2016: Rubio, Jindal Reach for Lead Position in the First Lap
Oh, and let’s repeat: He was in… Iowa.
Rubio ostensibly visited the early caucus state to wish a happy birthday to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad. Between slices of cake and toasts, the senator got to deliver a stump speech laying out the Republican future that must include doing “a better job of going out and convincing our fellow Americans who perhaps don’t see things the way we do.”
You can also say that neither man got close enough to the Romney campaign for any lasting taint on their presidential ambitions. Each did some campaigning for the GOP nominee, but not any more or less than other big names in the party.
Each avoided landing on the Romney ticket and potentially combusting their own prospects, though Rubio was vetted as a running mate-in-waiting. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will have a nice long career in Congress, perhaps even be Treasury secretary one day, but the House Budget Committee chairman is forever connected to a ticket that couldn’t carry his home state.
After a stinging loss to a not-so-popular president in a struggling economy, you can expect that Republicans will not be so forgiving of Achilles’ heels in the 2016 selection process.
And it’s a pretty safe bet that the 2012 primary losers won’t be back for a second round — at least not with campaign strength that would see them through the season and to the nomination.
A door is opening wider for names that were floated as potential presidential and vice presidential candidates this time around — people who wisely passed in Obama’s re-election year.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has said many things of late about the Big Tent and the GOP; he also said 2012 was probably his best time if he wanted to run for president, but he may be more content in the party statesman role. George P. Bush, son of Jeb and Mexican-born Columba Bush, is 36 years old and considering a run for Texas land commissioner — and in several years, if he rises up in the ranks, the Bush name won’t be as damaging.
Stars who could rise a little nearer in the future include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who will be moving into the No. 4 GOP leadership spot in the House in the 113th Congress, and Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and John Thune (R-S.D.). Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a passionate pork-barrel-spending foe who forged a House version of comprehensive immigration reform with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) in 2007, is also moving up into the Senate and could be in the spotlight. There are Govs. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) and Chris Christie (R-N.J.), if the base forgives him for his pre-election Obama chumminess anytime soon. And bear in mind that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) could build an even more rabid presidential following than his retiring dad.
Four years is not only time to raise name recognition, but to establish oneself as a guiding force in the Republican Party by honing and even reforming the platform and policies to reflect the GOP’s core guiding principles.
But is step one brushing off any trace of, and even repudiating, Romney?
If so, Jindal is nicely out of the starting gate.
And he’s safely past his own foible, the lame and universally panned response to Obama’s 2009 address to a joint session of Congress. He’s wisely matured in office while those who cried “rising star!” have had to cool their heels.
The 41-year-old Jindal, born in Baton Rouge, is a Rhodes Scholar with degrees from Brown and Oxford. He has a background in healthcare administration that could come in valuable when promising to reform, replace, or repeal ObamaCare. He’s also been president of the University of Louisiana System — well-poised to talk education — and was elected to two terms in the U.S. House.
Jindal is now in his second term as governor. He’s married to New Delhi native and childhood friend Supriya Jolly; they have three children together. He’s made history as the first Indian-American governor and second member of Congress of this ethnicity.
Rubio, also 41 and Catholic, was born in Miami as the son of Cuban immigrants. He graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Miami School of Law. He rose to speaker of the Florida House of Representatives before famously ending Charlie Crist’s political career in the 2010 Senate elections. His wife, Jeanette Dousdebes, used to be a Miami Dolphins cheerleader (and is his best friend, according to his interview in the December issue of GQ); they have four children together.
When asked by GQ if he’s moving too fast, Rubio said, “For most of my life I’ve been in a hurry.”
“I don’t regret any of the choices I’ve made, but sometimes timing isn’t up for us to decide on taking some of the opportunities as they present themselves,” the senator said.
Try returning to the rule of law, thats the only hope. Here is the latest form “The Peoples Republic of Chicago”
Eavesdropping on the Sun Times Chutzpa
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/11/19/eavesdropping-on-the-sun-times-chutzpa/
Well, whoring to the left is not gonna get them votes. In fact, it will only serve to provoke the real conservative base, and the Repubs will be punished at the polls.
Before one can ‘feel’ for everyone, one has to stand for something. But it can also be done with respect and clarity of message. And herein lies the caveat.
A smarter plan would be to DEMONSTRATE why Repub plans are better for ALL the people, as opposed to leftist plans which are destroying the economy, as well as the fabric of the family.
Leftist dogma is the same world over -http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/01/leftist-dogma-the-same-world-over-freedom-loving-people-beware-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-32-2/ and it is time that the RINOS show a spine and create a true alternative!!
For if there is NO discernible difference between both parties (other than a packaged brand), who gives a damn who wins. To wit, is it then a choice between one devil or the other?
As an absentee voter, this blogger has a dog in this struggle too!
If the Republicans could ever quit nominating RINO’s and technocrats, and start tapping into that innate urge for freedom most thinking people possess, they’d start winning.
This means abiding by the limits of the Constitution, not only when arguing against democrat policies, but also arguing against Socons who wish to replace liberal mandates with socially conservative mandates.
Let the people live their lives as they see fit, to either rise or fall on their own merits and actions (or flaws and inactions), keep the government constrained to those responsibilities that only a federal government can handle, and see how that goes for a change….
Ah yes the traditional really smart comment that just happens to bash social conservatives. I’m sorry but the last election proved one thing. That focusing entirely on the economy/freedom and barely touching social issues is a non starter. Romney dominated on the economy by every single poll and study and still lost.
Not to mention that the longer we let social issues slide then the more liberal/progressive the general population becomes. You can ignore it all you want but teaching proper values in schools and churches and the media is what social conservatives are all about, and when you fail to do that then the left will simply teach their values instead, and we are now reaping what we’ve sown by forfeiting our entire culture.
And if you allow abortions, gay marriage, and a million other things that “crazy socons” are against then it is literally impossible to have a functioning classical liberal society with a free market because it is dependent entirely on a certain set of conditions. Strong family units, population growth, traditional values like honesty and a strong work ethic amongst other things.
So Götterdämmerung, exactly where in the Constitution does it mention the federal government having ANY role to play in schools – much less teaching any values?
Seriously, you actually want government in the business of teaching right and wrong to school children, especially with the current occupant of the White House in charge of the executive branch?!?
Same goes for teaching morals in churches and the media – the federal government has no constitutional authority in either of those areas either.
Then you have abortion and gay marriage. Again, where does the federal government have a constitutionally delegated authority in either of those areas?
I agree that Roe V Wade is a travesty of law, but if you think you can get a simple majority in congress and have it overturned by law at this late juncture then you are delusional. The majority of the citizenry seems to agree with the view that it should be legal under certain circumstances – but rare.
This just goes to prove the point I’ve made – many socons have no real interest in the Constitution, they simply want to replace liberal mandates with socon mandates – and they are losing.
You honestly think Todd Akin had a chance in hell after that severe case of foot-in-mouth disease he displayed wherein he tried to parse his ideas regarding the degrees of rape?
I come from the land of Jesse Helms. He won election after election in a state dominated by democrats even though he was a republican, and he probably was a socon’s dream in his social views.
However, he also held the Constitution in high regard and tried to stick to it, and ultimately I think that was the secret of his success. After all, there were plenty of Southern democrats who were also socially conservative during the same time frame he was in office, but they couldn’t dislodge him.
