Getting Conservatism Back on Track
If you’re reading PJ Media, then you’re pretty up-to-speed already on this new media business. You might even have a few ideas about what we should be doing. What interested me was how interested our state Republican senators were in cracking open the blogging egg and getting to the good stuff inside.
It’s safe to say that our state government — as opposed to the elected officials who supposedly run the giant, messy affair — doesn’t get it. We bloggers were asked point blank, “What can we do for you?” My answer to the question was, “Give us wi-fi when we cover live events like these!” If you want to make bloggers happy, let them, you know, blog. Senator Greg Brophy (District 1) immediately replied, “It took me four years to get on the wireless network in here!” That’s your tax dollars, hard at work building the electronic infrastructure of the future.
During the conference, my main point was one I’ve been trying to hammer into people since the 2006 election debacle. Given a choice between a fake Republican (pretty much the entire majority of the 109th Congress, or John McCain in 2008) and a real Democrat, the American people will choose the real deal, every time. Elections are won and lost on ideas, and the Republicans are out of ideas — or rather, abandoned the ideas which won them power in the first place. If Republicans want to be a viable, conservative majority party, they must first wage a successful battle of ideas.
To do so, they should look back to Barry Goldwater’s disastrous 1964 presidential campaign. For in the disaster the seeds of eventual victory were sown.
Goldwater didn’t run as a “me-too” Republican. He ran as a conservative, and an unapologetic one at that. While Goldwater knew he would lose, he also knew that his ideas would live on long past ’64, if he didn’t abandon them permanently for a little temporary popularity. Looking to the future, Goldwater left the Republican Party with a couple million dollars in the bank, and the world’s first political direct-mail infrastructure — hi-tech stuff for back then.
The mood of Colorado’s elected Republicans might best be summarized by Sen. Kevin Lundberg (District 15), who asked us, “What communications do we use in 2012″ to help win elections? “Are the days of door-to-door over?” All the bloggers agreed, there will always be a need for retail politics. However, none of us knew what particular technology might work best four years hence — who dreamed of Twitter in 2004? But what was intriguing is that Sen. Lindbergh is so willing and eager to adapt his campaign to whatever demands the future may place on it.
Of course, Copeland described Lindbergh as willing to do “anything” to “communicate with his constituents,” which makes him sound to my ears like one of the good guys.
Today’s Republicans have a tougher road ahead of them than even Goldwater did 45 years ago. The national Republican Party has, by and large, ignored, forgotten, abandoned, or outright repudiated its principles, something “Mr. Arizona” never dreamed of doing. The current party leadership needs to be swept aside, probably wholesale.
New leaders will have to come from places like the Colorado statehouse — and after Tuesday’s lunch, I’m feeling a little bit better about their prospects.
“Given a choice between a fake Republican (pretty much the entire majority of the 109th Congress, or John McCain in 2008) and a real Democrat, the American people will choose the real deal, every time.”
No more true words ever spoken. GOP, Look at Reagan’s “Time for Choosing” speech–mix, stir, present. Good article.
“The national Republican Party has, by and large, ignored, forgotten, abandoned, or outright repudiated its principles,…”
Take out the words ‘by and large’ and we are in perfect agreement.
Hot AIr links to a Gallup poll that shows only 7 states now identify strongly as Republican. It’s what many former Democrats say – “I didn’t leave the party, it left me.” McCain epitomizes this. Pandering to the La Raza agitators, not willing to attack Obama about his shady mentors and vacant record, or the Democrats whose policies caused the financial meltdown. In short, they abandoned the very conservative principles that the majority of Republicans identify with.
Maybe it’s time to build in the House Republican rejection of the Pork bill and get back to what works. Any Republican who does not do this should be purged. Lindsay Graham, Arlen Specter, McCain and the rest. Look at how energized we were after Palin was nominated and right after the convention. That says it all.
The Republicans won as conservatives in 1994 and morphed into the party of deficits, big government, and the nanny state. I’m registered as a Republican. I am a conservative.
“The current party leadership needs to be swept aside, probably wholesale.”
Before yesterday’s stimulus vote, I would have agreed wholeheartedly. Today, I’m more optimistic. 100% GOP solidarity against the Democratic leadership was revolutionary. Whoever got everyone in line deserves our respect and applause.
Have to concur with #5 Sara for America! Before yesterday I was thinking the GOP had attached their sinking ship to Obama’s but after that stimulus vote? There is hope yet! Today is a great day to be Republican and know that we didn’t fall in lock-step with this Obamination! Hurray!!
What the GOP needs to do (besides getting up to speed on this interweb thingy) is show some real strength of principle. Yesterday’s unanimous vote against the Obama-Pelosi Pork Package was a good start.
