Common Sense and Common Ground

This week, a conservative ally was verbally challenged for supporting a candidate who had support from some less-than-conservative sources. The challenger could not understand the alliance with a candidate who had support from someone other than a sound thinking conservative. In particular, the individual candidate was criticized for receiving an award from an environmental group.
Let's stop there for a moment. Former Baldwin County District Attorney David Whetstone was a solid conservative and one of the most effective prosecutors in Alabama history. When a local industry was pouring pollution into local waters, Whetstone worked to bring the industry into compliance and clean the local waters. However, when Whetstone considered a statewide run, conservatives attacked Whetstone and compared him to the globalist environmentalist movement, attempting to link Whetstone to efforts of the Environmental Protection Agency to control the rights of landowners, all because Whetstone made a local company stop pouring waste into public waters.
Kim Rafferty is a local neighborhood activist who worked to deal with neighborhood issues involving the Birmingham Airport. Rafferty, focused on neighborhood issues, received an award from the Sierra Club, the best known among environmentalist groups. Now that Rafferty is a candidate for Birmingham City Council and has received some conservative criticism, linking her efforts to the New World Order agenda of certain environmentalists. Support for global socialism is far from the thinking of Kim Rafferty, who just cared about her neighborhood's quality of life.
Musings from Maytown would plead with fellow conservatives to learn two principles:
First, let's use common sense. Local concerns are often different from national concern. Someone who supports public funding of a local fire department is not the same as one who supports national health care. As Libertarian thinker Steve Gordon pointed out, someone who volunteers to clean up a local river is not the same as someone who supports the EPA's land grab efforts.
Secondly, learn the lesson of common ground.. Sometimes, we disagree with an individual on one issue, but agree on others. Take the pro-life issue as an example. This writer is uncompromisingly pro-life. This week, a group of pro-life Democrats wrote US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging that she withdraw abortion coverage from the proposed health care legislation. While I might disagree on economic policy with these pro-life Democrats, I can stand with them on the pro-life issues.
Conservatives will never accomplish anything if we don't build coalitions on issues. If we insist on one-hundred percent agreement on every issue, we will never win on any of these issues. I will work hard with my Libertarian friends to fight higher taxes and big government, but may not stand with them on certain social issues. I can cheer on a pro-life Democrat, but oppose their support for big government.
Conservatives will be successful in the political arena when we learn the principles of common sense and common ground.