Reagan likewise held socially conservative views – views I generally share to this day. The thing is though, he tried to convince the citizenry to emulate those same views by way of example, NOT by getting laws passed to make people behave in certain ways he agreed with. Again, abortion is a good example. He seems always to have have held an exception at the very least for the health and well being of the mother.
Doesn’t mean he supported abortion, and he definitely argued against the practice, but he also pragmatically accepted the popular judgement that there were instances where it could be justified no matter how deeply he opposed the actual practice of it.
Then you mention things like strong families, honesty, and a strong work ethic. Again, where is the government’s role in this? The best that can be hoped for is that the government STOP interfering!
The citizens of this country DID survive for generations prior to the maze of social safety nets that have been woven at the federal level. If they lost a job, guess what – they went out and found another one! Today if a person is laid off they can look forward in some cases to up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.
Not sure where you were going with the reference to population growth, however…
So, in my opinion, if the federal government stepped back and stopped subsidizing many of the ills you critique, and stopped involving itself at all, a lot of the issues you are concerned about would in time go away on their own as people relearned how to be self sufficient and relearned that a strong family unit was the best social safety net.
But do feel free to keep crying out for more socon agitation – it’s worked so brilliantly for you so far every time it’s been tried.
I also hold that Romney lost because he did not get the base excited – and I think that was primarily because of Romneycare as well as many other nanny state ideas. Not socially conservative at all, nor abiding by any ideas of constitutionally limited government.
Great, a couple of useless RINO turds critizing Romney for speaking the truth.
Romney spoke the truth. The GOP will now move to the left to increase its share to 50.1%. The removal of the Rule of Law on Immigration or as it will be called, Amnesty, will be the 1st plank in the new platform.
Rubio is a RINO and I WILL STAY HOME if he is the nominee in 2016. Until the GOP gets REAL by dismissing that clown Boehner, and stop nominating watered down wimps, they will never win.
Rubio defended Romney as a “Conservative” during the primaries, is already pushing for defacto amnesty, and then had his big government “internet security” bill that was shot down after criticism.
No thanks….
Rubio is an Amnesty shill. I will not vote for him.
He was big on the “Arab Spring” too, and probably still is. A regular McCain mini-me.
You got this right. He has no clue about the threat ISLAM. IMO: any politician who doesn’t recognize AND name BOTH of the two major threats we face in the free western world, ISLAMISM AND SOCIALISM (actually there is a third: ECO-FASCISM, but we can count this as a “sub” of Socialism) is NOT fit for office. PERIOD! How the hell can these clowns defend our country, our values, our rights and our freedom when they don’t know against whom?
Exactly, he has some of the same problem as Mittens. He’s too willing to let the deficits continue year after year rather than beginning to pay down the debt. He’s willing to continue to allow illegal immigration, and to allow too low standards and orders of magnitude excessive levels of legal immigration (and student visas, and guest-work visas…).
So, now that John Boehner has said he does not want to be Speaker, who can we put in there who has a back-bone for a change?
So…six million conservative voters stayed home in 2008 …because McCain was a RINO. He just wasn’t a real conservative, ya know?
Obama became Pres. What a mess he turned out to be, eh?
This last go ’round, according to some pundits, some eight to ten million conservatives stayed home…because Romney was a RINO. He’s not a real conservative.
Obama…wins again.
Now, you’re tellin’ me that you’ll stay home during the next go ’round …because Jindal, et al, are RINO’s. He’s/They’re just not a real conservative.
Which means that in 2016, you’ll stay home and let the next liberal progressive become pres.
So…tell me again… How’s that ideological purity strategy been workin’ out for ya so far?
It must be working out just the way the Republicans want it to. They obviously don’t learn from their own history. They keep nominating non-electable candidates and the results come out the same over and over.
So, you tell me, hows that working out for ya?
I don’t think I can take another four years of these childish spitball fights on our side. Stay home if you want. Just stop whining and moaning about how the country is going socialist in the meantime.
At this point, nominating a “real conservative” (whatever the hell that is – probably an unelectable socon halfwit like Santorum or Akin) feels like closing the barn door after the horses are gone, anyway.
McCain and Romnay RINOs are unelectable. So why not try a real conservative?
“McCain and Romnay RINOs are unelectable. So why not try a real conservative?”
There were “real conservative[s]” who ran in this year’s Republican primary & they were all eliminated by the voters. The Republican Party needs to examine just why it is the voters prefer more moderate candidates. My theory: The far right positions on the social issues simply don’t work for most of the voters. As long as conservative pols make the social issues the central focus of their platforms, they are going to lose. These issues belong to the people, not the gov’t; the sooner these pols recognize this & act accordingly, their pattern of losing will continue.
…the sooner these pols recognize this & act accordingly, the sooner their pattern of losing will
continuestop. (Sorry, got sidetracked w/someone talking to me).So very true. When conservatives vote 3rd party or not at all. We lose. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! Wake up conservatives and American loving citizens. We are giving away the country!
If the alternative is selling out the unborn and the Catholic Church, what’s it to me if the whole nation goes down?
Thank YOU!
I agree. The Pubbies should leave abortion and birth control out of their platform…..unless some of the white “ladies who lunch” gals adopt all those unwanted babies. In fact….they should not promote their belief in the Bible.
You know, neither Jindal nor Rubio are natural born citizens. They are citizens, but not natural born (meaning their parents were not American citizens at the time of their birth) citizens.
If we are going to have the new normal (obama is not a natural born citizen either as his father was a British subject) of not following the Constitution in choosing our presidents can we at least do it by passing an Amendment first? Or are we just going to chuck it and burn the pesky thing?
This just sucks! I’m staying home!
Yep. The colonists are taking over.
Time for White European Americans to organize for their own protection.
Lolly, it HAS been chucked and burned. Words do not mean anything now. Oaths, constitutions, contracts, definitions … it has all been thrown out the window. The bararians have taken the walls and are running through the streets. Welcome to the Brave New World. But we must not give up. In the words of Churchill: Never, never, never give up. Never. You love this country and I love this country, therefore we are not alone. Never.
You beat me to this. I feel the same. If I had been old enough when George Romney ran, I would not have supported him. I don’t recognize Obama as president because of the many ways in which he is not a natural-born. And I will not support Rubio, Jindal, or G.P. Bush in any presidential or vice-presidential aspirations. There has got to be a parental allegiance component to natural-born status, or we might as well just hand the keys over to Mexico for an anchor baby, born here but still Mexican nationals in their hearts, or to one of the Asian countries for one of their citizen-status babies, calved here just for the benefits but raised overseas. Just one of many nightmare scenarios. The natural-born clause was put there for a reason. Washington’s afterthought was genius. Why won’t our elected officials and our Supreme Court address this?
The US Supreme Court ruled in the Wong Kim Ark case (which btw was AFTER Minor v. Happersett) that every child born in the USA except for the children of foreign diplomats is a Natural Born US Citizen. And the fact that the US Supreme Court ruled that has now been confirmed by SEVEN state courts and one federal court on Obama and one more (Hollister v. McCain) on McCain, a total of nine courts, and not one single court ruled that Obama is not a Natural Born US Citizen. As a result, Jindal and Rubio and, yes, Obama are all Natural Born Citizens due to their place of birth.
Oh, and Obama was indeed born in Hawaii, as showed by his birth certificate, and the confirmation of the officials of both parties in Hawaii, and the Index Data file, and the birth notices to the newspapers sent to the papers by the DOH of Hawaii in 1961, and the letter sent by the Hawaii teacher to her father, named Stanley, about the birth in Kapiolani Hospital to a woman named Stanley.