One of the main principles of business is keeping up with the competition. If the Dems are on the web, study what they do, then do it better.
As the recent House vote demonstrated, the battle is mostly in the head of the politicians. When they abandoned the Contract with America, they lost the 2006 elections. Why did they abandon the Contract with America? Why did they choose to accept the Democrat line in the first place? That’s the battle I’m talking about. The pols in the Senate still have a lesson to learn and I’m not sure if they get it at all. The GOP has been very poor in regard to strategic thinking.
The other battle is against the Dem propaganda machine of the MSM. What the GOP needs to do is have their pols write articles for the various websites, they need to communicate with Americans, they have done a poor job of it to date. They should submit the articles to the newspapers as well and when they refuse to publish as they did with McCain, then we get to make an issue of it as censorship. The only way to get the MSM to give equal time to GOP pols is to elbow their way in, no more Mr. Nice Guy. They need to start pointing the finger of accusation at the MSM and highlighting their unbalanced time slots. There is no reason for the GOP pol to believe they have to make nice with the MSM to even get a small positive blip of coverage compared to the hours of positive coverage of Dems, they will never get it, McCain found this out the hard way.
No one votes for a loser, so stop behaving like a loser, when there are few opportunities it’s time to MAKE opportunities. It is the height of laziness to expect opportunities to drop into your lap, get out there and make them.
The Republicans that read this may feel the same way towards me. But, the religious right that dominates the Republican party are totally unlikeable. If the Republicans are willing to re-invent themselves, they should seriously consider abandoning their religious “moral” crusade. These morals make my skin burn, and is a huge contradiction to the attractive, self responsibility qualities that the Republicans have espoused. I’m stunned that an entire group of adults feels that they need to impose, through law, restrictions on my private life, that they have no business being involved in! It is un-American!
What would happen if the Republican party began campaigning on a pro-gay platform?
Thanks for you consideration.
Flex.
Flex –
I couldn’t agree more. “Small government” means, or ought to mean, “small government.”
Pay attention to the new RNC Chair and lobby him and the RNC to get with the program.
We must wrestle the power in the Party to the people, not the inside-the-beltway crowd only.
The Conservative movement cannot rely on existing members of Congress or the Executive branch to lead the party. They lead the government, WE lead the movement and the party.
Look what happened when we relied on Bush to lead the party? He ignored it for the most part.
Flex,
Nobody has ever restricted you on your private life. That is just silly talk and you know it.
I spent the first 35 years of my life in the SF Bay Area. NOBODY there does a damn thing to stop what you do in your private life. Get real.
The GOP needs to be a Big Tent party: Socons, Libertarians, Reformers, Strong Defense, economic/budget conservatives.
You don’t get there with lightly regulated selfishness.
#9 Flex:
The answer is “California would have long since been rid of its illegal aliens”.
I object to the tone of this article and many of the comments. For all my problems with the GOP, I don’t know that preaching to them and telling them how to win elections when you haven’t gone out there and run yourself is the answer. If I could do more to help them without talking to a single person inside the party, I’d do it.
I do agree that the war of ideas needs to be taken more seriously by the GOP, that they really don’t understand how overmatched they are by the MSM and academia and these giant liberal foundations that make the sums of money going to conservative and Republican causes look paltry.
But that’s not a matter of placing blame, and before you blame anyone for anything, you’d better look in the mirror and ask what you’ve done. It’s a matter of recognizing that a lot of things are against conservative and Republican ideas, that the American people – while an admirable and noble people in many respects – can be hoodwinked and have been, and that New Media is responsible for us being in this hole, too. Do bloggers really go out of their way to get more diverse audiences, or are they preaching to the same old crowd over and over?
Before you answer that with a yes, think hard – you’re gonna be amazed at how little progress has been made in getting anything like balance or thoughtfulness online. Remember, the late Dean Barnett, well before the 2008 debacle, argued that conservative blogs don’t work like Kos, so we should be happy with the current state of Left/Right dialogue online. Meanwhile, Kos was busy raising tons of money for various Democratic candidates and helping other Leftist groups get in touch and coordinate and getting his message out there to as many as possible. I may not like what he does and what he says, but at least he recognizes that partisanship means doing something for the party, instead of going right to them and telling them what a bunch of losers they are to their face and online.
Ashok –
I’m not sure you read the same article I wrote.
Apologies. I’m less hot now.
Yeah, I’m looking over it now, and pretty much my only objections are the “let’s be Goldwater Republicans” stuff, which I look at as a veiled way of telling numerous groups in the Republican party to “drop dead,” and the anecdote about people failing to use wireless properly.
