Get back,” Cal Thomas approvingly quotes Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, as saying, “I believe the way back to a Republican majority is to the right.” This assertion ignores the fact that on practically every important issue, more of the voters trust the Democrats. If the Republican Party moves further to the right, it will fall off the same cliff the Democrats fell off after the election of 1968.
Mr. Thomas goes on to suggest the self-indulgent view that a clone of Ronald Reagan would do fine in the November election. This ignores the facts that Reagan ran in the Republican primaries of 1968 and 1976 and lost both times. He would lose in November. The Republicans cannot keep running against the social chaos of the 1960s and ’70s any more than the Democrats could keep running against the Great Depression.
If one feels something strongly, it is easy to overestimate the number of people who feel the same way. It is easy to underestimate the difficulty of converting others to one’s persuasion.
JOHN ENGELMAN
Wilmington, Del.
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