This business of people staying home is irritating to the max. Petulant crybabies who eschew the good because they didn’t get the perfect. Because many stayed home this time, we didn’t get the good; we got the worst.
Just because a candidate is not ideal on all counts is no reason to turn your back on him and call him a rino. I think Rubio would make a marvelous president if we survive that long. And I say that as a Tea Party member.
I think Romney was absolutely correct in what he said. For me Jindal’s dissent to Romney’s comment is not correct on the facts. And anyway, I don’t want a candidate who needs the voters to like him; I prefer someone who will educate the voters to see that we have the best policies for the poor and the middle class and everyone will be better off.
And if anyone tries to question Rubio’s credentials as a “Natural born citizen, he should be rebuffed at once with the idea that if Obama born of a father who was not a citizen can get eight years as president, that question has been made moot.
You’re another reason I’m staying home. I actually believe the last election was rigged and won by fraud – MASSIVE fraud.
However, your solution of chosing someone who isn’t a natural born citizen as demanded by the Constitution just tells me you’re just as ready as the donkeys to chuck the Constitution when it doesn’t suit you.
Well, it’s that attitude that tells me I no longer want to play. If we can’t do it by the rules I’m not going to participate in breaking them.
Legal experts weighed in on this last spring, when it looked like Rubio would be the VP pick. Unless Rubio’s actual biography differs drastically from what is written on paper, he is fully eligible for the office of the President of the United States.
Long story short, if you’re born on US Soil, which Rubio was, to naturalized US Citizens, which Rubio’s parents were, than you are eligible to hold the office of President, period.
“Legal Experts”
Nope, no agenda there
Soil birth Subjection requires a country be owned by a King thus making all people born on the King’s soil Subjects.
America is not a Kingdom. That is WHY Vattel’s Natural-Born CITIZEN definition was used NOT Blackstone.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DelVol02.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=459&division=div1
Benjamin Franklin to To: Charles William Frederic Dumas
Dear Sir,
Philadelphia, 9 December, 1775.
…
I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author.
His parents were NOT Naturalized at the time of Rubio’s birth.
You are correct that they were Permanent Legal Residents, at the time. However, that’s entirely irrelevant, as the courts have repeatedly found that anybody born on US soil is a Natural Born Citizen.
Lynch v Clark 1844, and U.S vs Wong Kim Ark in 1898 both found that being on US soil at time of birth was sufficient to be a Natural Born citizen. These decisions cited English Common Law, which is was US immigration law was almost wholly based on at the time.
Additionally, the 14th Amendment states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This has historically been interpreted to mean that those born on US soil are natural born citizens, and as such this is how the law has been implemented since the adoption of the 14th Amendment.
Basically, the idea that one of both parents must also be natural born citizens, has no historical basis, and is considered a highly unusual argument.
So yes, Marco Rubio is eligible for the office of the Presidency, under the common interpretation of the law of the United States.
For more on this subject, I suggest the following URL.
http://www.fredthompsonsamerica.com/2012/07/31/is-rubio-eligible/
Rubio’s parents were not naturalized until 1975; they were not naturalized when he was born in 1971, therefore he was not born “to” naturalized parents. The point of the natural born clause is to ensure that a child is born to parents who owe their allegiance to this country, either by birth themselves, or by swearing allegiance in a naturalization ceremony. Implied in this is a contra-indication to any form of dual citizenship or divided loyalty, or any condition in which another nation could claim dominion over the person in question, through inherited status. Natural born citizen and dual citizen are mutually exclusive.
At the time of his birth, Rubio’s parents had not yet taken the steps necessary to renounce allegiance to their birth country to become citizens of this one. Ergo, they still owed allegiance elsewhere, despite having been resident aliens for twenty years.
But for all you Rubio apologists: do you really want to jeopardize the sovereignty of the United States by permitting yet another, and less ambiguous, non-natural-born whose parents were citizens of another country at the time of his birth, or worse, a future in which the parents aren’t citizens or residents at all?
The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)
Emmerich de Vattel
BOOK 1, CHAPTER 19
Of Our Native Country, and Several Things That Relate to It
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
If Obama can dupe the world into his claim to “natural born” citizenship, then it’s ok for the Republicans to DUPE-licate….Right?
Wrong.
The reason is plainly stated in the above reference.
“I actually believe the last election was rigged and won by fraud – MASSIVE fraud.”
Is it that hard to admit that perhaps Obama won on the merits? Surely there was some fraud that emanated from both sides but enough to throw an election? Doubtful.
Instead of being bitter, hope & pray the Republican Party can regroup successfully, make sensible changes & emerge once again as the dominant party. Our system of gov’t is the best in the world; we serve ourselves the best by working within the system.
There are allegations of voter fraud coming out all over the place. Name ONE that comes from the republican side…..
Besides, I’m not bitter – I accept that TWANLOC hold sway. Let them try and find me when I go Galt. I am a producer who will not longer produce – for them.
I gather you may have seen this? I actually think it’s a pretty good plan if the Republican Party does fail. Meantime though, I really want to see the party get its act together.
AFA Republicans committing voter fraud, I doubt it rises up to a level worth talking about. Still don’t think the Dems’ case of it was on a scale that threw the election.
Poor poor lolly.
He/she has thrown what… at least 2 tantrums on this topic (among others). The only thing left for him/her is to exclaim: “I’m gonna go out in the garden and eat worms cause no one played the game according to MY righteous rules of law!” Would you refuse to allow a rino doctor in the ER to stitch you up so that you could make it to your preferred conservative doctor a bit later to treat the problem long term? We’ve got to at least STOP THE BLEEDING, then take the next step – and the next – and the next until we can see our way out of this upside down/criminal world of liberals.
It simply comes down to this: “If you DON’T vote, you CAN’T complain.” You seem to think you’re the only person who can recognise a rino and chokes at the thought of giving them your vote. I choked bitterly too, but I still did my job… I voted.
An effort HAS to start somewhere. Hold your nose and VOTE for the candidate closest to your values. I’m sick of it too, but you can’t sit back and do nothing because you don’t like the rino on the ticket.
Your way of handling our problems is to refuse to vote… lolly, all of us know that only puts us further away from our goals.
WE HAVE TO START WHEREVER WE CAN. We all know it. This staying at home mess must stop because before long you won’t even have the right to go home (it will be owned by the socialists who say you must share all you own so we can all have Obamaphones).
I also had to vote for the safety of my three military sons (one who is deployed in Bahrain). If I had stayed at home Obama would have won – oh wait – he did win. I wonder how many people couldn’t swallow their frustration and didn’t vote? Could that be ONE of the reasons he won? And will a son of mine pay the ultimate price for those who said “I’m staying home!”?
We have to start SOMEWHERE.
2Texans, God bless your 3 sons for serving their country (and us) and keep them safe. I too am so frustrated at those who stayed home and didn’t vote because Romney was not their perfect candidate. It was kinda like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Romney was not m preferred candidate, either, but I voted for him anyway – it was ABO, in my opinion. This past election was so crucial, everyone should have voted if for no other reason than to stop Obamacare – and we could’ve made sure Romney stopped it. As it is now, there’s absolutely no hope of stopping it.
“This business of people staying home is irritating to the max”
Well, here’s some more irritation for you. And who is the real “petulant crybaby” here?