Note to Flex..you might want to re-read the paragraph in the article about being an unapologetic Republican. I’m thinking we need more of that and less of the bending to the gays/illegal immigrants/extent albino insects/global warming hysteria. If you believe in gays marrying, illegal immigrants should have all the rights and privileges of US citizens and minute insects should override major building/water/sewer projects, and that mankind has harmed the planet beyond repair by using GE lightbulbs then can I let you in on a little secret…….YOU’RE A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT!
Ashok –
I suggest you re-read that anecdote. The point of it was, stated plainly, that our local Republicans DO get it, but that getting government IT departments to get the job done is like… well, getting government to get most anything done.
As for Goldwater, his principles and actions gave us Reagan. Since then, it’s been all downhill.
I read it as “the Senator couldn’t figure out how to get online.” Again, apologies.
I think to assume that the electorate is blogosphere literate is a mistake. O-vomit got elected by an entirely uneducated, unwired, never turned a PC on, kind of voter. These poor folks simply believed what the biased media told them at 6 o’clock. Blue is good, red is bad. (remember Animal Farm,,, 4 legs good, 2 legs bad…)
It will take a determined GOP, a healthy war chest of money, and lots of clever TV time to get the message across.
Of course, the message is kind of important too. We have to work on that.
I told everyone that Obama would change the pledge of allegiance and he is just ask Gibbs, his spokeman.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/01/i-pledge-allegiance-to-obama-of-the-divided-states-of-america.html
FlexSF
My vote’s with you. We have religious tolerance and freedom of speech. With those two, the anti-choice, anti-gay rightists can make their case to the max and win or lose fair and square. What’s this about accomplishing through legislation and coercion what they can’t through persuasion, shame, education, etc?
It’s the wedge issues. Drop the anti-gay hysteria and the anti-abortion fanaticism.
You can be a proud American, strong conservative, and good Christian without the anti-gay bigotry. I think about half of the Republican party has figured this out. Maybe the others should give it some thought? Live and let live.
The answer may be to mainline Imitrex straight into my skull. Through the twists and turns, I’ll come out doing the back stroke down the great, green, greasy Limpopo River. I’ll come ashore looking good, in a cleaned pressed Brooks Bros. suit with a florid handkerchief absently poked in the breast pocket (Chest pocket if you’re Catholic). I’ll look to my neighbor for confirmation and they’ll nod. And perhaps you’ll nod too while keeping a safe distance. And we’ll all smile in unison as the mating dance of the Sand Hill crane will be preformed with exacting precision and quite a bit of sexual innuendo, if you know what I mean ( the chances of that are extremely unlikely). Well, anyway, then everything will make sense. Especially if I give the powers that be a well-oiled and bemused grin. Their arms will wave and their gums will flap nonsensically as if they were tied by strings being pulled by an unseen puppet master somewhere in the sky, far, far away. But I will not be afraid of their mad capped gesticulations and giggling genuflections, for I am the anointed one, or maybe just annoying one. The one which has been anointing hiz-self’ all afternoon with the bubbly carbonated incantations of the Mead of the Druids. Some call it Brewsky, some calls it Suds, I may even call for the Bud. But I will not be afraid. Just have to deal with a little matter of phonophobia and photophobia. Infrequent were confusion, depression, difficulty concentrating, disturbance of smell, dysarthria, euphoria, facial pain, heat sensitivity, incoordination, lacrimation, monoplegia, sleep disturbance, shivering, syncope, and tremor, aggressiveness, apathy, bradylogia, cluster headache, convulsions, decreased appetite, drug abuse, dystonic reaction, facial paralysis, hallucinations, hunger, hyperesthesia, hysteria, increased alertness, memory disturbance, neuralgia, paralysis, personality change, phobia, radiculopathy, rigidity, suicide, twitching, agitation, anxiety, depressive disorders, detachment, motor dysfunction, neurotic disorders, psychomotor disorders, taste disturbances, bed wetting, and raised intracranial pressure
Flex
If a gay couple can find clergy willing to bless their union, I’ve no problem with it. However, cloaking that desire in the language of a civil right elevates things to another level. If it is a civil right, then arguably all clergy can be forced to bless gay unions or have their 501(c)(3) status revoked. Religious organizations that do not support the gay lifestyle could be targeted, forcing them to choose between their beliefs and their financial existence. In California and Arizona certan religious groups have already been targeted.
This is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the religious groups. One thinks immediately of “fundamental Christian” churches, (a modern day bogeyman) as the primary losers, but don’t discount Muslim Mosques, Orthodox Jewish Synagogues, etc.
It is not an issue of bigotry but an issue of freedom of conscience and of religion.
The fascile argument is that supporting gay rights is an act of conscience, and that any Christian worthy of the name should by rights be for this expansion civil rights. This argument badly misapprehends the Christian understanding of sin and redemption, forgiveness and atonement… but I digress.
