The GOP never needed to be the majority party in the 80s and 90s if it meant compromising the conservative values that Ronald Reagan tried to instill within the GOP during his presidency. Look at all of the legislation that the minority GOP was able to accomplish with the help of conservative democrats. The GOP then rewarded those same conservative democrats by calling them liberals and working to replace them in congress. It was more important for the GOP to gain positions of power than it was to promote ideals that would benefit their country.
If you look carefully, you can see the democrats doing the same thing today. They aren’t running “Daily Kos” liberals, they are finding and running moderates that sooner or later will enrage the base of their party. Republicans (conservatives) will have the chance to work with these moderates to continue to enact legislation that will promote conservative values if they don’t surrender completely. And (hopefully) some of the “old, tired horses” of the Republican Party will move aside and make room for the next generation.
What we should not do is allow these same power hungry politicians to convince us to continue to compromise our values because “the world will come to an end” if a democrat is elected president. This is only their lame attempt to hang on to their positions of power for as long as they can. After watching McCain on “The Factor”, I realized that there isn’t very much difference between him and his democratic opponents on key issues that I feel are important.
Finally, we desperately need to promote conservative values to the next generations and understand that the radical left is already hard at work in an effort to destroy conservative, traditional values within our younger generations.
Sometimes things seem very bleak right before the change that brings much needed reforms.
I agree with most of your post, especially the paragraph I bolded. However, I will still vote for a candidate with whom I share 15% values, than one whose values I detest.
With McCain I hope the downhill slide of the country is slower, but with Obama or Hillary, it would be a fast drop. No, it won’t be the end of the world, but it might push it to the precipice.
And your attempt to paint Rush as a racist is just leftist crap.
I didn’t paint Rush as a racist. Rush’s evolution from the late-80s to now is part and parcel of what I’m talking about though—when’s the last time he wrote a book? An updated version of The Way Things Ought to Be should be required reading in US high schools. On a different score, even the ones still writing books—like Coulter—seem like they’re just interested in shock value rather than education. Look at the difference in seriousness between Treason and Godless.
Al de Chicago - 08 May 2008 11:29 PM
The Right has painted government as evil. How then can it ask the voter to put it in power when the voter wants government?
Exactly! Government can be limited, yet still be effective and responsive. Americans are demanding solutions to energy prices, immigration, health care costs, and the Iraq war. Conservatives have solutions--good, easy to explain solutions--to those things. We have to take ownership of the issues, communicate the conservative solutions (expand supply and reduce demand for energy, shut down employment opportunities for illegals so they’ll leave on their own, expand supply and reduce demand for health care, set conditional troop withdrawal numbers based on the number of battle-tested IA and IP), and then, FOLLOW THROUGH!
jaybo - 09 May 2008 11:47 AM
They succeeded in building a GOP majority out of paper mache and chicken wire. It looked big and impressive but was really fragile and weak to the core. When the conservative base of the party began to finally see the truth, the party began to collapse.
Absolutely. Because of Clinton’s triangulation, the party increasingly was driven to either emphasize shallow positions on transient issues, many of which appealed to diverse small constituencies, or move farther and farther to the right to differentiate themselves from DLC positions. All the while, they ceded big issues like energy, health care, and immigration to the Democrats. Bush went after social security, to his credit, but social security is a far off problem, it is an order of magnitude smaller problem than Medicare, and it is popular and effective—three strikes Mr. President.
jaybo - 09 May 2008 11:47 AM
What we should not do is allow these same power hungry politicians to convince us to continue to compromise our values because “the world will come to an end” if a democrat is elected president. This is only their lame attempt to hang on to their positions of power for as long as they can. After watching McCain on “The Factor”, I realized that there isn’t very much difference between him and his democratic opponents on key issues that I feel are important.
In 2000, left-wingers didn’t think there was any real difference between Bush and Gore—how’d that work out for them?
jaybo - 09 May 2008 11:47 AM
Finally, we desperately need to promote conservative values to the next generations and understand that the radical left is already hard at work in an effort to destroy conservative, traditional values within our younger generations.
