Modern Whigs are citizen-legislators with a deep respect for the vocation of public service who clearly distinguish themselves from ordinary politicians in the following ways:

• Whigs are the only party whose agenda includes fundamental political reforms without which nothing else will change;

• Whigs are not interested in power, they are interested in governing;

• Whigs do not argue about whether government should be “big” or “small”, but whether it is doing its job;

• Whigs seek public office in order to solve problems and not in order to impose their ideological, religious or other views on their fellow citizens;

• When solving problems, Whigs rely on fact instead of fiction, use reason instead of dogma, and judge solutions based on evidence instead of slogans;

• Whigs do not accept money from corporations, lobbyists, unions or special-interest groups, and limit themselves to public financing and individual donations;

• Whigs practice what they preach: they do not say one thing when running for office and do another thing once they are in office;

• Whig elected officials who abandon these practices will be held accountable: by expulsion from the Party and by becoming subject to recall efforts launched by the Whig Party leadership.   

 John Tyler

Whigs who betrayed voters in the past were held accountable by the Party. Consider the story of John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States: elected in 1840 on a popular Whig platform, he proceeded to veto Whig legislation and pursued his own agenda after assuming office.  Sound familiar?  This being the Whigs, however, accountability was swift: in September 1841 he was expelled from the Party and later, thanks to Whig members of Congress, became the first President ever whose veto was overridden.  Needless to say, Tyler was a one-term president.

Can you imagine Republicans or Democrats expelling their own President from the party or voting to override his veto?  The Whigs did it in the past and, if necessary, the Modern Whigs will do it in the future.