The main problem behind the Gay Rights movement is the coersive power of government. It would force clergy and other relgious-based groups to act against their conscience. Freedom or conscience and religion are in the very first amendment to the Constitution for a reason.
While Goldwater knew he would lose, he also knew that his ideas would live on long past ‘64, if he didn’t abandon them permanently for a little temporary popularity.
And what happened is that rabid conservatives that take it as a sign of true faith that Goldwater with all his insane electorate-diminishing ideas on what a pure conservative is – and moved so far to the Right past what the majority coalitions of Nixon and Reagan were that the Republicans are right back to the limited states they carried in the Goldwater Fiasco. Basically, Fundie-Land.
Where their strategy appears that the Republican Party will grow again once the rest of America becomes less educated, more Baptist and Southern, and more willing to let Wall Street, the banks, and CEOs have a “free hand” again.
*********************
MarkD:
The Republicans won as conservatives in 1994 and morphed into the party of deficits, big government, and the nanny state. I’m registered as a Republican. I am a conservative.
No, they won as the Party of Reformers and new ideas, many non-conservative.
They stunted themselves and lost region after region of the country as they sunsequently branded themselves the Party of rich white men and of intolerant Religious theocrats centered in the Old South.
To look back what saved Republicans was not embracing Goldwater extremism, but rejecting whole big chunks of its hateful, selfish, against the progress of the citizenry – rhetoric.
Nixon did it. And with able allies like George Romney positioned the Republicans to reinvent themselves and retake the West, Midwest, and much of the East – and also retain the states of the Old South that loved Goldwater’s anti-civil rights message. If not for George Wallace, Nixon would have had the landslide in 1968 that he had in 1972. What Nixon did to reclaim the Republicans from the intolerant and bigoted and make it a big tent Party was even more impressive than Reagan’s role..
What “true conservative believers” in the Base who worship Reagan forget – Reagan did not redeem Goldwaters kooky ideas, but built on the “Silent Majority Coalition” Nixon had crafted. (Of course, the Dems held back some of Reagans worst Voodoo economic ideas that found
full unchecked testing and full, unchecked failure under Dubya.)
Goldwater hated Nixon. Appropriate for the person who did more than even LBJ or the electorate did to repudiate his nutball ideology – Nixon in a sense personally repudiated Goldwater by bringing the Republicans back from being a stunted rump Party supported mainly by low-educated whires and Fundies.
Ashok – I’m looking over it now, and pretty much my only objections are the “let’s be Goldwater Republicans” stuff, which I look at as a veiled way of telling numerous groups in the Republican party to “drop dead”
If Republicans do become captive to the Religious Right, and purge the RINOs the frothing at the mouth conservative reactionaries want purged – they become a small regional, vs. national Party, confined to a small swath of states going from Arkansas over to S Carolina. Never to have another President or another judicial nomination in most folks lifetimes.
As shallow as it seems, it’s all about image. Obummer won based on his popularity with young people.
An old, stern looking John McCain barking out values and morals just couldn’t compete with Obummers new Backberry, hoop shooting, fist bumping, hiphopping, cool guy image with young people.
We conservatives don’t need to water down any of our values or principles, we just need to market them in a different way. In order to win the young vote conservatives need to create an atmosphere where it’s not only viewed as wise to be conservative but also that it’s cool and fun too.
The importance of strong media and marketing techniques cannot be overstated.
It’s also about grassroots efforts too.
While Obummer fans were out and about making t-shirts, writing poems, creating songs and videos for you tube, McCain supporters were quietly sitting home with their fingers crossed.
If conservatives are to come back with a bang, we’ll need to do it with a lot more style and flair. Conservative values speak for themself, it’s our leaders, media images and marketing techniques that need a makeover.
As shallow as it seems…
Conservatives have got to root out the Rinos. Even Bush gave too much to the DemTards.
I’m sure as frick ready for a full on conservative movement. STOP apologizing for being against big gov, abortion, taxation etc. et-frickin’cetera!
We need REAL conservatives representin’
Not lame-assed fakers that have infiltrated the Repubs with lefty crappola. There is NO such thing as a righty-lefty or visa versa. Get the f*ck outta my party if you want to be “middleground”… We don’t NEED you slobs.
The fact the repubs actually had balls at all gives me hope but I worry that some of the wussier ones will succumb to the Obamabot b.s.
ugh
Everyone’s missing the boat on this one. The problem is not the message. The problem is the principles of the politicians. They have none.
The best example of this is Schwarzenegger. He ran espousing Republican principles. When he tried to implement some of them, his popularity dropped… so he backed off. Now look at the absolute mess that is CA.
