Pat Anderson sketches her vision for a Republican Party that hasn't always made her proud

Republican Pat Anderson, a former state Auditor running again for her old job, Friday sent a manifesto to Republicans and supporters explaining her disappointment in her party and her hopes for its future.

"I have always been proud to be a conservative, but I must admit, I have not always been proud to be a Republican.," she wrote. " If we cast aside conservatives who act on their principles, and instead choose our champions from among those who would rather compromise to be on what they perceive to be the winning side, then we will eventually lose not just an election, but the country and the state we love."

Anderson, a former Eagan mayor and state commissioner, has long been considered a rising star within the Republican Party. She ran for governor to replace Gov. Tim Pawlenty but dropped out last month after she was clearly running in third among potential state party delegates and in fundraising.

Here's her full email:

When I sat down this evening, I intended to write a pretty basic email to delegates and alternates to the BPOU conventions that start tomorrow. I planned to write about my qualifications to be your candidate for auditor, to tell you why I am the most electable of the candidates and to contrast my record with that of the current state auditor. But as I started to write, as I started thinking about how important this election is for Minnesota and for the nation, the email I was going to write didn't seem appropriate anymore.

This election is bigger than one race or one person.

Our Republican Party is at a crossroads. We are poised for perhaps the biggest political comeback since the 1994 midterm elections. Americans, Minnesotans are frustrated and disillusioned with the Democrats view of "change." They know, we know, that what the Democrats are offering is not the America, the Minnesota we know. As the Tea Parties around the nation have shown, voters are looking for an alternative vision. The Republican Party must supply that vision. We must provide voters with more than rhetoric. We can't just be the party of "no." We must be a party with the integrity to offer real solutions to today's problems and the courage to follow through on what we propose.

But I am also a realist. I recognize, as did James Madison, that "men are not angels" and that there is a role for government to facilitate the cooperative actions necessary for a society of ordered liberty. I recognize that government "derives its just powers from the consent of the governed," and that those powers are laid-out in the state and federal constitutions.

I have seen our Republican Party at its highest points, and I was with you during our lows in 2006 and 2008. I have served as a Mayor and Council member, your State Auditor and a State Commissioner. I have been a small business owner, meeting a payroll for my 75 employees week in and week out. I was the president of a conservative think tank, and I am a wife to a very patient husband and mother to six strong-willed children. I have lived a full life, but it is not yet complete.

I want my children to enjoy the same freedom, to have the same or greater opportunities that I had growing up. In that regard, I am no different than you. You want the same thing. Together, I think we can make it happen.

Twice you have honored me with your endorsement for State Auditor. Together, we won that race in 2002 and lost it in 2006 when our entire party was swept aside in a backlash against Republicans at the national level. I was disappointed, sure, but even on the night of the 2006 election, I believed that the horrible defeat we had just suffered was the best thing that could happen to our party, even if my campaign was collateral damage.

The Republican Party that I believed in, the party I helped to build over a decade of service, was no longer recognizable to me. I have always been proud to be a conservative, but I must admit, I have not always been proud to be a Republican. Since election night in 2006, I've talked to a lot of people, people just like you, who feel the same way. They have the same longing for a party that not only wins elections, but stands on principle, a party they can be proud to be a part of. I believe we are on the verge of becoming that party.

Which path we'll choose is far from certain. That is why many people in the Tea Party movement still don't completely trust the Republican Party. Tea Parties are about the spirit of America. They are about individual freedom, individual control of the important affairs of one's life and the return of fiscal sanity to government. Tea Partiers are about doing the right thing for our state and our country, selling out to neither big business nor big spenders.

Whether Tea Partiers belong in the Republican Party or whether conservatives ought to simply leave and become part of the Tea Party movement becomes a mute point if we were to have the courage to act on the conservative principles we say we stand for.

How will we choose? That's the important question I felt I needed to put to you on this BPOU convention eve. You hold the power to endorse candidates who not only talk conservative principles, but who live conservative principles. Find them from the wealth of candidates we have before us. Choose those who believe in our cause more than they care about their election. Endorse those who can relate to Minnesotans, those who are strong and understand what it takes to take back our state and our nation. As our founding fathers did, rally around candidates who will look you in the eye and pledge their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor for our cause.

It is not an exaggeration to say the fate of the Republican Party, the fate of the State of Minnesota and the fate of the nation is in your hands. I trust your power to make the right choices. I pledge to abide by your decision, for I believe we as Republicans hold dear the same principles.

Thank you for participating in the process. Have great BPOU conventions. I look forward to meeting with many of you over the next several weeks.