RNC Meeting: Steele Comes to Honolulu with Proof of Principle
The AP headline is “Republican gathering in Waikiki comes at a time of internal strife” — but the Republican National Committee is meeting in Honolulu January 27-30 in a world suddenly reshaped by Scott Brown’s paradigm-shattering victory in Massachusetts. AP’s headline writer can only dream.
For RNC Chairman Michael Steele, Brown’s victory couldn’t have come at a better time. Steele’s mission is to expand the reach of the Republican Party into districts and states generally considered Democrat strongholds. This is the opposite of the strategy of energizing the base which gave George W. Bush an exquisitely narrow victory in 2000 and a 2.4% margin of victory in 2004 — an election year which Ann Coulter and others have argued should have seen a Bush landslide.
“Red Invades Blue: Take Massachusetts,” read the Scott Brown “money bomb” website — which pulled in $1 million a day on the approach to the January 19 Senate special election. Steele’s strategy was given credibility by victories in last November’s Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races. But Republican victory in the most liberal state in the union is the kind of lightning bolt needed to seal the case.
Coming to Hawaii, Steele is looking for a second lightning bolt to once again shock what he sees as old, outdated ideas about political possibilities. A three-way special election on or about May 1 for Hawaii’s First Congressional District (CD1, urban Honolulu) pits Republican Honolulu councilman and Army Reserve officer Charles Djou against two Democrats — former CD2 Rep. Ed Case and Senate President Colleen Hanabusa. Speaking to a mix of local and national Republican activists at the “RNC island summit,” Steele said: “Why is the RNC going to Hawaii? Because we intend to win in Hawaii.”
Held in Barack Obama’s home district, the Hawaii CD1 will likely be the last special election before November 2. Just as Massachusetts elected Republican Governor Mitt Romney, Hawaii’s First Congressional District has voted Republican in every gubernatorial race since 1994. Bush won 47% of the district in 2004. Djou would be the first Republican to win the congressional seat since Rep. Pat Saiki left to run for Senate in 1990, making way for the election of Rep. Neil Abercrombie, dubbed “D-Hezbollah” by those who know his record. Abercrombie, who started his political career as a hippie transplant from Buffalo, is leaving Congress to challenge Republican Lt. Governor Duke Aiona in the gubernatorial race November 2.
Steele is getting support in return from blue-state Republicans. At the RNC summit Tuesday, Aiona said: “I don’t think he [Steele] gets enough credit for what has happened in the last few months on the national scene.”
Term limits prevent Hawaii’s Republican Governor Linda Lingle from running for reelection. Asked about her political plans, she said, “My future plans are to get Charles elected to Congress and Duke elected governor.” Pressed on the possibility of a Senate run beyond 2010, Lingle added, “It [is] a good time to take a break and gain some perspective. There are ways to serve outside politics. It doesn’t mean I’ll never run again — I might.”
In the wake of last November’s debacle in NY-23, a handful of the 168 RNC delegates are reportedly proposing a resolution demanding that Republican candidates pass a ten-point ideological test in order to receive party financial and technical support. Dubbing it a “purity test,” liberal media were quick to pick up the story.
Washington insiders were all aflutter in the second week of January over the possibility that another small group of RNC delegates may advance a motion of censure against Steele for writing and publishing his book, Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda. They claim the book was produced behind the backs of the RNC, although a quick glance at the book’s cover shows that Sean Hannity, Bill Bennett, Mark Levin, Newt Gingrich, and the conservative-oriented Regnery publishing house knew all about it. To the dismay of liberal media everywhere, it appears that this issue will not even come up in the closed RNC sessions.
In Honolulu Tuesday, Steele did not directly mention the kerfuffle. He seemed to refer indirectly to these reports when he told the summit, “It’s time for all the petty bickering to stop.” But what is the underlying issue?
Steele’s book argues that Republicans cannot continue to win elections based on intense mobilization of base GOP voters. Republicans need to direct their message and resources towards winning elections in traditionally Democratic areas. This is why the New Jersey and Massachusetts victories are of such importance.
While warning against calls for “ideological purity,” Steele argues:
Don’t believe the pundits’ common refrain that the Republican Party has moved too far to the right. In reality, the problem is that we’ve been moving to the left. Here’s why we’ve fallen out of touch with typical Americans: we’ve acquiesced to big government, big spending, and increased federal control that diminishes the authority of families and the rights of individuals. On entitlements, education, health care, immigration — even occasionally on free speech, free association, and free markets — we have compromised, caved, and collapsed.