The problem with a Democaracy is that the governments go whichever way the electorate goes. It blows in the wind. In a Republic, the leaders are elected to do what is right, no matter the temporary mood of the electorate, be they however whipped up by demagogues. If Ahh-nold had stood firm and simply pushed his agenda, things would have worked out, and the electorate would have supported him eventually. You either tell the electorate what is right, or they tell you.
Republican has as its key component the word Republic. It is time we acted like it. I believe the only reason the Pubs in Congress finally made a stand, is that the polls finally gave them enough support to find their missing anatomical portions (guts, spines, balls). It won’t last. The moment the polls shift, so will they. Gutless. Spineless. Not very teste.
Re #20/John Dubya: [...] I think to assume that the electorate is blogosphere literate is a mistake. O-vomit got elected by an entirely uneducated, unwired, never turned a PC on, kind of voter. [...]
John, I agree, but I’d add some nuances to the “enlightment” notion so jealously monopolized by liberals:
1) the fact that Ob’s electorate is mighty enligtened, i.e. high tech & communications savvy is pretty much a legend pushed by liberals who are deeply in self-flattering (another illustration of this situation is in the current PJM article about how the libs have found the WH in technical stone-age, which actually informs us about how cute & hip they look with their Macs, Blackberries and ipods – some months ago Politico had a glowing piece about the skin-tight, designer jeans favored by Obamistas);
2) the fact that someone can use a PC, surfs well, and uses a few common programs well, doesn’t mean necessarily that that person is mighty intelligent or insightful; neither that that person has a superior sense of what the Internet’s potentialities are;
3) Ob’s followers as “educated” vs. you know who, all other yahoos (from bitter white guys, to the present burly guys etc.): the correct description of the referred to category is “people w/ college degrees”: unfortunately, the present times show that college education is rather a mind-blunter, largely a process that impairs analytical or critical skills or aptitudes;
Lots of other things to add here -
best regards
If the republican party (I am a conservative NOT a republican) wants to get out of the stone age they need to start at the top.
For one ,
Forget McCain, he has no relevance what so ever to conservative Americans. Maverick my ass..
Bush is a good man but he other than protecting America from terrorist attack (which I whole heartedly thank him for) pretty much sold conservatives down the river. (spending, immigration) He’s gone, done, that era is closed.
Business as usual politicians are so woefully past their time that to anyone under the age of 40 they seem like dinosaurs.
There must be new younger faces that have conservative convictions to take the lead.
People like Bobby Jindal and yes Sara Palin need to step up and lead the way. Find out what Joseph Cao (rep Louisiana) is about, these kind of Conservatives can connect with todays American.
Screw the business as usual crowd, look where they have taken this country.
A ton of responsibility lies with the voter.
Complain all you want about our choices in the past election but voters put those faces on the ballots. Voters continually reelect corrupt politicians to congressional seats over and over and over.
Voters need to pull their heads out of their butts.
Conservatives must put forward choices with basic conservative values , and I do not mean hard core evangelical types, if you are one that is fine just let me express my religious beliefs in my own way as well o.k.?, I am talking about having a balanced budget ( i guess that is impossible now) equal rights for all, not special rights for groups the leftist way, have social and fiscal plans that are good for Americans, All Americans not pandering to special interest.
Throw the Tax Code out the window, it is killing us. There are alternatives out there, please do not try to defend the tax code,
There is no logical defense of it.
The under 40 Americans have deserted the right in droves and tired old worn out politics will not bring them back.
Now is the time to step back and put together a conservative coalition that has something to offer all American’s for their future.
Face it the Republicans had their collective a**es handed to them this go around, Time for a new game plan.
Conservatism can’t get back on track until it dumps the religious garbage and legislation of morality. Only a libertarian party has the tools to battle the Democrats. “Values” issues such as abortion and gay marriage will continue to sink the party with younger voters.
If the GOP can get smart and start fighting for liberty instead of property, there is a chance for recovery.
There are three basic principles – life, liberty and property. Democrats are dominating on the life issue, by providing social security programs. The GOP has become the party of property, but in a country where the poor are getting poorer, this is a lost cause. Focus on liberty to bring back the GOP.
Peace.
DS
As long as the GOP does not want to call a spade, a spade, it will continue
to spin its wheels.
The day of it growing up with be the day when the gist of the following is
communicated. It appeared in the November 28, 2008 edition of the Edmonton
Journal:
When people in future ponder what led up to the great U.S. economic collapse of 2008, I suspect most of the murky financial details will be long forgotten. But two small human tales may well endure in the realm of popular mythology.
Both neatly encapsulate the crazy excesses of U.S. consumer culture.
