Today, students at Dartmouth and citizens all across the Granite State have a historic opportunity to vote for change, change for the better.
When we make our decision for change, we must be sure that we are not voting for a change of face or the empty rhetoric of change, but rather substantive policy change. This is why we are voting Republican. In independently-minded New Hampshire, everyone can vote in the Republican primary, including independents and Democrats who reconsider their affiliation to opt for change for the better.
The Democratic side of the field certainly represents a change of faces. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have only 16 years of elected experience in national government combined. In contrast, John McCain, in the House, Senate and U.S. Navy has more than twice the years of experience as the three Democratic frontrunners together.
But fresh faces do not equal fresh policy. Indeed, on the most important issues, substantive change can be found in Republican candidates. All the candidates want universal healthcare and a peaceful Iraq, but it is only real ideas, not hollow talk of change that is going to get things done.
Democrats tried to get a system of federal government healthcare off the ground in 1993. This program was crushed by the weight of its own dysfunction. Quite literally the bill was over a thousand pages long, requiring countless addenda and speeches just to explain the bill's meaning. Regressing to this old, tested and failed plan is still the starting point for the Democratic candidates.
Republicans, on the other hand, have been supporting innovative healthcare solutions based on communities, states and the free market.
These strategies have not only not failed, but indeed they have worked quite well. Mitt Romney has implemented an eminently successful healthcare plan in Massachusetts. John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul support various specific tax and community incentives to improve healthcare at a grassroots level. Rather than the same old story of trying to impose healthcare from above, these candidates have the vision for change of the people, by the people and for the people.
The Iraq War is another issue on which change is essential, the right kind of change. Republican Ron Paul is the only candidate in the field of both parties to have voted against the war in Iraq. His concrete plan for ending the war, in contrast to empty rhetoric of withdrawal, has garnered him the most support of active military members of all candidates.
On the other side of the war debate is John McCain, the architect of the current troop surge that appears to be successfully stabilizing the country. All the other candidates fall somewhere in between these two Republican candidates promising change.
Finally, on the issue of taxes, the candidates who are most often associated with the name of change, are in fact some of the most reactionary. When asked about the tax code, the first thing out of the mouths of Edwards and Obama is repealing the recent tax cuts.
Nearly all the Republicans, in comparison, want to implement a set of policies revolutionary in change. Most favor a national sales tax and the abolition of the income tax with all its costly administration and gaping loopholes.
The Republicans on the ballot favor lifting government off the backs of the working class, the middle class and all Americans. This is not only the fact of change but change in the right direction.
As much as the Democratic candidates would like to run against George W. Bush, he is not up for reelection in 2008. It is not enough to run against his record.
When it comes to policies substantively different from the status quo, it is the Republicans who promise change on issues as varied as healthcare, Iraq, and taxes. McCain, Paul, Romney and other Republicans are the faces of change.
Change is an important concept, but it is only a concept. Change is not a policy. The Republican candidates in this race recognize that we need new ideas and renewed innovation on so many issues and have concrete policies to usher in change for the better.
This is why we are voting Republican today and why we hope you join us.