If a woman is being raped by a shorthorn, is she supposed to “compromise”, because, after all, it’s just a “little bit”?
I and others among us still hold to the belief that “penetration, however slight, is sufficient to constitute the act (of being forcibly raped by a RINO)
You sound a bit like Neville Chamberlain.
No thank you.
No compromise.
We should not change our Constitutional rules on POTUS to fit Obama’s situation of becoming an illegal POTUS. We should uphold the Constitution, and approach the breach from the other direction, i.e., Obama being installed in the WH does not conform to the Constitution. And I don’t see where Obama has set a precedent, for the reason that he hides his docs and commits fraud, thus we have not consented to his ineligibility, so how can a precedent be set under those circumstances? An effort is still being made to expose him, which also argues against a precedent being set. As to why don’t the Repubs go after Obama and the Dems on this issue, it’s because they want to take advantage of it. They have a couple of “star” candidates who are also not eligible (Jindal and Rubio) that they want to run eventually. So they don’t want to reverse the Obama situation.
“We need to respect the fact that others have come to different conclusions based on their own sincerely held beliefs and have a civil debate.”
Civil debate needs to go both ways. We’ve been trying to have civil debates for decades and look where it’s gotten us. It’s difficult to have a civil debate with a pack of hyenas.
The problem is, as illustrated by many, if not most, of the comments on this website (as well as many of the articles), conservatives aren’t trying to have a civil debate with anyone…not even with other conservatives. When you vilify anyone and everyone over anything and everything, you’re not trying to have a civil debate with anyone at all.
An astute obervation! Lots of people in the so called “conservative” camp (a hijacked term) profess the constitution as their foundation. However, to listen to them one comes to the conclusion that they’d be happy having one of their own as a King or otherwise dictator over the land. I guess their copies of the constitution are void of majority rules and governance is by compromise.
Yes, it’s a problem. No successful political party can exist, IMO, whose members don’t represent most, if not all Americans. Liberals like to pigeonhole people by race & utilize it to their political advantage. But conservatives do a bit of it too: You’re Hispanic? You must be an illegal alien. Gay? You’re a far leftist. Conservatives like to espouse on how sensitive they are to the concept of people as “individuals.” This concept badly needs more intense focus in the Republican Party’s platform.
Write this perdiction down and put it on your fridge for 2016 Presidential race.
Dems: 54%
GOP: 46%
The Tea Party movment has some illusion that they represent the majority of voting americans. They don’t even represent a majority of the GOP much less a majority of all voting americans.
Likewise, I predict that of the 2010 states races claimed as won by the Tea party, they will loose six of them in the 2014 races.
The GOP is far to damaged a party with radical platforms to prevail in 2016 short of some major defeat of the Tea party within the party well prior to the primary races. With a resurrected Reagan — maybe!
I have a different prediction: Republicans will take the House 260-175, and have the Senate split 50-50. Why? Because the Democrats cannot get the necessary turnout for midterm elections; their base only shows up to elect the President.
Great. Neither one is a Natural Born American. Native born, but not Natural Born. Let’s all just become democrats and be done with the Constitution.
Seriously! If anything, I say we draft Allen West. He just conceded his seat (gerrymandered by donkey’s for just such purpose) so he’s probably looking for something to do!
“Let’s all just become democrats and be done with the Constitution.”
We don’t have to adopt an “If you can’t beat them, join them” type of attitude to simply want to belong to a political party that strives to represent as many people as possible. The Republican Party will not survive as long as it continues to appeal to such a small sliver of the electorate. There are many voters out there whose values, for the most part, are aligned with conservatism but again & again, the Republicans fail to reach these people. The party badly needs to figure out how to overcome this failure.
The more I hear about Rubio and Jindal the less I like them.
I’m sorry but yeah it’s true. Obama used massive amounts of cash to make sure everyone stayed in their place and chirped on command. May not have been wise to say it but to aknowledge it as anything but truth is ignoring the way things work.
In addition this DREAM Act replacment is just another nail in this coffin. The racial engine in the liberal party has time on it’s side.
Well, I will always vote, but coming out and attacking their own now?? really? Why would any good decent citizen run, look what they do to them! I don’t ever see dems go out an attack their own, ever. Jindal admitted Reps don’t like people, you don’t think the left will put that on a roll and run it over and over again? The bad thing is these old farts are taking orders from Bush and we will see Jeb out there for 2016! His mother has already spoken! Look what the RepS did to Allen West, they moved his district and said you’re on your own! Don’t get me started on Mia Love, not an ounce of help! So we’re supposed to bend to these farts? The only bright spot was that some of the tparty backed won and held the house, thank God. And for Gods sake SHUT UP ABOUT RAPE, what is it with these guys that don’t know better, SHUT UP ABOUT RAPE AND ABORTION!! OLD FOOLS!!
Right! And stop yapping about contraception! Santorum and Huckebee (& of course Akin and Mourdock) hurt us badly! Their socon obsessions are RELIGIOUS beliefs…and have no place on the political stage.
Sen Kay Bailey Hutchinson had the right answer: “I hate abortion. I abhor abortion. But I do not have the right to demand that all people follow my personal religious beliefs.”
RINO answer? No…SENSIBLE WINNING ANSWER! All voters were not raised with Catholic or evangelical religious beliefs!
Whigs to abolitionists: “Shut up about slavery! It’s a losing issue!”
Abolitionists: “Screw you, we’ll start our own party.”
And that is the story of how the Republican Party was born. Now we have come full circle, and abortion is the modern slavery issue. If the Republicans refuse to abolish abortion, then let them go the way of the Whigs, and we’ll start a new party to replace them, or perhaps raise up the Constitution Party to major party status. If you rich people (and all Americans are rich by global standards, so this applies to you even if you make $40,000 a year) care more for your money than the slaughter of innocents in your midst, then may your money perish with you; we ask for neither your counsel, nor your support.
One more thing, TEA Party has a winning RECORD, in fact our record made HISTORY! So all the bashers AKA Rinos, your record is crap, HUGE pile of crap and you look and sound like losers bashing us. The next year will not be good so get your houses in order, we will need every ounce of effort to save this great country!
I’m not ready for this – give it a rest.
Damn staight!
instead of this nonsense,how about we concentrate during the next two years on taking back the senate so we can impeach obama and send all these law breakering politicians to prison?
just an idea.
While I’d take either Jindal or Rubio for President, I think it might be a little early to be jockeying for position. Especially a bit irked with Jindal for being a might too casual with throwing Romney under the bus. Yes, I know, a lot of people in the party dislike Romney, and some are irked with him. Still, seems a bit ungracious to be so eager to throw him to the wolves like that.
Or perhaps I’m just empathizing with Romney too much. Very possible, seeing as I actually do genuinely like the guy.
As for Jockeying for position, well. It seems to me that, at this time, they should be quietly building support, approaching people about a future campaign, and so on and so forth. Jockeying, generally doesn’t happen until you start approaching the primaries. It just seems to me that, starting this off too early, both sends a wrong message and potentially interferes with the image candidates generally try to build in the few years leading up to the campaign.
The idea that we have ANY clue now as who may win an open nomination four years hence contradicts postwar history. Who in 1948 foresaw Adlai Stevenson as nominee with Truman eligible to run again? Or Ike, who while President of Columbia was working with the Truman Administration on reorganizing the military command structure (it was only around 1950 he began being seriously mentioned, and he entered the race due in large part to his fear of Bob Taft’s foreign policy ideas)?
