Leslie Carbone: The Spirit of '76

Leslie Carbone has a post that has helped me a lot today: The Spirit of '76. It helped to blunt the disappointment and sometimes anger towards the party as they leave conservatism behind to chase votes, or whatever their reasons are.

SWAC Girl has a great intro to Leslie and finds the same things I find encouraging.
Quoting SWAC Girl:
“In Spirit of 76, she recounts how Gerald Ford invited Ronald Reagan to address the delegates at the Republican Convention. If we use history as our guide we often find a template to follow and words of wisdom to help us weather the storms. To what could have been a divided Party, Governor Reagan concluded his remarks with:

"We must go forth from here united, determined that what a great general said a few years ago is true: There is no substitute for victory, Mr. President."


I don’t pretend to know who to unite with someone who wants the exact opposite in life of you, but, over time, the job got done. Someone on the conservative side blinked, and we went on for the better. What helped me most? Her it is. I hope it helps you as much as me:

“The next morning, [after the ’76 convention] Gov. Reagan met with the California delegates. "The cause goes on," he reminded them. "It's just one battle in a long war and it will go on as long as we all live." He finished by quoting St. Barton's Ode:
I will lay me down and bleed a whileThough I am wounded, I am not slainI shall rise and fight again.
Next he met with his disappointed campaign volunteers. "Don't get cynical," he cautioned them. "[L]ook at yourselves and what you were willing to do, and recognize that there are millions and millions of Americans out there that want what you want, that want it to be as we do, who want it to be a shining city on a hill."And then he headed back to the ranch, passing, on the way to the airport, a hand-painted sign reading: "GOODBYE REPUBLICANS. YOU PICKED THE WRONG MAN."But, Nancy Reagan later wrote in her autobiography, "Ronnie has always believed what his mother taught him--that whatever happens, happens for a purpose. As he saw it, he lost the nomination in 1976 because God had other plans for him.
"Four years later, we would learn what they were."”

The biggest point I took away was don’t quit. If we quit now, things will be even worse. Ronal Reagan knew the world needed conservatives, and conservatism. And out of his defeat came a brighter future for the U.S. and the world. Somewhere on the other side of our senseless difficulties to move conservatism forward is a brighter future and a brighter day. We just have to earn it first. That man was a leader with vision, and yet today, it still encourages. May God make me a leader of the same caliber one day.