One stems from the tragic death Friday of a Wal-Mart worker at a store in Long Island, N.Y., who was stampeded by a throng of shoppers after they broke down the front doors, Bloomberg reports.
At least four shoppers were hurt in the mayhem, including a pregnant woman. The dead man was a 34-year-old temp. As he expired on the floor, shoppers continued to stream in, drawn by deals on DVD players and digital cameras.
A few months ago, in suburban Atlanta, a tragedy of a different sort briefly made headlines. A splashy new $450,000 home featured on the ABC TV show Extreme Makeover had to be auctioned off.
Seems its free-spending new owners, who were given the house on the show three years earlier after it was built by an army of volunteers, had used the home as collateral for a loan to start a new business.
When the business went bust, the family had to turn over the keys. They had also received $250,000 in cash, but they managed to blow that, too, on such indulgences as a six-day family trip to Disneyland.
As Forrest Gump would say: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
32. David S:
Conservatism can’t get back on track until it dumps the religious garbage and legislation of morality.
~
Funny thing is… The mighty buckolas still says “In God we trust”…and many of our founding fathers believed in GOD.
Oops.
Oh well, I’m sure our new messiah can ruin our currency and get rid of that nasty ol’ God part too while he’s at it.
@34 Delia,
Oops is right. God has no place on our currency, and most of the founders were deists.
I would love to see reference to God removed from our currency and our pledge of allegiance. This would be in keeping with our founders’ vision.
In case you hadn’t noticed, God is dead. His followers are now just fighting over who gets to bury the body.
Peace.
DS
David S. How many atheists are there in America? Out of all atheists, how many are Republican? Nice demographics you’re angling for. This is not England.
@36
mishu,
Demographics aren’t what I am here for. Just speaking the truth to the best of my ability.
There are about 60 million non-believers in the USA.
link
I don’t have any ready figures for atheist Republicans, but according to polls, about 22% would be willing to vote for an atheist. Of course, a majority of independents are open to atheist candidates.
link
Peace.
DS
Dave S.
Most of the founders were deists? According to whom? The last time I heard something this funny Helen Thomas was braying about her objectivity.
Were they deists like Thomas Jefferson who held religious services in the Capitol when he was president?
#35 David S – In keeping with our founders’ vision. You mean the part where we “are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable human rights”. You know, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
Without the Creator part, is this a valid argument? If I say we are born with those rights, but you say we are not, who’s to say who is right without a Higher Moral Authority?
The founders didn’t want government being involved in the Church, not the other way around. Without God, there is no right or wrong, because your opinion on it is no more valid than mine.
I, for one, think it is ridiclous to dump the evangelicals from our Party in an attempt to expand our Party and get back into power. That’s what the Dems did. Sure, it worked for them, but for us to do it would simply to become them. I’m not interested in getting back into power just for power’s sake. One actually has to stand for something oher than power.
Anyway, history has shown that we can’t out-Dem the damned Dems. Doing that is how we got into this mess. They were having “success” with it, so our guys tried to copy that “success”. We allowed them to set the rules of the game, then we sat down to play the rigged game and got beaten. We tried to argue with idiots. They brought us down to their level and beat us with experience.
Don’t worry, David S.
Eventually we can all just get bar-codes printed on our forearms and physical money will be a thing of the past.
I’ll pray for ya to take the narrow path just the same though.
@39 Marc,
This is a valid argument, and it doesn’t depend on the “Creator” being of any specific form or function. You can even take out “by our Creator”, and the argument is still adequate to the task. Nobody is arguing that we don’t have those rights.
Actually, they wanted a “wall of separation” according to Jefferson. And we have ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ (rather than right and wrong), based on the Constitution and on laws – regardless of your opinion or mine.
Standing for evangelicals will make it impossible for the GOP to ever recover as a national party. Standing for liberty is a much better position, and more defensible.
@40 Delia,
Bush was a big fan of biometric security, so all passports could be machine readable with coding for your vitals.
I’m happy with physical money, but God should have nothing to do with it. Religion has no place in our government.
Peace.
DS
PS – Pray all you like. I’ll put in a word for you at Satanic Bible Study.
David S., what pray tell is an “Evangelical” in your mind? You make it seem as if everyone who believes there is a God must be off of their collective rockers?
“PS – Pray all you like. I’ll put in a word for you at Satanic Bible Study.”
You have to believe there’s a God to believe there’s a Satan. Now eat a cookie. You must have low blood-sugar, darlin’.
@42 Delia,
Not everyone who believes there is a God (or gods) must be off their rocker. People who take the bible as the literal word of God – yes, they are off their rockers. God can be a great coping tool if not taken too seriously. Some of the moral teachings in the books are still applicable.
