter gives a brief history lesson about the tumultuous times of Teddy Roosevelt and his battle to save the GOP — which he eventually abandoned, by the way. He says the lessons learned then are key to saving the GOP now, in a time he describes as chaos.

He also lays out what he says are the GOP’s five guiding principals:

1. Our liberty is from God not the government;

2. Our sovereignty is in our souls, not the soil;

3. Our security is from strength not surrender;

4. Our prosperity is from the private sector not the public sector; and

5. Our truths are self-evident, not relative.

He concludes the piece:

The GOP must philosophically accept — not ideologically reject — members’ differing views of how to apply these permanent principles to present challenges. Republicans cannot indulge in intellectual rigidity and internecine purges that create more chaos. Only by uniting can the Republican Party and its enduring legacy as an institution of American order, justice and freedom lead our nation thorough globalization’s transformational challenges.