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It is nice to hear this sort of clear thinking from one of the party leaders. Let us hope that other Republicans heed his words.
OLDPUPPYMAX
15 years ago
Demint is right on the beam. Even voter fraud and the reproduction of blacks which American taxpayers have funded for the past half century would not give the left enough “votes ” to defeat the actual American people. The question is whether republicans will learn that lesson. Chambliss is involved in a struggle right now. This RINO sold out his constituents by joining the gang of 10 several months ago, yet now probably wonders why he didn’t receive greater support. Spines are quite weak in Washington, beginning with that of El Busho.
Craig
15 years ago
Rebuilding the Conservative Majority
“You don’t get there by compromise!” (Mike)
I just love your first sentence: “You don’t get there by compromise!” Right on the dot! Compromise, tolerance, moderation and “center” are all loser’s behaviors.
If the Republican Party can get this thru their heads, they will win the next election. In this election what upset me the most was to see Sarah doing her best to show the real nature of Obama exposing his relations, Ayers, Resko, Wright, Farrakan, Odinga… and then, McCain who would say in front of a crowd… no, no,no… Obama is a decent man! WTF! He was undoing Sarah’ good work.
I’m fortunate to have at least one Senator representing me who gets it. Too bad my other Senator Lindsey Graham, compromiser in chief, was re-elected, but then I suppose that’s better than a Democrat taking his seat (though not by much).
That’s why Obama and the Democrats talked so much about conservative themes of tax cuts, spending restraint, second amendment rights and energy independence.
The fly in the ointment is that McCain generally outpolled GOP congressional candidates in most districts, with the GOP down ballot ticket typically running on a much more conservative platform than that of McCain. McCain and Palin are to be commended for getting 48% of the vote, under present circumstances.
The Democrats are not stupid; they learned a huge lesson from their years wandering in the figurative Sinai desert. They know that elections are won in the center and not on the left. Even Pelosi is now talking about “governing from the center.”
It’s misleading to claim that 60% of Americans are conservative. This is obviously not true. At the height of the impeachment debacle, and when he left office, Clinton had close to a 60% approval rating. There is a very solid 25% – 30% of the country which is solidly Republican, disproportionately located in the deep South. Obama essentially split the white vote with McCain everywhere in the country, save the South, where he lost by a ratio of 4 to 1. This is the same South where a majority of white Alabamans voted in 2000 to retain laws banning interracial marriage. This is the constituency which wants to see 11,000,000 “illegals” deported, without having a clue how to do this (recall what it took to get Elian Gonzalez deported). This is the same consituency which continues to believe that the Iraq War was worth the $3 trillion cost.
The Dems would be thrilled to see Sarah Palin be the GOP nominee for President. They would be thrilled to see her run on a stridently anti-“illegal” platform and on a platform which promoted continued US troops stationed in Iraqi bases, analogous to South Korea, Japan, and Germany.
If the Dems are now smarter, the Obama is positively a genius. Watch this guy as he moves to own the center of the political spectrum and pushes the GOP into a hard right corner.
Note that I’m not — for purposes of the current discussion — arguing against any of the above GOP principles. As I noted before, I voted for (hard right) GOP congressman Dana Rohrabacher precisely because I wanted to make it easier for Obama to govern from the center. But I really do think that the GOP base needs to do some reality testing when it comes to how it wishes to define itself.
It’s crazy comparing today’s political climate with that of the 1960s and 1970s, when Republicans indeed did try to be like Democrats. Nixon and even Gerald Ford being good examples. Nixon was much further to the left than was Bill Clinton and certainly much further to the left than Barack Obama will be. Rockefeller and Lindsay were 60s Republicans whom Flopping Aces would accuse of being socialists, were they to be around today. Today’s Democrats are going to govern like yesterday’s Republcans. Right in the middle of the political spectrum, which is right where they want to be and which is right in the sweet spot of electoral success.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
sanjay
15 years ago
Here where we have the republican’s overlooking their own brewed hemlock:
(Kathleen Parker) As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.
Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.
I’m bathing in holy water as I type.
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.
Can someone please tell me who Kathleen Parker is and why I should care?
She’s the same backstabber that trashed Sarah Palin.
In case she’s not old enough to remember, conservative Christians have given us multiple vicotories, including Reagan in 1980 and Bush in 2000 and 2004.
Parker is just another snooty east coast elitist who is getting tired of being mocked at the cocktail parties she attends when people learn she is a Republican. Perhaps she would fit in better with the people whose approval she craves if she would just make the jump and become a Democrat.
I’m getting more than a little tired of people like her who have never done ANYTHING to help build the party try and tear it down.