I don’t have to believe there is a Satan to enjoy the Satanic Bible, or to poke fun at the absurdity of religious dogma in general. I certainly don’t have to believe there is a God.
Evangelicals are the “born again” folks that evangelize and recruit in our public schools.
Blood-sugar looks good, and I’m all out of cookies, sweetums. Nighty night.
DS
PS – Abortion and gay marriage are losing issues for the GOP in the long haul. Both represent religious discrimination and violation of civil rights. The long term trend is toward pluralism and prosperity, but religions have a way of slowing things down at times.
31. tommyd “Screw the business as usual crowd…”
Yes, of course, screw the b-a-u-c; look where we are now and understand who brought us here – the same old worn out players. And screw the leadership of the Republican party. Few are conservatives. I will work to elect and will vote for anyone black, white, yellow, brown, dem, indep, repub, who is a conservative. The future and vitality of conservatism lie in brave men and women like Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin, certainly not with the likes of Mitt or McCain.
We agree on screwing the b-a-u-c. Technology issues are easily addressed.
Mr. Green mentions not one scintilla about the more difficult challenge of influencing our culture in a significant enough way to slow the relentless advance of nihilism, fascism, and socialist-lite ideas. The sadly pathetic mesmerized cult-like behavior of the Obama supporters tell us nothing if not that millions are starved to feel a human connection, and a true message of hope. They and we deserve more than false hope and contrived, circuitous paths leading only to government.
Screw the Republican party if it can’t figure this out because if it can’t, as a nation, we are doomed.
PS to David S. Look at what pluralism and multiculturalism have done to Britain. It is ugly. In order to advance as a nation we must restore our culture. Your comment concerning the opposition to gay marriage represening discrimination is absurd but that is an issue for another forum.
David, the reality is: you and your demographic are irrelevant.
Stop overstating your numbers: Pew Research has show that approximately 80% of the US populace considers itself Christian. Agnostic+Atheist come in at less than 5%. This has held across the decade. So 60 million you cite is junk.
Facts are the basis for the nation, natural law, etc are religious, and the vast majority of people support that.
And like it or not, there is a solid atheist case made for abortion laws that restrict and outlaw this heinous evil practice. Read Nat Hentoff’s material for a start (A jewish Athiest, no less).
Go away while the adults talk and deal with reality, not your elitist “I’m better than you because I’m an atheist” delusional bunch.
You and those of your type have dragged “freedom” into the gutter, distorting it into mere license by severing responsibility and consequences from actions and policies, and barring believers and religion from the public discussion, especially when they wish to apply morality to public acts.
Its people like you that got us John McCain, and that got us the illiberal narcissist who now occupies the Whitehouse. And its your sort of weak-handed abandonment of principles denial of faith that will continue to destroy the GOP.
To SG:
The GOP is moribund in Colorado, I do not share your cheery assessment. Until we grassroots remove the Denver Country Club set that keep giving us the same old mushy faux-conservative candidates, and fails to stock the bench (they didn’t even run opposition candidates in a good 1/3 of races at the state level to build the bench!), the GOP will continue to dwindle away to nothing in Colorado.
In Colorado, this is especially painful, given the Denver Country Club set that appear to run the party like a “whose turn is it next” club. I worked on campaigns for Bob Berauprez when he was in the 7th CD here, and he was blindly and stupidly arrogant to run one of the worst campaigns ever for Gov, even after we in the staff complained and many of us wrote him letters asking him NOT to run and to stay in Congress. Likewise our new Rep in the 6th, Mike Coffman, abandoned the last remaining state-wide office held by the GOP, when there were plenty of good and capable candidates in the 6th. Selfish and stupid.
The “its his turn next” Owens acolytes pushed Beauprez (and probably Coffman) to run much like they jammed Pete Coors into the race that produced a win for Ken Salazar, ignoring the fact that he was abandoning the 7th (which he could have held), and the GOP had no “bench”. Instead we got stuck with a weak-hand Owens crony Rick O’Donnel, who was stomped by a liberal Ed Perlmutter, who has turned into a vapid anti-Iraq table-thumper who is far more liberal than his district (which includes Buckrly AFB and a ton of conservative defense/aerospace people and retired military). And this past election, the GOP didn’t even do anything more than a token opposition in Lerew. What a joke!
Whats worse is the lack of any development effort for local and state-level candidates, and to protect them from the smears by the gays mafia up in Boulder, who run smear ads. You shoudl have seen the crap they were throwing at Ryan Frazier in Aurora, a very promising lguy who was getting smeared badly. State GOP and their cliquish friends didn’t lift a hand to help. Ryan Frazier now knows he can expect NOTHING from that bunch, and so doo those of us that campaign for him (FYI: look him up – he holds TS/SCI clearance works at Buckley AFB in Aerospace and Data, and is a good family man, solid guy – and happens to be black which is a bonus in Aurora).