Similarly, in 1956 Kennedy was viewed as future star, but not for 1960 at that time. Goldwater wasn’t on the radar in 1960, and in 1964 you could have demanded long odds against a Nixon comeback in ’68. McGovern? Carter? No way. Dukakis was deservedly obscure in 1984 (Cuomo was the predicted favorite for 1988), and in ’88 many thought Clinton had blown his chances with his terrible convention speech.
In 1996, Bush was the predicted nominee for 2000 – but Jeb, not George W. And in 2004 many saw Obama as a future candidate, but not in 2008, which was Hillary’s year.
Yet pundits continue this mindless speculation about the nominee four years in the future, and by the averages, they are almost always wrong. The only correct predictions for open nominations have been Reagan, Bush the Elder, McCain, and Romney on the Republican side because Republican primary voters have a tendency to go with the “next in line” while Democrats tend to choose the fresh faces (Adlai, JFK, McGovern, Carter, Clinton, & Obama).
So I predict it won’t be Jindal OR Rubio – OR Santorum. And history is on my side.
The problem with your analysis is that you’re looking at races from the Dark Ages. Nowadays, candidates start campaigning for reelection the minute they get elected, before they even assume office. The president of Columbia couldn’t work with Obama and then get the Republican nomination 2 years later, because he’d be too far behind in campaign fundraising to make a serious run at the nomination. It’s all about packaging, image, and the “drive to win” now, rather than public service and doing things to help the country.
As for all you RINO-bashers out there, the tea party types who keep bringing up the religious stuff, you’re being idiots. If your candidate had won the nomination this time around (be it Santorum, Perry, Bachman, or Paul, whoever) you’d have had a solid hold on the right 33% or so of the country, and NO ONE else would have voted for you. I realize that you sulked during this last election, and that as a result Obama won a second term. Yes, if we don’t go along with you and nominate a “true conservative” you can make sure that the Democrat wins, every time. The problem is that if we do go along with you, we’ll lose anyway; so far we haven’t been dumb enough to go along with the idea that you guys should run the party. Look at the hit job on Rubio tonight (the thing where GQ asked him how old the earth is), and when you read the articles, go to one that has comments. They’re *full* of people denouncing him as a religious fanatic for not answering 13 billion years, or whatever the hell the scientists believe the true number is, this year. The problem for you is that those people get to vote, just like you. Until we nominate someone who can appeal to people who *don’t* think like you, we’re going to lose elections.
Then again, I keep saying, we just drove off the fiscal cliff (never mind the thing at the end of the year) and we’re Wile E. Coyote, we just don’t realize there’s nothing but open air below us, and we’re running as fast as we can. When we look down, we’re going to crater badly.
Two RINOs lost back to back. Maybe we can try a real conservative this time? That way we will actually have some proof that real conservatives cant win.
If that is the case then it’s over. Leftist-Lite or Far-Left become the 2 choices, like in Europe.
All fine & well to “try” a real conservative but first, they must make it beyond the primary process. As I noted above, all candidates who succeed are those who appeal to a broad spectrum of the electorate. No one in their right mind likes to be left out. Candidates who appear to cater to a small minority simply are not going to win elections. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.
BULL-oney! I think it was clear that the media picked Mitt Romney. The electorate proved they wanted anybody BUT Romney. Then the media started making up stuff about people. Herman Cain, while probably not a saint, also probably didn’t commit adultery with the woman they paid to say she did. She how fast she disappeared when holes started showing in the story?
But the damage was done and Cain dropped out. Which is what they (the media) did to every candidate.
Truth is, we put up two squishes and we lost both times. Why should people vote for democrat-lite when they can get the full-bodied commie ripe for the asking?
Go back and play some of Ronal Reagans speeches and see what it was that he said that SPOKE to the American people that both sides of the aisle voted for him in two landslides.
Newt Gingrich (no I don’t want him for prez) remembers. He’s the only one that got the audience going when he spoke.
We were very lucky to have Ronald Reagan; we are not likely to get someone of that stature again in our lifetime.
I stand by my assertion that a candidate must appeal to the majority (this includes voters from both sides of the aisle); Reagan most certainly filled that bill, & then some.
As I noted elsewhere, Todd Akin of Socon values was NOT the Tea Party candidate. Palin actually endorsed Martha Zoller in that primary.
In my experience, the Tea Party movement seems to be more about fiscal conservatism than social conservatism – so you might want to get your facts on that movement from someplace other than the MSM.
I also suspect that Tea Partiers showed up in higher percentages than other Republican voting blocks did.
If this is the case, I fully expect the republican establishment to do their very best between now and the 2014 races to pi$$ off the Tea Partiers and make sure they get the message that there is no room in the republican big tent for them and that they can take Sarah Palin with them….
;^(
Can’t rule out Huckabee either.
Do these two glassy-eyed career-bots have even the faintest inkling that all is not well at the GOP corral?
They are revving up their campaigns for 2016 as though 2012 was “just another one that got away from us”, oblivious to the fact that a Krakatoa of cynicism and disgust has totally buried their party. Serious, concerned and engaged conservatives are utterly fed up with the GOP and the two party system. The country is in deep distress and the cause lies in large part in the rote electoral behaviors of both the two major parties and a gullible electorate that allows them to go on playing their repulsive little good cop/bad cop scam election after election.
I don’t give a good god damn what either of these political sewer rats says or does. To hell with them and to hell with the GOP!
And there’s a problem I see and read from my fellow Conservatives – the concept of “another Reagan.” It’s not that sure, there may be such a candidate out there, lurking in the wings. That’d be great.
But a lot of us act as if we’re banking everything on this. “We need another Reagan.” No. What we need is someone who actually grew a pair, who is highly competent, and can articulate why voting Republican is the better choice.
There is no magic “quick-fix,” and there never was. Remember, the Democrats have worked patiently for this day for over 45 years. It may well be that it will be an equally long time before a truly Conservative message takes root again. And that will take hard, patient work.
DRAFT ALLEN WEST!
Sure, let’s just nominate more RINOs. After all, Republicans have had SO much “success” with moderate nominees, with such “winners” like Dole, McCain, and now Romney. Jindal and Rubio have been falling all over themselves during the last few days to distance themselves from some of the few conservative things Romney has said, such as the FACT that now the majority of people in this country expect a check from the government instead of making their own way in life.
And please, spare me the talking points about those people on Social Security or Medicare. They may have paid into the system, but the fact remains they want their money and will vote for the person they think is best qualified to keep the checks coming. It doesn’t really matter that both those programs were so mismanaged by both Democrats AND Republicans and are now nearly broke. The bottom line is that these people still want to get paid and will vote for whoever keeps the process going. So in a certain way, Romney WAS right in his 47% comment.
Just watch. The next successful Republican on the national level will be a “compassionate conservative” on steroids. Republicans will now have to out-spend Democrats to get elected. The Republican establishment will probably demand that, given that it worked for George W. Bush. What the Republican establishment does NOT understand is that it will only further drive the conservative base away from it. The Republicans will only become Democrats light, and conservatives won’t go for it. It really may be time for a third party.
Third parties are fine — I voted for Perot in 1992 — but what I worry about is a general collapse in America’s political system as a functioning whole. We may be in for Perestroika or an “Arab spring” with an American twist. America can not go on as it has these past 10 years or so without fundamental change. If public unions start going on strike, taxpayers may also go on strike, and then we will see who can grow the biggest cabbages in their garden plot.
