Honor. Civility. Respect. Restraint.
These are not just words.
They are values, traditional, time-honored virtues – conservative attributes, and thus bedrock values of the Republican Party.
Or, they should be.
This year’s campaign for the party’s presidential nomination has little honor, civility, respect or restraint.
The GOP contest for the most powerful and important political office on earth has degenerated into a dishonorable, uncivil, disrespectful and unrestrained series of ugly personal, ludicrous and even sexual verbal assaults.
What ails the Republican Party? Has some virus infected it? Because it isn’t only presidential candidates who are acting strangely.
I saw Illinois’ Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on TV the other day revealing a private conversation he had with Democrat Senate President John Cullerton in which Cullerton – according to the governor – said things that reflected badly on Cullerton and Democrat House Speaker Michael Madigan.
We don’t know whether the conversation ever took place. We don’t know if the governor reported the contents of the conversation accurately.
The only thing we learned, one TV news pundit quipped, was that we should never have a private conversation with the governor.
Is this really how the governor of Illinois should behave? Do we want to believe that our governor can’t keep a confidential conversation private?
Rauner also was on TV reporting anonymous gossip he had heard that Madigan had threatened state colleges if they supported Rauner’s education plans. The governor said he had not verified the truth of the allegation. And the presidents of the colleges issued statements that there had been no threats from Madigan.
So, why did the governor go on TV to spread serious allegations he hadn’t even bothered to verify?
Where is the honor, respect, civility and restraint? What has happened to traditional conservative values?
The Republican Party has brought us both ends on the scale of political values. It has given us Abraham Lincoln and it has given us Richard Nixon.
More Top Picks Bose Soundlink Revolve Plus Ii
It is time for the GOP to begin living up to Lincoln instead of down to Nixon.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.