He’s the very kind of candidate we should be finding, developing and supporting. But the state GOP is too blind and stupid.
And finally, the dopes at the state GOP Country Club look down on us Sam’s Club Repubs, and refuse to listen to us.
Direct mail was started WAY late, and most of it was received well AFTER people voted. We told them about it, but they wouldn’t listen.
We did our Precinct walks a week prior to election day, and large number of people we contacted had already voted absentee/mail-in or early-vote. Nobody wanted to hear it.
In the phone banks the week before and during the Rovian “72 hour GOTV drive” we found that the majority of people we contacted by phone had already voted – and they were angry with us calling them. Even worse, many were contacted multiple times by the volunteers in the phone banks, because someone up the food chain STILL hasn’t figured out how to run a simple database.
So no, I disagree, and it is because of what I’ve seen.
The GOP in Colorado is broken, and none of the boobs at the top have a clue, and what’s worse, they are not willing to LISTEN.
Country Club vs Sam’s Club. The GOP has lost the Sam’s Club Repubs, and that is why they fail in CO and will continue to do so.
The GOP is dying in CO and deserves to do so as long as Waddams, Owens and his “moderate” blue-blood wannabees run the party.
Some of you people are talking about ideological purity with the same tone and fervor that the Chinese used during the Cultural Revolution. This is not a good idea.
The Republican Party has been shrinking, the solution is probably not trying to kick out party supporters.
If you spend too much time appealing to the base, you are going to lose more supporters who are not White Christians who did not attend college.
A good example of this is the Hispanic vote. Many Latin-Americans are very socially conservative yet they don’t support the GOP. Why? I don’t know, perhaps it’s the Republican message that brown skinned “foreigners” who speak Spanish aren’t really Americans. I have heard tirades over “Press 1 for English” that offended me and English is the only language I can speak.
In the last Presidential primaries the only Republican who attracted youth in any real number was Ron Paul. Yes, Ron Paul was even less electable than John McCain, but has anyone in the party given any thought to what Dr. Paul had that attracted non-Republicans while all the other candidates were repelling them?
Of course I am not a Republican so please feel free to call me names and go back to throwing out all the RINOs. Perhaps the GOP just needs a generation or two in the political wilderness to fix things up. Maybe a nice Biblical 40 years in the desert will lead the party to the promised land.
The media should start reporting the truth.As for the GOP,it may take some time in the desert alright, but real Americans will come back when the failure of the left is realized.
@45. TheRealityIs:
You can’t have it both ways. I’m leaning toward “destroy the GOP”.
Peace.
DS
reality, delia –
I came into the tent on 9/11 and I’m not leaving.
I read all this about the base, Reagan, Goldwater, McCain, the religious right, gay groups, country club elitism, and Rinos….and not one word about Palin.
Has everyone forgotten Sarah, and how she revitalized the Republican effort and why? She didn’t talk about Party Purity, she talked about our traditional values and about the big city pols who went to Washington and promoted their own interests instead of the voters.
The Republican Party has a marketing problem, and talking about what is in the party’s interest is the wrong place to start. All successful marketing programs are based on addressing what the target audience wants to hear, NOT on what you want to tell them. Not just what they want, but also what they detest. The Dems won by focussing on the low opinion of Bush. Conservatives need to focus, not overtly but essentially, on Republican principles, on getting rid of machine politicians, on the arrogance and greed of the liiberals, on restoring pride in American values by pointing up the incredible arrogance of European nations which wallowed in imperialism, petty monarchy, feeble coalition, slavery and class distinction for a century and a half after our Republic was founded and grew from the strong roots of a unique noble Constitution. We are supposed to supplicate to THEM?
It needs to attack the insidious precepts of “moral equivalence” and the toleration of intolerance. Hispanics need to be asked if they really want to embrace the same style of politics that drove them to leave their latin-american countries.
This is what Americans WANT TO HEAR and the Dems can’t deliver.
The GOP was, and should remain, the party of American principles and values. That’s what we have to sell: to hell with all the bickering over who is a true Republican and who should be excluded. Palin proved its validity, the rest of us should follow.
Look at how energized we were after Palin was nominated and right after the convention.
Speaking as a crazy leftist for whom Democrats are watery Republicans, let me encourage you in your Palin worship.
@52
What was it Bush said? Oh, right…
“Bring it on”
Peace.
DS
Hurry up and let Sen John McCain retire…then allow Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin speak for the GOP.
Romney is more intelligent and Palin is energizer!
McCain = yawn, snoring, boring, Goreist…terrible public speaker!