The Republican Achilles Heel – Buz Blog

“Anybody who has political ambition has an Achilles heel.”– James Callis

Republicans are currently riding high in the saddle. The Democrat party seems to be stubbornly doubling down on promoting a number of issues which 80 to 90 percent of the public opposes. Whether it is biological men competing in women’s sports, transitioning children to the opposite of their gender at birth, deporting illegal alien criminals, pushing LBGTQ+ agendas and books in public schools, the Democrats and their propaganda media lapdogs take the side of a minuscule, but loud minority, over those who favor common sense and science.

While the future is looking bright for the Grand Old Party, there is an apparent Achilles Heel nationally, in Arizona and locally here in Yavapai County. This flaw has plagued the Republican party almost since its inception. That weakness is disunity. The disunity at issue isn’t the debates and arguments about issues that take place during primaries, or the criticism of fellow Republicans in office. Those in elected office take stands on issues and vote on bills that are not always popular with their voters. If the office holders don’t do a good job defending their votes and positions on controversial issues, the voters will let them know at the next election.

The lack of unity that hurts Republicans happens in different types of elections. Occasionally, after a contentious primary, the losing Republican candidate will fail to support the chosen candidate in the general election. Also, the mud thrown during the primary election is often used by the Democrats against the Republican.

Republicans really hurt themselves in so-called “non-partisan” elections. (There really is no such thing as a nonpartisan election). The local school board elections in 2022 is a good example. Four conservatives were running, and although Stan Goligoski claimed to be a conservative Republican, he has proven himself to be anything but. The result was that the conservatives had too many candidates running for too few seats and only one conservative candidate, Linda Conn, won a two year seat.

Huntington Beach (HB), California is the best example of how to unite and overcome the GOP Achilles Heel. For decades Huntington Beach has been one of the most conservative Republican cities in conservative Orange County. The city council in HB, however, was almost always full of liberal Democrats. There are seven members in the council. Elections are held every two years to serve four year terms. Four council candidates run and two years later the other three members run.

The reason that the Democrats would win a majority of the HB council seats is that the Republicans would run eight or more candidates for the three or four positions up in that election. The Democrats would only run the same number of candidates as there were positions in the election. The result was that all the Republican candidates split the vote and all the Democrats voted for their candidates who would win. That started to change in 2022 when the Republicans only ran four candidates for the four council positions up for election. In 2024, the Republicans ran three strong candidates for three open council positions and won all three. Now, all seven of the Huntington Beach City Council are conservative Republicans.

Republicans need to be disciplined enough to stop splitting their votes by running too many candidates. They need to support whatever Republican candidates win in primary elections. The Primary losers need to override their egos for the good of the Party, which at this point in time, also means for the good of the country, state and city.