A-freakin-men! Looking at exit polls of 18-25 year olds is the most depressing exercise I’ve done over the past three months. The left-wing’s domination of secondary and post-secondary education has got to be countered. Some rich conservatives need to start endowing chairs at universities, or even starting more colleges like Hillsdale. I don’t know what can be done at high school levels, other than we, as parents, need to be vigilant about the curriculum.
jaybo - 09 May 2008 11:47 AM
Sometimes things seem very bleak right before the change that brings much needed reforms.
This isn’t a good time for dawdling and experimentation, though. Who are these leaders we’re waiting for?
Here is another opinion that indicates similar thoughts concerning the current state of the GOP. You will notice that the dems are not running “Daily Kos” liberals in these races, therefore the “world is not coming to an end”.
The truth is that Americans are starving for candidates that are NOT cut from the old pattern (ie are not career politicians). They are looking for “agents of change to break the petty bickering in Washington DC.
But, in the final analysis, the country has not moved to the left. It is simply tired of the old corrupt Washington insiders that play their constituents for fools.
POTOMAC WATCH By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
A Louisiana Lesson for the GOP
May 9, 2008; Page A15
“Democrats, meanwhile, have realized it’s more important to win than to impose liberal litmus tests on candidates. Mr. Jenkins’s opponent, Don Cazayoux, was pro-life and pro-gun. He had nice things to say about John McCain, and rarely mentioned Mr. Obama or Hillary Clinton. A self-styled “John Breaux Democrat,” he focused on education and health care.
As the polls deteriorated, the National Republican Congressional Committee ran desperate ads attempting to link Mr. Cazayoux to Mr. Obama. The comparison was ludicrous, and Louisiana voters knew it (even if the national press corps didn’t). It failed to save Mr. Jenkins from a three percentage-point loss.
“This candidate had a lot of baggage – lots and lots and lots of baggage,” admits House Minority Leader John Boehner. His comments to me came a day after he’d warned his troops that the only way they could win this fall was to prove they were “agents of change.”
He might have also directed those listening to another Louisiana election this weekend, one that didn’t get nearly the attention. The district is also conservative; Mr. Bush won 71% in 2004. The real difference was the campaign.
The 43-year-old Republican, Steve Scalise, had pinpointed today’s GOP vulnerabilities, and ran an anti-status-quo campaign. His focal point was wasteful spending, and he touted his legislation to reform Louisiana’s earmark process. Another hallmark was ethics reform and his fight against public corruption. He talked up competitive private health care, lower taxes and school choice.”
The following article provides further proof that the real problem within the GOP is their failure to live up to Reagan Conservatism. Shame on the GOP for allowing democrats in congress to be more fiscally conservative then they were when they were in the majority. That also goes for the “standard bearer” that took us to this place; President Bush. It was his foolish “big government” administration that gutted the GOP.
“Temporarily, the $195 billion war funding bill, which was to be considered on the floor of the House on Thursday, has been delayed by Democratic leadership because of opposition from The Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 48 fiscally conservative Democrats. The Blue Dog Coalition has threatened not to support the legislation because the cost of a provision that provides funding for education for military veterans is not offset in another part of the budget.” http://tinyurl.com/4ndxxx
Does any one actually think that John McCain will be elected? Spares us that, I hope.
McCain is a nutcase and and an advocate of Natl. Sucide for America. Part of the Rockfeller Republicians and a advocate of one world govt. and I know all of us are for that. Not.
Ann Coulter, a devout or a devote of Republicianism has said that the downfall of the republican party was when Ronald Regan choose George H. Bush as his VP. She, tho she has tried to help HRC and tho she is a Republician has stated in the past that McCain would be four years of madness for the USA.
While I do not all ways agree with her, I could not vote for John McCain for dog catcher, let alone President of the USA>
McCain, as is Bush, a RINO, both are for the NAU, etc. one world govt. etc. and frankly, what with NAFTA, GATT and some of the rest of the crap, the USA will be lucky to survive.