I’ve been saving this for my procrastinated post on this subject, but might as well dump it here:
GOP VOTE DECLINES LESS THAN NYT PROFIT Ann Coulter
November 12, 2008
For the first time in 32 years, Democrats got more than 50 percent of the country to vote for their candidate in a national election, and now they want to lecture the Republican Party on how to win elections. Liberal Republicans have joined them, both groups hoping no one will notice that we just lost this election by running the candidate they chose for us.
For years, New York Times columnist David Brooks has been writing mash notes to John McCain. In November 2007, he quoted an allegedly “smart-alecky” political consultant who exclaimed, in private, “You know, there’s really only one great man running for president this year, and that’s McCain.”
“My friend’s remark,” Brooks somberly intoned, “had the added weight of truth.”
Brooks gushed, “I can tell you there is nobody in politics remotely like him,” and even threw down the gauntlet, saying: “You will never persuade me that he is not among the finest of men.”
That took guts at the Times, where McCain is constantly praised by the op-ed columnists and was endorsed by the paper in the Republican primary. Even Frank Rich has hailed McCain as the “most experienced and principled” of the Republicans and said no one in either party “has more experience in matters of war than the Arizona senator” — the biggest rave issued by Rich since “Rent” opened on Broadway.
They adored McCain at the Times! Does anyone here not see a cluster of bright red flags?
In January this year, Brooks boasted of McCain’s ability to attract “independents.”
And then Election Day arrived, and all the liberals who had spent years praising McCain all voted for Obama. Independents voted for Palin or voted against Obama. No one outside of McCain’s immediate family was specifically voting for McCain.
But now Brooks presumes to lecture Republicans about what to do next time. How about: “Don’t take David Brooks’ advice”?
According to Brooks, the reason McCain lost was — naturally — that he ran as a conservative. If only presidential candidates would spurn polls, modern political history, evidence from campaign rallies, facts on the ground and listen to the wishful thinking of Times columnists!
If McCain lost because he ran as a conservative, then how come I knew McCain was going to lose before Brooks did? About the same time Brooks was touting McCain’s uncanny ability to attract independents, I was writing, accurately: “John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth.”
Using the latest euphemism for “liberal,” Brooks complains that “reformist” Republicans like John McCain are forced to run for president as smelly old conservatives: “National candidates who begin with reformist records — Giuliani, Romney or McCain — immediately tack right to be acceptable to the power base.” (Some “tack” so far to the right they almost adopt the positions in the GOP platform!)
In another sign of how popular liberalism is, liberals have to keep changing their name, like grifters moving from town to town. Liberal Republicans used to be known as “moderates,” then “mavericks” or “centrists.” I guess now they’re “reformists.” Why, liberals are so popular they have to disguise themselves for fear of being mobbed by an adoring public!
I gather by “reformist,” Brooks means liberal only on the social issues like gay marriage and abortion because — apart from abortion and gay marriage — Rudy Giuliani was a right-wing lunatic. He engaged in aggressive policing, cut taxes and government bureaucracies, abolished New York’s affirmative action office and was repeatedly denounced as a storm trooper by The New York Times.
The same thing goes for Romney, who also cut taxes and government regulations, but promised Massachusetts voters he would not tinker with their beloved abortion rights.
Ironically, McCain was a liberal on virtually every issue except abortion and gay marriage, but he bashed social conservatives to his friends in the press, so they excused his pro-life voting record as a cynical ploy to get votes in Arizona.
So “reformist” evidently means a Republican who is liberal on social issues. My term for that is “Joe Lieberman.” Whatever the merit of being liberal on social issues, both Joe Lieberman and the Republican Party’s history suggest that the winning formula is the exact opposite combination.
If liberals are going to use their first majority vote in a national election since Helen Thomas was spilling champagne on Liza at Studio 54 to lecture Republicans on how to win elections, I have a tip for them based on the exact same election: Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage passed in every state they were on the ballot — Florida, Arizona, even in liberal California.
I’ll accept the results of the presidential election, if you anti-Proposition 8 die-hards in California accept the results of that vote. Earth to protestors: Most Americans oppose gay marriage. On this, even blacks and Mormons are agreed! Why don’t you people go find something useful to do?
Let’s see, who was avidly pro-gay-marriage? Oh I remember: The guy who’s once again lecturing Republicans on how to win elections: David Brooks.
Thing is, we may not get much of a conversion regarding ‘evangelicals and the GOP’ now, and we need one: Here’s why:
…
The Sarah Palin nomination resulted in a net loss for the GOP ticket. Her nomination increased support among fewer than one-third of white evangelicals, and decreased support among every other religious group and political independents.