Ok, read through the article and my gut reaction is that the party of stupid is once again being…stupid.
Rubio and Jindel are both focusing on demographics instead of the underlying political philosophy – and demographics is how the democrat party cobbles together a winning coalition.
They will not be able to out-democrat the democrats.
Yes, Romney was correct in his stated views regarding handouts, and unless the Republicans want to go the route of 2 trillion dollar deficits instead of democrat induced 1 trillion dollar deficits, it ain’t gonna work out for them.
Heck, I’d expect even if the republicans did go that route that the democrats would take credit for it – and then blame the republicans when the next Great Depression hit as a result of basic economics.
RINO Romney, whom I DID vote for in spite of his best efforts, did not lose because he dismissed a demographic that constituted 10% of voters (Hispanics), and he never had a chance of peeling away any substantial numbers of the other demographic the democrats rely upon (African American), and he certainly wasn’t ever going to collect the votes of the liberals and the moochers of the remaining demographic of the Caucasian persuasion.
He lost because he could not do something as simple as inspire and motivate the voters who were willing to vote for McCain four years earlier to come out and vote for him!
Those voters did not instead vote for Obama – they just sat the election out.
By Rubio and Jindel focusing on replacing these disenchanted voters with another demographic, they are ignoring the very real problem the Republican party has in motivating the base and getting out the vote – and this reflects a shallow approach to the party’s problems.
When they begin to lose even those who not only voted for McCain but also voted for Romney – what demographic are they going to in turn replace THEM with?!?
That base is not going to be motivated by a RINO out of the northeastern states with a RINO’s voting history.
They need to find an articulate leader who can espouse the virtues of personal freedom and responsibility in a meaningful way and present themselves as a serious leader who can get people to follow them.
Romney has enjoyed personal freedom and responsibility, and profited handsomely for it. He SHOULD be an inspiration the average person should seek to emulate to the best of their ability at whatever economic class they occupy in our society.
However, his other inclinations (high tax rates, Obamacare, gun control) undercut that message of personal freedom and responsibility.
On top of that, while Romney is undoubtedly a successful business man, he was not an inspirational figure. His deer in the headlight expressions and his manner of speech was off putting on a par with Palin’s manners of speech and he did come off as stiff and uninspiring.
In short he is a technocrat.
I mean seriously, at one point he was espousing a 59 POINT PLAN! Did even hard core Republicans even bother to read through it?
Thank God he finally dropped it back to a 5 point plan, but that’s exactly what I’m getting at – his solution is a vast complicated approach when he should have been arguing on a far more basic level about simplifying everything and returning personal liberty and freedom back to the individual.
The fact Obamacare is the bastard offspring of Obamacare didn’t help matters any.
In contrast, Palin can motivate the base in spite of the fact that she too could learn to shorten her sentences, get to the point quicker, and stop trying to emphasize repeatedly the point she is trying to get across!
She’s damaged goods now as the MSM and SNL have made her image out as a bumbling joke and that is the public image she will have for the rest of her days – but she is a smart woman who saw the vigor in the Tea Party for what it was and helped harness that enthusiasm to get candidates in office even while the Republican establishment continued to accept the MSM narrative of both her and the Tea Party movement and do their best to keep them as far away as possible.
She speaks the language of personal freedom and has exactly the political instincts the party leadership sorely needs right now.
For example, Todd Akin was labeled the Tea Party candidate by the MSM – yet Palin and the Tea Party backed another candidate in the primary, a candidate who consistently polled advantageously in a head to head match-up against McCaskill.
It was the Republican establishment that allowed that clusterf%$k of a Todd Akin campaign to get to where it was by having such a sloppy primary process in the first place that democrat operatives were able to swing the primary to get the weakest candidate on the ballot.
Then to compound that failure, they either were not in a position or they refused to exert the necessary influence to get Akin to drop out when it was clear he had screwed up royally and that McCaskill was going to win.
That’s not a matter of getting the Hispanic demographic converted to voting Republican – that was simple incompetence.
If the party insists on going down this path, I may even sit out the next election – and I haven’t missed a primary nor a general election in 30 years – as I will be asking myself what the point of it all is!
If things don’t change, at some point, as has been noted in another article posted on this site, ya just gotta stop, accept reality, and let it burn…
Actually, Romney beat the numbers for both McCain’s 2008 campaign and Bush’s 2004 campaign, in both red states and battleground states. Overall it looks like, after all the counting in done, that Romney will be about tied with McCain’s 2008 numbers, despite an overall drop in turnout.
The reason he wasn’t ahead of both McCain and Bush overall, is, oddly enough, because he underperformed in Blue States. The standing theory here is, that since states like California are now completely uncompetitive, Republicans simply no longer turn out in these states.
As for base turnout, as it turns out for the most part, the base turned out in large numbers for Romney. Republican participation was up overall from 2008, with the large majority of the loss in turnout coming from a drop in Independent voter turnout. This was largely expected, most voters registered less interest in the 2012 election than the 2008 election.
The problem was, and is, as much as nobody wants to admit it, that demographics HAVE shifted against us. Hispanic voting was up, again, the African American vote was up, again, and single women came out in larger numbers than any previous election.
Basically, if we want to win future elections, we must either chip off chunks of the minority vote, or convince a certain percentage of them to stay home.
For awhile it looked like Romney had convinced a certain chunk to indeed stay home. Republican enthusiasm greatly outpaced Democratic enthusiasm all year long, right up until the final week of the campaign. The favorable coverage of Obama during the Hurricane, seemed to cause democratic enthusiasm to rise to parity with Republicans in the last few polls taken just before the election.
In other words, Romney likely would have won even with demographics being against him, had it not been for that stupid blasted hurricane, and the slobbering adoring media.
Not to mention that fat, spittle-addled, fawning pig Christy who just had to pile it on right at the most opportune moment. Anyone who even sniffs at the suggestion that he should run for 2016 is going to get an earful of loud & obnoxious shouts of protest from me.
I went back and checked and I’ll grant you that if all of the McCain voters had shown up then Romney would have still lost. The initial numbers I heard reflected otherwise, and since the facts are now known to be different then it makes sense to acknowledge that.
However, consider this.
If Romney had maintained the McCain voters, and those voters had increased their numbers consistent with population growth, Romney should have gotten some 2 million more votes than he did.
Still would not have won – but he wouldn’t have lost as badly.
Instead, in absolute numbers unadjusted for population growth he actually got about 100,000 fewer votes than McCain did 4 years ago!
Now why could that be?
Further consider that if the majority Bush won in 2004 had been maintained as a percentage of the population, and if that majority had voted Republican in 2012, then Romney would have received an estimated 66,243,530 votes based upon population growth alone.
That roughly 66 million vote total would have been enough to defeat Obama in 2012.
Instead, Romney underperformed and received only 59,832,706 votes. Even Obama’s vote total was down some 6 million.
So where did that other potential 6 or 7 million Republican votes (based simply on population growth) go and what was depressing voter turnout overall?
Surely a couple of million McCain voters (to compensate for population growth) didn’t just drop dead!
They didn’t show up to vote for Romney for a reason, and there were even 6 or 7 million who didn’t show up for Obama, and I don’t buy any argument that such a swing is the result strictly of Hispanics suddenly deciding to vote straight democrat all the time.
