Many years ago, I heard a political expert state, “The only reason political parties exist is to elect their members to public office.” Having been involved in party politics for some time now, and occasionally having had the opportunity to reflect on this expert’s observation, I have concluded over and over again that this expert was right.

Let me explain. Most individuals get involved in party politics because they have one, maybe two, burning issues that motivate them. For those on the right side of the political spectrum, it may be sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and family values, property rights, 2nd amendment rights, or a desire to reduce taxes and government spending. For those on the left it might be environmentalism, protection of government jobs and unions, welfare rights, pro-abortion rights, and gender-neutral marriage.

Unfortunately, for those on the right. National Right to Life, or here in Minnesota, the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) cannot elect anyone by themselves. Minnesotans for Marriage cannot elect anyone by themselves. The National Rifle Association (NRA) or any number of other gun rights groups do not have the resources or manpower to elect anyone by themselves. Neither the Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation, the Taxpayers’ League nor any one of a number of business groups can elect anyone by themselves.

Likewise on the left, the teachers’ unions (although they’re close) cannot elect anyone by themselves. Labor unions and public employee unions cannot elect anyone by themselves. Environmentalists, ACORN or welfare rights groups do not have the resources or manpower to elect anyone by themselves. Pro-abortion and gay marriage interest groups do not have the capacity to elect anyone on their own.

Here’s what political parties do (when they’re functioning properly) that no other organization can do. They provide a conduit for individuals with different priorities to combine resources and manpower to conduct campaigns and elect candidates. Of course, there is a process involved. When individuals gather for party endorsing conventions, or vote in their party’s primary, enough of them ultimately have to agree on a candidate for each partisan office.

Usually this involves a fair amount of compromise by many of these individuals. For the single issue voter, it might involve supporting a candidate who might not be as pure on that voter’s most important issue as his or her first choice candidate. But in the end, the individual will support that candidate because electing that candidate is better than letting the opposing party win. Of course, there are limits to which most individuals will compromise their principles, and the challenge of each party is to endorse and nominate candidates to keep the most individuals possible as active participants and donors. The party that does these things the best is the party that wins elections.

“But,” I hear the protests from some readers, “what about the platform? Don’t we work for our candidates so that they will implement our conservative agenda?” Yes, we do. But I defy anyone reading this to seriously tell me that you support every plank of your party’s platform, either at the state or national level. Just as no party activist can seriously claim to support every plank in the platform, neither does any elected official. But some party activists tend to hold their elected officials to a standard that they themselves cannot meet .

My observation is that Democrats are much more patient than Republicans. We didn’t arrive at the current size and scope of government overnight. It was an incremental process implemented by patient liberals. They know if they don’t get everything they want this year, there’s always next year. They are willing to take a half of a loaf, or even a quarter of a loaf, instead of the whole socialist thing in one shot. All too often, if elected Republicans can’t provide a whole conservative loaf in one shot, they are thrown under the bus by activists in their own party.

The party platform is meant to be a set of broad guiding principles designed to be a statement of what the party in general stands for. Believe me, I have suffered through hours of party conventions where resolutions are debated down to every jot and tittle by party activists who have never held public office, yet they debate every line and word as if they are writing legislation.

A troubling trend I’ve noticed in recent years is that some local party officials apply a standard that no one but themselves can meet when it comes to determining which candidates they will support. They even go so far as to criticizing their party’s candidates and elected officials in public. (I’m talking about Republican Party officials here. I don’t care whether Democrats eat their own.) I’m troubled by this because it is a party official’s chief job to promote candidates and elected officials that members of their own party agreed upon at one point in time. (My exception here is that if the candidate or elected official has undeniably been ensnared in legal trouble or moral and ethical lapses - I'm sure you can think of recent examples.)

I’m not saying a party official should be prohibited from exercising free speech. But if doing so runs contrary to promoting candidates and elected officials of his or her party, that party official should resign his or her position.

I only need to go to the 2008 election to cite examples of what I am talking about. Sen. John McCain was our party’s nominee for President of the United States. I don’t know of many Republicans whose first choice was John McCain. However, none of the other candidates in a crowded field were able to garner enough support to become the party’s nominee. Each of them had flaws that party activists and primary election voters were concerned about. So McCain was the last one standing as his competitors dropped out one by one.

Some party officials who were badmouthing John McCain during the nominating process didn’t stop their badmouthing after McCain became the party’s nominee. Others simply did little or nothing to help the McCain candidacy, because McCain was not the pure conservative that agreed with them on every issue.

So now we have Barack H. Obama in the White House who in one year:

• appointed the most exteme liberal Supreme Court Justice in years.
• pushed an economically devestating "cap and tax" energy policy, and under his administration the EPA has classified a naturally-occuring compound, carbon dioxide, a pollutant.
• seeks to undermine the best health care system  in the world (one-sixth of the nation's economy) by pushing a government takeover scheme.
• implemented bailouts, cash-for-clunkers, and government giveaways, resulting in out-of-control spending and debt that will take generations to pay off.

While we acknowledge that John McCain is no Ronald Reagan, it's safe to say that McCain would not have lurched the nation to the left in a way we've seen in the past year.

Similarly, and hitting closer to home is the Coleman/Franken U. S. Senate election. Early in 2008, some local party officials were badmouthing Sen. Coleman in a way that became public. They did this in spite of the fact they knew, or should have known, that Sen. Coleman would again be the party’s endorsed candidate for U. S. Senate. In June, Coleman became the choice of the majority of party activists to be the candidate for U. S. Senate. Like the presidential race, some party officials continued to badmouth Sen. Coleman. Some simply chose to sit it out and refused to help Coleman's campaign.

And we all know what happened in that race.

After the re-count and toward the end of the court wrangling over the race, much of the hue and cry over Franken stealing the election came from some of the very people who criticized Sen. Coleman publicly and did noting to help his re-election. It goes without saying, had they helped out during the campaign, there would not have been a need for calling for an election do-over, and there would not be a Senator Franken. Now Franken is the 60th vote that will move the liberal agenda through the Senate for the Democrats.

Yes, many or our elected officials have let us down when it comes to standing up for conservative principles. And the party has paid the price the last two election cycles. This doesn’t justify us eating our own, however. The Democrats will do just fine at criticizing our party's candidates and elected officials. We Republicans don’t’ need to do it for them. When we criticize our own publicly, it does nothing for our electoral success, nor for the implementation of the planks in our platform.

2010 should be a better year. Whether we take advantage of the political winds, or whether we manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is up to us.