This number may be the single best confirmation of my thesis that there is a (white) evangelical right, center, and left, with the center and left together being at least as large as the right, and often looking at politics and policy in very different ways than the right. Whatever else one may say about Gov. Palin, her nomination did not mobilize “evangelical” voters universally for the GOP. It mobilized one-third of them — basically, a majority of the Christian Right. Everyone else was mobilized away from the GOP by her performance as nominee.
There is no evangelical vote, no single evangelical politics. Even just within the white population of the broader evangelical family, we are politically divided. No single person, group, or party can speak for all evangelicals. This election has once again confirmed this basic but important observation.
While Parker hasn’t patience for G-O-D gripped republicans, she makes a claim that needs to be examined, especially when one considers, as Mike stated, it was the “conservative Christians have given us multiple vicotories, including Reagan in 1980 and Bush in 2000 and 2004.”
Us missing their votes this time, and Palin not moving them, needs a closer look.
When you think of the MSM who were in the tank for THE ONE, the 675 millions $ of Obama and all of the Acorn’s fraud… you realize that in fact we won that election with the 48%.
If the MSM would have been neutral and if Obama would have had only 83 millions $ like McCain and Acorn would not have existed to do hundred of thousands fraud, we would have win with 60%.
Larry W.,
You are so wrong. People voted for Obama for his leftists promises. If he governs to the center, he will lose these voters. People who voted for Republicans voted for their right policies. If they would have win and govern at the center, they would lose these votes.
You have to choose a RIGHT or LEFT government. There is no choice of CENTER on a ballot. Any government right or left that governs from the center is insulting their voters. Gee… how hard is it for you to understand that?
P.S.: In Canada, I voted for Stephen Harper a conservative. If he should govern to the Center, next election he will have to find another sucker.
Snerd Gronk
15 years ago
c(R)aig: “… Gee… how hard is it for you to understand that?”
SG: So according to you … America is a “Not-Center-Right-Not-Center-Left” country …!
“So according to you … America is a “Not-Center-Right-Not-Center-Left” country” (R) (R) (R)
There is Right and there is Left. And then, there is extreme right and extreme left. But there is no such thing as Center in politic. This is an illusion. Center is idleness. Center is nothingness.
Ditto
15 years ago
Bob Dole & Charm? That’s like equating Al Gore with “straight talk.” ..Or was that the point? Come to think of it, I would be hard pressed to say either Gore or Dole has enough charm to even bump the scale off zero.
If the Republicans want the votes, the need to leave their ivory towers and find out WHY the regular everyday voters have been discouraged from the party. I will warn that they had best not listen to their buddies and the political wonks in Washington DC. They also would do well to ignore the elitist reporters and opinion page writers. Not Neil Cavuto and the Wall Street crowd, and not the Washington lobbyists.
If they need answers, go to the real source. Ask the Sara Palin’s, and Joe the Plumbers. Go to small town America and find out what their concerns are. Ask the regular people in the so called “red states” who are the ones who would have voted Republican if there was a reason to.
The truth is the regular people don’t trust either party to represent them, because none of the blasted politicians are listening.
If the Republicans start working on plans that will support and rebuild the rural and small town life and the traditional values they have, they will get those votes, (and in doing so a large part of the Christian vote.) Right now Republicans are too focused on global business, and keeping tax breaks for the wealthiest, on the off chance that it will end up with more Wall Street Investments.
In many respects Ross Perot was correct. If you listen, you can hear America’s wealth being sucked overseas, enriching other nations and bankrupting our own. The truth of the matter is that we are buying too damn much imported goods and we are not manufacturing and exporting enough goods. We need to make things. We need to make them better. We need to re-industrialize this nation. We need to stop moving factories overseas, to play the workers of the world off against each other in a continual search for higher profit through cheaper labor. Yeah, it’s great for the stockholders and CEO’s, but this service economy is killing America. I know some of you love “free trade” but it only works if it is fair trade, meanwhile most of the other nations are not playing fair, and we will never bring the money back with a service economy. The loss of jobs has been staggering, but Republicans continue to ignore it. With the middle class today, It takes two wage earners to create a lifestyle that used to take only one wage earner. The loss of parental supervision because of this has eroded the proper upbringing of our youth. The institution we called family has undermined through far left Democratic policies, and indoctrination, but the Republicans don’t seem to give a damn so long as they and their buddies on Wall Street are making a profit, and their taxes are low.