Without using the words, Steele describes the Gramscian assault on Tocquevillian America and its effect on the GOP:
It’s understandable how we got here: check the newspapers, the TV, and the internet. The last decade has seen a withering and unyielding assault on all things conservative — a fire hose blast of invective, name calling, and abuse from every angle. It has been exhausting to be a conservative!
But the fact that the fight is hard does not excuse us from combat.
In the forward to Steele’s book, Newt Gingrich writes, “‘Don’t tell me it can’t be done’ is the perfect battle cry for Republicans.”
In 2008, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, former CEO of the Hudson Institute, won 20% of the black vote — four times McCain’s percentage — and beat Obama’s vote totals in Indiana college towns. He did it not by changing his conservatism but by “making the ask.” Applying that kind of effort in non-traditional demographics is the key to Steele’s strategy.
Working to seek voters among a 90% Democrat community may seem an exercise in Republican futility, but in a democracy, it is an inherently unstable arrangement for 90% of any electorate to consistently vote one way. Black voters tip the balance in favor of Democrats in Missouri, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland. Republicans need only gain 20-30% of the black vote to dramatically shift the balance of power in some or all of these states. Counterintuitively and in spite of race hustlers’ best efforts, the election of Obama makes it more possible to win support for conservative ideas among black voters because it is more difficult to argue that African-Americans cannot fully take part in the American dream when a black person has been elected president.
We may be witnessing the end of a chapter of American political history which began with the 1968 Nixon campaign and the falsely maligned “southern strategy” — which drew southern whites away from their previous role as enforcers of the color bar. In place of this demographically dwindling base, Steele is forging a conservatism which directs its appeal to a broader audience than the one inherited four decades ago from the civil-rights-induced collapse of Democrats’ segregationist political machines throughout the south and in northern cities.
Considering the enormity of this shift, it is a wonder that there is so little sniping going on.
I hope that while they are in Hawaii they take the chance to drop in and look at The LYING MOHAMMEDAN MESSIAH’s REAL Birth Certificate. Come on guys you know it makes sense so do it.
I’m sure Steele will enjoy your puff piece. Steele is playing catch-up with the conservative wave in America and envisions himself “hanging ten” at the front of it.
He sat on the sidelines while the Tea Parties and the Town Halls were being held, even deriding Tea Partiers at one point. His party backed the very progressive Dede Scozzofava. He’s about to be handed another defeat by Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist.
Steele, much like Obama, is in way over his head. He needs to step aside and let someone who’s more in touch with the country guide the GOP.
Uh, the RNC and Steele did not have a damn thing to do with taking The Bloated One’s seat away from the Democrat Socialist Party in Massachusetts.
It’s all Tea Party revolution baaaaabbbbyyy!
I was excited by Steele’s election to head the RNC a year ago. I have to say I am disapointed with his leadership to date.
I do agree that Republicans have to appeal to new legions of the disaffected in order to win in the future. Steele however, has managed to attack conservatives and conservative leaders during his tenure, Rush Limbaugh being the most obvious illustration of this tendency. I am troubled by this. I have refused to give any money to the party until this problem is remedied.
The Republicans need to start atoneing for the big government rats nest they helped feather post 1994. There’s a party for people who believe in earmarks, new government programs, growth in the size of government, and government spending a larger percentage of GDP; it’s called the Democrat party.
When I see Republicans consistently standing up for our republic, free enterprise and the Constitution, I might reconsider donation. Until then, lots of luck.
That’s what Steele needs to fix, in my opinion.
Way to go Mr. Steele, the optics of you having fun in the sun in Honolulu will play into the hands of the Dems. Steele is obtuse.
Steele does not get us, the heart and soul of Conservativism and therefore the only hope of the GOP. He, along with most/all of the leadership needs ot get out of our way. I too withold $ support for the GOP, until they consistently show true support for the Constitution…small/er government, lower taxes, less regulation, support for small business and CLEARLY define the differences between us and the Dems/progressive/marxist movement of the left. Until then, I support individual candidates only…one at a time.
None of the GOP “leaders” in Congress have taken opportunity offered to them by Obama to show what we’re all about. And I won’t cotton them “drafting” the Tea Party movement.
Steele defines much (most?) of what’s wrong with the GOP/RNC. He unabashedly took credit for Brown’s victory when he actively worked against it, initially, by refusing to support him. It was only through conservative grass roots pressure and their “bottom-up”, leadership-through-action that Steele and his windbag ilk were forced to join the campaign – a day late and a dollar short, but now all too willing to take credit for Brown’s win AND pretend his relatively moderate politics (in the bluest of the blue States) are a vindication of their socially suicidal, “big tent” meme.