The idea of Obama as president leaves me cold, McCain leaves me all most frozen and frostbitten.
What two awful choices for the highest office in the USA.
Democrats appeared to regain control of north Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District.
Shortly after 9 p.m., with 80 percent of the precincts reporting, The Associated Press declared Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers the winner over Southaven Mayor Greg Davis, a Republican, in a runoff.
The runoff was necessary after a special election last month produced no outright winner.
Childers’ apparent victory means he will serve the final months of a term vacated by Roger Wicker. Wicker, a Republican, was appointed to the U.S. Senate after former Sen. Trent Lott resigned in December.
The Tupelo Daily Journal has declared Travis Childers, Democrat, the winner in a closely watched special election runoff. Childers took Republican Greg Davis 53% to 47%. This is he first deep red seat (George Bush took this district by 25 points in the last election) in the deep red South that Dems have taken.
As long as religious nut cases continue to win GOP primaries, the GOP will continue to lose seats. Sooner or later, the nut cases will go away, or we’ll be a one-party country.
As long as religious nut cases continue to win GOP primaries, the GOP will continue to lose seats. Sooner or later, the nut cases will go away, or we’ll be a one-party country.
Huh? To which particular religious nutcase do you refer? ‘Cause, offhand, I can’t think of one winning a recent GOP primary.
As long as religious nut cases continue to win GOP primaries, the GOP will continue to lose seats. Sooner or later, the nut cases will go away, or we’ll be a one-party country.
Huh? To which particular religious nutcase do you refer? ‘Cause, offhand, I can’t think of one winning a recent GOP primary.
Pandora, the man is simply blinded by his hatred for God. The truth is that the republican brand was severely damaged by the republican majority of the 1990s and is now suffering the consequences. Reps Hastert and Delay among others must shoulder the responsibility for this destruction. Our president is also responsible and must accept responsibility as well.
The good news is that the new crop of democrats will soon be on the infamous “Daily Kos tar-and-feather lists” for going off of the nutroot reservation as they stand on their beliefs in congress.
If they choose also to simply give their constituents lip service on the issues and blindly follow Speaker Pelosi, they will soon be out of a job.
The Tupelo Daily Journal has declared Travis Childers, Democrat, the winner in a closely watched special election runoff. Childers took Republican Greg Davis 53% to 47%. This is he first deep red seat (George Bush took this district by 25 points in the last election) in the deep red South that Dems have taken.
The final was 8 points in a very red district that went +25 for Bush in 2004.
That’s a 33 point swing. That ain’t close.
The best part about the whole thing is that the NRCC spent nearly 20% of their cash on hand to tie Childers to Obama and still couldn’t retain the seat.
Tying the candidate to Obama the Liberal Muslim America-Hating Black Man in Mississippi sure seemed like a good strategy, didn’t it?
In a refreshing bit of honesty, Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the NRCC, didn’t even try to spin the loss of a seemingly safe GOP seat in a special election.
“We are disappointed in tonight’s election results,” Cole said. “Though the NRCC, RNC and Mississippi Republicans made a major effort to retain this seat, we came up short.”
I for one, as a former republician will and have in the past flatly state, the RINOS running and ruining the USA are not republicians. They are a freakish mixturer of one world govt., might makes right, do what I say, not what I do, devoted to destroying the constitution, see the FISA bill and read how it destroys the constituiton.
ANd the best the republician party can offer is john McCain? How pitiful that is the best they can do.
The RNC must have its head that its not seen daylight in the past 7 years.
two things seem to have happend in the past 16 years, the clintons seem to have destroyed the Democratic Party and George Bush seems to have destroyed the Republican party.
Both need to rise, like the phoenix and be renewed by tossing out the garbage in charge and installing some people who actualy give a dam about america, because as sure as water will freeze at 25 degrees, there is no one in Washington in the highest positions of power that gives a fig about the citizens and or the united states. Our nation is angry at these thugs destroying the USA, and well they ought to be, their behavior has been disgracefull so the people are angry for very good reasons..