Ms. Know
15 years ago
The conservatives will rise again, those are my thoughts. Just in time to save the country from the mess that the liberal illuminati have made more of.
Great post Mike, Bravo
It is nice to hear this sort of clear thinking from one of the party leaders. Let us hope that other Republicans heed his words.
Demint is right on the beam. Even voter fraud and the reproduction of blacks which American taxpayers have funded for the past half century would not give the left enough “votes ” to defeat the actual American people. The question is whether republicans will learn that lesson. Chambliss is involved in a struggle right now. This RINO sold out his constituents by joining the gang of 10 several months ago, yet now probably wonders why he didn’t receive greater support. Spines are quite weak in Washington, beginning with that of El Busho.
Rebuilding the Conservative Majority
“You don’t get there by compromise!” (Mike)
I just love your first sentence: “You don’t get there by compromise!” Right on the dot! Compromise, tolerance, moderation and “center” are all loser’s behaviors.
If the Republican Party can get this thru their heads, they will win the next election. In this election what upset me the most was to see Sarah doing her best to show the real nature of Obama exposing his relations, Ayers, Resko, Wright, Farrakan, Odinga… and then, McCain who would say in front of a crowd… no, no,no… Obama is a decent man! WTF! He was undoing Sarah’ good work.
I’m fortunate to have at least one Senator representing me who gets it. Too bad my other Senator Lindsey Graham, compromiser in chief, was re-elected, but then I suppose that’s better than a Democrat taking his seat (though not by much).
The fly in the ointment is that McCain generally outpolled GOP congressional candidates in most districts, with the GOP down ballot ticket typically running on a much more conservative platform than that of McCain. McCain and Palin are to be commended for getting 48% of the vote, under present circumstances.
The Democrats are not stupid; they learned a huge lesson from their years wandering in the figurative Sinai desert. They know that elections are won in the center and not on the left. Even Pelosi is now talking about “governing from the center.”
It’s misleading to claim that 60% of Americans are conservative. This is obviously not true. At the height of the impeachment debacle, and when he left office, Clinton had close to a 60% approval rating. There is a very solid 25% – 30% of the country which is solidly Republican, disproportionately located in the deep South. Obama essentially split the white vote with McCain everywhere in the country, save the South, where he lost by a ratio of 4 to 1. This is the same South where a majority of white Alabamans voted in 2000 to retain laws banning interracial marriage. This is the constituency which wants to see 11,000,000 “illegals” deported, without having a clue how to do this (recall what it took to get Elian Gonzalez deported). This is the same consituency which continues to believe that the Iraq War was worth the $3 trillion cost.
The Dems would be thrilled to see Sarah Palin be the GOP nominee for President. They would be thrilled to see her run on a stridently anti-“illegal” platform and on a platform which promoted continued US troops stationed in Iraqi bases, analogous to South Korea, Japan, and Germany.
If the Dems are now smarter, the Obama is positively a genius. Watch this guy as he moves to own the center of the political spectrum and pushes the GOP into a hard right corner.
Note that I’m not — for purposes of the current discussion — arguing against any of the above GOP principles. As I noted before, I voted for (hard right) GOP congressman Dana Rohrabacher precisely because I wanted to make it easier for Obama to govern from the center. But I really do think that the GOP base needs to do some reality testing when it comes to how it wishes to define itself.
It’s crazy comparing today’s political climate with that of the 1960s and 1970s, when Republicans indeed did try to be like Democrats. Nixon and even Gerald Ford being good examples. Nixon was much further to the left than was Bill Clinton and certainly much further to the left than Barack Obama will be. Rockefeller and Lindsay were 60s Republicans whom Flopping Aces would accuse of being socialists, were they to be around today. Today’s Democrats are going to govern like yesterday’s Republcans. Right in the middle of the political spectrum, which is right where they want to be and which is right in the sweet spot of electoral success.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Here where we have the republican’s overlooking their own brewed hemlock:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111802886.html
That’s the problem, and we need to talk about it.
Can someone please tell me who Kathleen Parker is and why I should care?
She’s the same backstabber that trashed Sarah Palin.
In case she’s not old enough to remember, conservative Christians have given us multiple vicotories, including Reagan in 1980 and Bush in 2000 and 2004.
Parker is just another snooty east coast elitist who is getting tired of being mocked at the cocktail parties she attends when people learn she is a Republican. Perhaps she would fit in better with the people whose approval she craves if she would just make the jump and become a Democrat.
I’m getting more than a little tired of people like her who have never done ANYTHING to help build the party try and tear it down.
The “talk” begins: Parker VS Goldberg:
http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/11/jonah_goldberg_on_kathleen_par.php
Thanks for keeping us updated on that Sanjay.