Steele’s politics personify appeasement, compromise and the now-demonstrably-false notion that a “bigger” tent is automatically a stronger tent. Endlessly compromising with moral adolescents will not preserve this Republic. 75+ years of that prove otherwise: we are closer to abject socialism now than at any other point in this nation’s history – including the height of FDR’s largely unconstitutional “New Deal” scam and Woodrow Wilson’s fascist administration.
America is beset by a government comprised of far-far-left ideologues on one side, and a hodgepodge of far-left and center-left quislings on the other (with a very few notable exceptions). The latter is the rot – personified by Steele and his “moderate” mantra – that must be flushed out of the Republican Party if the Republic itself is to survive as defined in our Constitution. Most important of all, radical, “right-wing-nuttery”, as hyperbolized by the chattering left, is not required to achieve this. All that’s needed is a consistent demand for strict adherence to the letter of the Constitution and the limits it places on the federal government to impose its elitist will on the People.
Change is inevitable. The Founders understood this. That’s what the Amendment process and Representative government are all about: they were designed to preclude wholesale subversion of the Republic – such as we’re seeing now in the form of the Democrats’ radical agenda – by imposing limits on any one administration’s or Congress’ ability to radically alter the structure of our society through legislative abuse and usurpation. The RNC/GOP have become the enablers in bypassing those limits. Meanwhile, the kabuki “battle” they’ve been doing with the Democrats for a decade is nothing more than a cover for their increasing complicity. That has to change. Steele needs to recognize this and lead accordingly or, preferably, just get out of the way.
The Peter Principle ?
It’s understandable how we got here: check the newspapers, the TV, and the internet. The last decade has seen a withering and unyielding assault on all things conservative — a fire hose blast of invective, name calling, and abuse from every angle. It has been exhausting to be a conservative!
Not for me, the fire hose blast has only deepened my convictions.
I hope Michael Steele, as he has recently acknowledged learning and evolving, gets that the Republican message has to be one of principle, perhaps summed up along lines of Antonin Scalia’s ‘originalist’ arguments on the Constitution as the core idea for a Republican resurgence.
Then all the little debates about who republicans are or how they should represent themselves as being, or who the tea partiers are & how they differ from “moderates” etc. can be obviated, tossed into the dust bin of irrelevancy.
Occam’s Razor, baby
7. goy:
“Steele defines much (most?) of what’s wrong with the GOP/RNC.
…” Not buying it. More like GOY DEFINES MUCH OF WHAT IS WRONG!
I’ve admired this guy since I first saw him on Dennis Miller some eight years removed. I’m 51 and I can’t recall a lower point for conservatism in my lifetime other than a short year ago. This was a beat down, fractured party. I admire him all the more in the way he’s led and handled the crap he’s endured since.
This guy wanted to be RNC chair, ran hard to win it, and has worked tirelessly since. The dust up’s Goy cites were less the consequenses of Steele’s than they were inevitable even if Lincoln himself were exhumed and miraculously rejuvinated to lead.
The truth is that Pelosi & Obama have done much more to reunite and revive conservatives – just as the Tea Party revolt is the manifestation of right/conservative leaning independents.
So what? Should republicans just stay on the sidelines since other forces have lead to a new day? What could be more idiotic a suggestion.
The hit piece the Washington Times ran, the latest of several attacking Steele, was indicative of just how conservatives do reamin fractured. Is Steele guilty of neglecting his duties in favor of personal gain with his book, really? What Bunk. The guys the most active and visable chair since Melman. The guy works his ass off. Period. And since he is BLACK, ok, it also means he can go places Melman never dreamed of going – like Tavis Smiley’s Black State of the Union.
This is to the detriment of conservatives? Really. I could see a case made if say, Strom Thurman WAS RUNNING AS A FRIGGIN SEGREGTATIONIST AND THIS WAS 1948!
But it’s telling that his fundraising has the RNC at such a disadvantage. Or it’s possible, in the view of one who does support him, that he’s been focusing more on recruiting quality candidates to employe the national strategy the writer notes.
Or maybe there’s a bit of fundrasing cannabalizing going on at this point of the election cycle. Maybe Haley B., as astute and experienced a chair as we’ve had in the past 200 years, has a bit of an edge when it comes to fundraising – and maybe that is true when it comes to house congressional as well – to both chair’s credit.
