Written by Blake Matthews
Although Republicans suffered setbacks at the national level and in Arkansas last November, Joseph Wood believes that the party is far from finished. He shared his views on conservative values and the future of the G.O.P. in a speech sponsored by the College Republicans of Harding on Tuesday.
Wood is currently the state treasurer for the Republican Party of Arkansas, but his roots lie in a very different place. An African American born and raised in Chicago, Wood said he grew up thinking that the Democratic party was the only party he could belong to.
That changed in 1988, when Wood had a “revelation.” A Democratic politician walked into a church service that Wood was attending, and the minister stopped the service to let the politician give a campaign speech. Wood said he was “so enraged, I couldn’t tell you what the rest of the service was about.”
His anger led him to Dr. William O. Stewart, a Republican and fellow Chicago resident who shared his conservative ideology with Wood.
“He started talking about a real belief in the Constitution and the Declaration and what it stands for,” Wood said. “He talked about smaller government, smarter government … he talked about the freedoms of, as opposed to the dependency on, government.”
Stewart inspired Wood to change his party affiliation and get back into the community as a Republican. Last fall he ran for party chairman in Arkansas, and he told the small crowd gathered in Cone Chapel on Tuesday night that his strategy of “commitment, connecting, competing,” was the key to future Republican success.
Wood explained his idea of “commitment” first. Republicans should be loyal, not only to their political party, but to an ideal greater than themselves. He used John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, as a model of this kind of commitment. Adams spent his presidency trying to abolish slavery, a controversial platform in the 19th century U.S. that kept him from winning reelection. Adams did not quit, however, and returned to politics as a congressman. He used his office to promote dialogue on antislavery legislation for eight consecutive terms until his death. Wood said Adams’ tenacious commitment to his cause should be an inspiration to the Republican party.
To explain “connecting,” Wood drew on his own history as an outspoken Republican in a heavily-Democratic area.
“Sometimes it seems like you’re out there by yourself,” he said. “But if you know you’re doing what’s right and you’re standing for something that’s true, you’ll find those people who are out there.”
Wood challenged the College Republicans to show solidarity with their political allies and reach out in service to members of their community.
“Oftentimes, people don’t know Republicans do have a heart, that they’re normally the ones contributing to the United Way,” he said.
Strengthening their commitment and building a support base through connections would give Republicans the ability to “compete” with Democrats for votes.
“Now you can fight,” Wood said. “When you’ve got troops, when you’ve got connections, now you can go out there and stand up for what’s right.”
Wood then addressed concerns that the Republican party had lost its way after the results of the 2008 presidential and congressional elections.
“People have lost their way, but the principles and the platforms are the same,” Wood said, paraphrasing from Republican Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. “It’s about life, liberty and the pursuit of … whatever God has put in us to go after.”
As for what Americans should be pursuing, Wood repeatedly stressed the ideals of self-reliance and personal responsibility. He said he encouraged listeners to be active in their communities, to address issues directly and personally and not to wait for the government to intervene.
“You want to get back to conservative principles and values? We gotta stop looking at [Washington,] D.C.,” Wood said. “D.C. is broke.”
Reliance on the federal government leads to an eroded sense of personal responsibility, he said, and used the residents of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina as a “prime example of dependency and victimhood and relying on somebody else.”
“You saw a group of people that had been, for years, dependent upon somebody else, whether it be for housing, whether it be for food, for jobs,” he said.
When residents were told to evacuate days before the hurricane hit, Woods said they expected the federal government to “send a ship from the Atlantic Coast all the way up through the Gulf and take me out of here.”
Those who stayed in New Orleans and lived through Katrina’s aftermath blamed the government and its agencies for not responding quickly enough.
“The first fingers went to Washington, D.C.,” Wood said. “‘You left us here. You did us wrong.'”
Wood ended his speech by answering questions from the audience. He denounced the Obama administration’s spending policies as “mind-boggling,” but predicted they would actually build support for Republican candidates in upcoming elections.
He also defended the pay bonuses for executives of American Insurance Group, the embattled insurance giant that received billions of dollars in bailout money to stave off bankruptcy. Wood added that the “noble piece would be for them to give it back, but that’s on them.”
He said the government was responsible for giving them and other companies bailout money without clarifying the terms of the deal in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Wood accused the Obama administration of passing the lengthy document without even reading it.
“You didn’t read it, but now you want to have some heartburn and tell [General Motors] what they could and could not do,” he said.