Then consider the fact that you have a grand total for both democrats and republicans of only 123,656,435 cast ballots out of a population of 312,780,968.
Consider further that there are an estimated 206,072,000 citizens out there who are eligible to vote, that 146,311,000 are registered to vote, yet only 123,656,435 actually bothered to vote.
There remains a pool of about 22 – 23 million registered voters out there who had the motivation to go down to the courthouse and register, but don’t actually make it to the voting booth, make it for in time for early voting, or even do absentee ballot voting this past November – and that there are a total of over 80 million or so out there who could vote (including that 22/23 million) who don’t bother.
Are things so wonderful in this country that people are complacent and happy enough to not bother to vote?
Surely the Republicans can figure out how to carve out another 3 million voters out of a potential voter pool of around 80 million if they can figure out WHY they are not showing up – or at least figure out why Romney’s count was even lower than McCains!
McCain’s vote totals, in turn, were even lower than Bush’s.
I’d say the issue still comes back to the underlying political philosophy of the republican party. They are espousing technocrat jargon instead of speaking the language of pure, unadulterated, freedom and limited government and it didn’t motivate the people to come out.
Toss in factors like Todd Akin and it gets worse.
I’d go even further and suggest that a lot of Romney voters were not voting FOR Romney so much as they were voting AGAINST Obama.
That kind of tactic only goes so far….
My prediction is that if the Republicans want to pander to the Hispanic vote, then their share of voter totals will go down even further in the next few election cycles.
Sarah Palin or bust.
Please don’t fall for Jindal. He has been our governor here in Louisiana and he is far worse than the corrupt democrats we had. In fact, many conservative leaders would prefer one of the govenors that was just released from prison to Jindal. Jindal is a RINO. He came to fame by restructuring medicare–that is why it does not work and cost like hell.
well hell
why even bother, gop should just concede 2016 now.
Well, I will no longer support conservative(?) candidates. I hate being a sucker.
Rubicon [Rubio][ and Jangles ought to stay home. Neither has a clue. Add insult to injury by speaking evil of Gov. Romney is is not a suitable stand. RR rightly said do not speak evil of any Republican candidate [or defeated candidate].
Neither will get my vote even if Fido runs.
In case no one else said it , neither Rubio nor Jindal can ever grace a Constitutional presidential ticket for any party, because neither is Constitutionally eligible to the office! Wouldn’t the damnorats love to see an unconstitutionally eligible at the top of the GOP ticket to justify their fraudulent regime and drive the final nail in the coffin of the Constitution? It seems the left are not the only ones with a self-destructive bent!
Until the last couple of days I really thought that Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio might be part of the future of the GOP (I never thought that Obama’s new boyfriend Chris Christie… uhm…Islamie belongs to this elite – he is just an Islam- and Sharia loving douche bag, who handed his new boyfriend the re-election by providing a first class campaign event and should switch officially from “R” to “D” – not only in his mindset and attitude), but they obviously don’t get it that the conservatives have the better product but just need a good marketing strategy. Instead of educating the people, WHY the conservative product is better, they kiss the butts of the medias and try to move as quickly as possible to center-left, hoping to find some new voters. Guys I have news for you: you’ll lose more voters on the conservative side than you’ll find on the center-left side. These people will vote for the original, not for the GOP-copy of the Dems. You’ll see a NET-loss of voters. Stop appeasing the enemies (Liberals, Medias, Islam), stick to your values, and convince the people that the conservative values are the solution and will help everyone!
In the end it may well have been that Romney was defeated by mass fraud at the precinct level in the typically crooked damocrat controlled blue swing states. But the election may have been lost well before that when the so-called GOP RINO leadership allowed the left to steer the selection of their candidate. It was clear to any who opened their eyes to see that the leftist propaganda media steered the selection of the GOP candidate to the one that they could best defeat!
Think Nixon/Lodge in 1960.
Yes there was unrest in the ranks. Yes there was conservative betrayal by the RINOs at the convention, Despite the factors stated above our damnocrat selected candidate, an honorable and honest man, lost not to the damnocrats but to internal traitors who railed against him and pouted and betrayed their party or the nation by staying home and not voting, or by going to the polls and casting a vote for a loser that had not an iota of a chance to win! In the end it may well have been a conglomeration of stupidity and lack of commitment, not philosophy, that cost the GOP another election. Watch the GOP rely upon the same loser consultant and steering staffs that have continually cost them elections, the Schmits, the Murphys, you know the excuse peddlers that are currently making the rounds of the leftist media making excuses, blaming everyone but themselves, the same that have been engineering GOP defeats for the past decades or more, getting rich as losers!
To the RINO/GOP Establishment types, I say this: the GOP has not nominated an authentic conservative since Reagan, and look at the results. Bush 41 won in 1988 only because he campaigned as a Reagan conservative and lied about taxes. Excluding that campaign, the GOP has lost four of the last six presidential races, and five of the last six popular votes.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is clear — the GOP should do something novel and nominate a real conservative for the first time in 30 years. This doesn’t have to be someone who wears socon issues on his sleeve, but who nonetheless professes those positions. After all, these issues are the proper domain of the states and aren’t actual federal issues.
With regard to Jindal and Rubio, I am reluctant to follow the GOP Establishment’s fetish for minorities, but there are other reasons to oppose them. Jindal, as a Rhodes Scholar, is too much of a wonk to be likely to relate to average voters. In addition, Rhodes scholars have a lousy track record when running for higher office. Bill Clinton was a rare exception, and Dems don’t have anyone like him on their tee.
As for Rubio, he won’t be substantively ready by 2016. One term in the Senate hardly qualifies him for the job of president, though admittedly, Obama has permanently lowered the bar of qualifications for the job. Rubio is young, and would be well-advised to run for reelection to the Senate before considering a presidential run.
One person the author did not mention as a potential presidential candidate in 2016 is Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. He has been rumored to be considering a run if Romney lost. As the leader of the Tea Party in the Congress, and as a true, movement conservative, DeMint would galvanize the conservative base in a way unseen since Reagan. He would draw working-class whites like no candidate since Reagan. He would reestablish contact with the millions of disaffected conservative voters who failed to turn out for McCain and Romney. And he would attract moderate/Independent voters with his positions on the budget, debt, taxes, and the economy generally.
Moreover, the Pub establishment and MSM have drawn the wrong message from this election. Forget minorities, of whom the Republican party has likely maxed out. Sure, we can appeal to them as Americans and continue to ask what has Obama done for them? But in terms of trying to reach more than 35% of them, forgetaboutit. In fact, academic analysis of the Bush 43 take of the Hispanic voted revealed that he actually got only 35% — not the 44% that Rove and the Pub establishment have pushed for eight years.
We must apply the “Willie Sutton” rule to politics. When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton said, “That’s where the money is.” There are 80 million eligible voters in the US who did not vote in this election. At least 2/3 of them are white — 54 million. Whites lack the baggage of minorities, and are therefore a better target for the GOP. Of course, the vast majority of these voters have never voted, and likely never will. But all the GOP needs is 10% of them — 5-6 million. Another 3.5 million in the popular vote — or 400,000 in four states (OH, VA, FL, and CO) and Romney would have won.
The GOP must find a way to reach these disaffected, mostly working-class whites. The best way to do so is to nominate a real conservative with a demonstrated track record of advancing the conservative agenda. Until we do this, we are going to continue to fail.