I’ve been saving this for my procrastinated post on this subject, but might as well dump it here:
Ok, it looks as tho’ Parker is getting SLAMMED hard:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/19/the-obligatory-everyone-getting-pretty-tired-of-kathleen-parkers-shtick-post/
…which is GREAT!
Thing is, we may not get much of a conversion regarding ‘evangelicals and the GOP’ now, and we need one: Here’s why:
http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3649&Itemid=9
While Parker hasn’t patience for G-O-D gripped republicans, she makes a claim that needs to be examined, especially when one considers, as Mike stated, it was the “conservative Christians have given us multiple vicotories, including Reagan in 1980 and Bush in 2000 and 2004.”
Us missing their votes this time, and Palin not moving them, needs a closer look.
More here:
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/those_oogedy_boogedy_christian.php#more
Frum leaves NR:
http://wonkette.com/404420/david-frum-leaves-national-review
Parker will probably be next.
When you think of the MSM who were in the tank for THE ONE, the 675 millions $ of Obama and all of the Acorn’s fraud… you realize that in fact we won that election with the 48%.
If the MSM would have been neutral and if Obama would have had only 83 millions $ like McCain and Acorn would not have existed to do hundred of thousands fraud, we would have win with 60%.
Larry W.,
You are so wrong. People voted for Obama for his leftists promises. If he governs to the center, he will lose these voters. People who voted for Republicans voted for their right policies. If they would have win and govern at the center, they would lose these votes.
You have to choose a RIGHT or LEFT government. There is no choice of CENTER on a ballot. Any government right or left that governs from the center is insulting their voters. Gee… how hard is it for you to understand that?
P.S.: In Canada, I voted for Stephen Harper a conservative. If he should govern to the Center, next election he will have to find another sucker.
c(R)aig: “… Gee… how hard is it for you to understand that?”
SG: So according to you … America is a “Not-Center-Right-Not-Center-Left” country …!
Snerd
Frum is out? Then the purge has begun!
MORE!
“So according to you … America is a “Not-Center-Right-Not-Center-Left” country” (R) (R) (R)
There is Right and there is Left. And then, there is extreme right and extreme left. But there is no such thing as Center in politic. This is an illusion. Center is idleness. Center is nothingness.
Bob Dole & Charm? That’s like equating Al Gore with “straight talk.” ..Or was that the point? Come to think of it, I would be hard pressed to say either Gore or Dole has enough charm to even bump the scale off zero.
If the Republicans want the votes, the need to leave their ivory towers and find out WHY the regular everyday voters have been discouraged from the party. I will warn that they had best not listen to their buddies and the political wonks in Washington DC. They also would do well to ignore the elitist reporters and opinion page writers. Not Neil Cavuto and the Wall Street crowd, and not the Washington lobbyists.
If they need answers, go to the real source. Ask the Sara Palin’s, and Joe the Plumbers. Go to small town America and find out what their concerns are. Ask the regular people in the so called “red states” who are the ones who would have voted Republican if there was a reason to.
The truth is the regular people don’t trust either party to represent them, because none of the blasted politicians are listening.
If the Republicans start working on plans that will support and rebuild the rural and small town life and the traditional values they have, they will get those votes, (and in doing so a large part of the Christian vote.) Right now Republicans are too focused on global business, and keeping tax breaks for the wealthiest, on the off chance that it will end up with more Wall Street Investments.
In many respects Ross Perot was correct. If you listen, you can hear America’s wealth being sucked overseas, enriching other nations and bankrupting our own. The truth of the matter is that we are buying too damn much imported goods and we are not manufacturing and exporting enough goods. We need to make things. We need to make them better. We need to re-industrialize this nation. We need to stop moving factories overseas, to play the workers of the world off against each other in a continual search for higher profit through cheaper labor. Yeah, it’s great for the stockholders and CEO’s, but this service economy is killing America. I know some of you love “free trade” but it only works if it is fair trade, meanwhile most of the other nations are not playing fair, and we will never bring the money back with a service economy. The loss of jobs has been staggering, but Republicans continue to ignore it. With the middle class today, It takes two wage earners to create a lifestyle that used to take only one wage earner. The loss of parental supervision because of this has eroded the proper upbringing of our youth. The institution we called family has undermined through far left Democratic policies, and indoctrination, but the Republicans don’t seem to give a damn so long as they and their buddies on Wall Street are making a profit, and their taxes are low.
The conservatives will rise again, those are my thoughts. Just in time to save the country from the mess that the liberal illuminati have made more of.