Establishment RINO squishes Jeb&Chris already being floated by GOP media organ:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/jeb-christie-on-top-for-2016/article/2513852
Dead Elephants major in FAIL.
WHAT???? The fat shariah-loving douch-bag Chris Islamie, friend of Islamists, the guy who handed the Failure-in-Chief the re-election by organizing a first-class campaign-event for his new boyfriend, is on top of the list? The GOP is dead – no doubt about it. Chris Islamie is a traitor and already a “D” in his mind and behavior – time to switch party! Or he should move to an Islamic country, wrap himself in a kaftan, put a diaper on his head and then he can sit 24/7 on a cushion, smoke his Shisha and palaver with his Islamist friends.
Jindal, for all his edeucation, believes in creationism and I would find it impossible to vote for him. Anyone who truly believes that is not dealing with a full deck.
If Rubio or Jindal run for President in 2016, I will not be voting Republican. Neither Rubio or Jindal are qualified to hold the office of POTUS. Neither are natural born citizens. Or are we doing away with this part of the Constitution?
I think it absurd that the Constitution uses that term without defining it. We are woefully lacking in jurisprudence on the matter, and it is long past time to officially define what that term means. A book by Vittal is as irrelevant as the Federalist Papers in terms of legal authority, and the 14th Amendment only muddies the waters further. The oft-cited Supreme Court case concerning this matter specifically refrained from addressing eligibility for President, and the current Supreme Court has been woefully derelict in the matter. This dereliction is dangerous for the Republic. It would be far better for them to rule that a natural-born citizen is anyone who has citizenship by birth and dispel any doubt about President Obama’s eligibility than to persist in dismissing cases not for frivolity but for lack of standing. The former gives us an iron-clad definition that, even though we may not like it, is clearly understood and can be amended per Article V if we are so inclined as a nation.
Alternatively, we could pass and ratify an Amendment to clarify this terminology. This is not without precedent: the 25th Amendment resolved the dispute over whether or not Vice President actually became President in the event of the President’s death, incapacitation or early departure from office, as well as defining Presidential disability.
Couldn’t agree more – at least about the need for clarity and an Amendment. Disagree on your definition; see my comments above.
Now, how do we get it done? Can it be handled through state constitutions, i.e., defining the term according to the common meaning in the Founders’ time, requirement of full disclosure of material information in order to put a candidate on the ballot in that state: candidates’ citizenship (and their parents, for that matter), as well as the other stuff wilfully concealed by Obama to hide his past (college financial aid records, selective service, passport, etc.).
Since the Federal Election Commission passed the buck about 2008, saying vetting was up to the states and the parties, it seems to me that changes to the states’ constitutions would be the way to go. In many cases, that is done by ballot initiatives; it might pass now that Dufus is no longer a potential target. And if the ineligible candidate cannot be on the ballot in enough states, especially the swing states, then he can’t be elected.
Really? No article here, not a word about Alan West; the best qualified man for POTUS in the GOP? The man the establishment GOP set up for failure when re-distracting? After 37 years the GOP is dead to me.
I will not vote for another GOP candidate at local, state, or national level. The TEA movement offered salvation to the GOP, a way to a better future, and the caucus crowd of good ole boys quashed it.
Isn’t Jindal already distancing himself from Rowney’s observation that 47% are in the democrats pocket because of payola? It’s the single most honest observation Romney made!
According to Richard Viguerie of the Conservative HQ, former MA Governor Mitt Romney was a pseudo conservative establishment moderate presidential candidate who did not embrace the conservative agenda and therefore was a biographical technocrat. Mitt Romney was a Bush 41 establishment nominee who ran on biography and conservatism was a foreign language to him. I also believed that Mitt Romney had a John Kerry problem in opposing Barack Obama. The 2012 Obama-Biden Campaign personnel used the “Kill Romney” strategy of attacking him on his business experience, which replicates the 2004 Bush-Cheney reelection strategy of disqualifying MA Senator John Kerry on his military experience minus the affirmation of the administration record. Mitt Romney could not attack The Honorable Barack Obama on Obama-Care, Cap and Tax, and other issues in this campaign. The r
acial composition of the electorate was 72 percent Caucasian to 28 Non-Caucasian and Obama yielded about 75 percent of the Non-Caucasian Preference Vote. In 2004, Senator John F. Kerry earned 63 percent of the Non-Caucasian Preference Vote, which is six percentage points less than former Vice President Al Gore who earned 69 percent of the Non-Caucasian Preference Vote. The Republican National Committee should fight to earn not less than the 30-39 percent range of the Non-Caucasian Preference Vote nationally. If the GOP earns 40-49 percent of the Asian and Latino preference vote and 10-19 percent of the African-American vote, and 40-49 percent of the Native American preference vote and 40-49 of the female preference vote, then the Democrats would lose. In 2004, then-NM Governor Bill Richardson (D) warned the attendees at the Democratic National Convention in Boston that if George W. Bush earned 40 percent of the Latino preference vote, then the Democrats would lose the presidential election. Bill Richardson was correct since 44 percent of the Latino voters preferred Bush-Cheney. In my opinion, the GOP primary electorate should nominate authentic conservative candidates for federal office who could sell the philosophy of intellectual conservatism to all voters irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, race, religion or other status. In 2016, the conservative wing of the GOP, also known as the Tea Party Movement, has an opportunity to nominate an authentically conservative presidential nominee for the 58th presidential election. People like NH Senator Kelly Ayotte, MN Representative Michelle Bachmann, SC Governor Nikki Haley, LA Governor Bobby Jindal, NM Governor Susana Martinez, VA Governor Bob McDonnell, KY Senator Rand Paul, IN Governor-elect Mike Pence, TX Governor Rick Perry, FL Senator Marco Rubio, WI Representative Paul Ryan, Ex-PA Senator Rick Santorum, SD Senator John Thune, and WI Governor Scott Walker are speculated as possible 2016 GOP presidential candidates by politico.com at this specified link http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84110.html?hp=l17. Politico.com also includes Ex-FL Governor Jeb Bush, NJ Governor Chris Christie, VA Governor Bob McDonnell, OH Senator Rob Portman, and NV Governor Brian Sandoval as possible 2016 GOP presidential candidates. IA, NH, NV and SC would have early state status. The Democrats are good at cultural wars that alienates and polarizes the general public, which the GOP should confront in answer advertisements. The demography of this nation will continue to evolve. Michael Steele was criticized in the capacity of RNC Chair for contesting the non-Caucasian vote in ethnic communities of color, which should not be ignored when Democrats earned more than 70 percent of non-Caucasian voters in the election in the multiple battleground states.
Romney spoke the truth about the “gifts” given to Obama’s followers. That should have included tha consolation prizes given to various states and union groups regarding health care.He also spoke rthe trutth when he traveled to Europe. Someone should have said that just as they should have called the ABU Grave business a typical teen age prank. When I was in college pledges had to spend a few days with raw eggs (in shells) in their underwear. That would created a stir among the Muslims since they may not wear underwear. I think Mr. Romney had a lot of “common sense” and would haver made a good president.
We jump through hoops to honor the delicate sensibilities of others. It should stop.
You can ignore it til the cows come home but the facts are that Rubio was born to Cuban parents in Miami, Florida where his parents became naturalized citizens when he was 4 years old.
He is not a Natural Born citizen and is no more Constitutionally eligible for the Presidency than Obama who has yet to provide a real birth certificate.