Windbags like Goy can stay distracted and ‘pure’ in the patriotic role of permanent minority. I liked the 80′s under Reagan better, and the ’90′s under Gingrich. I ENJOY owning the house & senate. It’s easier to make great things happen in the MAJORITY!
I’ll reach a final conclusion on Steele AFTER THE G-DAMN midterms. It’s the intenecine sniping at a time when we have a real chance to make dramatic gains that is driving me nuts! I can’t believe it. We need to concentrate on taking back our government and people insist what we need to do is go after the RNC Chair?
I’ve seen this kind of implosion here in Az amongst conservatives; It’s part of why we now have a MAJORITY DEM PARTY CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS. It’s not productive and it’s not representitive. It’s self-destructive and puts the opposition in charge.
Speaking of Occam’s Razor, you should enjoy watching Judd Gregg hand it back to his interlocutors in this brief video.
Demonstrating neatly (maybe Steele could learn it) that the best way to argue with a knee jerk Leftoid is to first shoot their premise in the foot. (Gregg almost took a position in the Obama admin. but then thought better of it)
GOP Senator Rips Into MSNBC Host For ‘Absurd,’ ‘Dishonest,’ Statements
Steele is the ebmodiment of the fiscal liberalism, warmongering, and religious conservative republican party. The party is weak, and have chosen a weak, liberal leader. Can’t help but wonder if he isn’t a token black as part of the republican’s futile quest to convince liberals they are not racist–politics before principles…
We will know when the republicans ‘get it’ when they choose a strong conservative leader.
I thougth Hawaii was “exotic” and not where “real Americans” go? Didn’t I learn this from commentary regarding Obama visiting Hawaii? (His home state) I thought going to Hawaii was “elitist” or something… So while “real Americans” are suffering, the RNC is at beach front resort in Hawaii? Wonder how the Bopp (R-IN) “purity test” thing is faring?
Meanwhile, back in Baltimore…president answers to the RNC: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32225.html
@11 — Gregg actually came off as a bully, with Brewer being the classier act. He was talking blanket about the budget, they were asking for specifics. Why was he so defensive?
This guy is a real letdown. I’m almost glad he didn’t win the governorship in MD. Then I remember we got the failure of a Baltimore mayor failing harder as Governor.
Whoo Whoo Whoo don’t hate Mr.Steele cause you hate tha GAME!
I knew Steele would be no good as a fundraiser. He was a bust at same in a lesser position. It was his biggest knock. The RNC keeps sending me fundraising mailers, despite my asking them not to. They’re always some negative knock on the other side, nothing positive about what we want to accomplish. The Left is not always wrong. They say we use fear tactics. That’s what these fundraisers do.
The reason I don’t donate is that it all seems geared towards Party power. I don’t give a damn about Party power. I embrace principles. If a Party embtaces those principles, I embrace that Party. If the Party walks away from those principles, it walks away from me, too.
Steele seems to me to be just another power apparatchik. These guys are the old fossils who live by the old paradigm of the powerful Dinosaur Media. They play the game the same old way, with maneuvers not based on ethics and principles first. They are playing the power game, with rules defined by the other side. As long as we play their game their way, we’ll continue to lose… and will lose it all in the end.
That said, I think Steele is starting to adapt a bit. A previous comment is right: he is working hard. It’s just not all that effective, because he is still using the old paradigm. Progress, however, IS being made… albeit slowly.
As for purity, I believe in a Big Tent, as long as the “moderates” are on board with the most important principles: Bill of Rights; small government; Declaration of Independence; Preamble to the Constitution; and the Constitution itself as a non-flexible thing. The social leg is optional, even though I consider it very important. I recognize it is offputting to many who have been forcefed the negative tropes about it. It will take time to reverse that. If we can just get these other things going first, then the “optional” things will, eventually, follow.
The moderates are nothing without the base, but we cannot win much without them. So, we need a mutually-beneficial arrangement… with preconditions, natch.
16. marc Malone:
the Constitution itself as a non-flexible thing
Really? Is that how you view the Constitution?
“Don’t think the originalist interpretation constrains you. To the contrary. My Constitution is a very flexible Constitution.” – Scalia
Fear not, you still have Sean Hannity on your side.
@17. “skeeziks”: – Really?
Marc is correct. And, as usual, there’s quite a bit more to Scalia’s position than the misleading little bit you’ve cherry-picked here. You get points for bringing it up, however, because Scalia’s oratory on this was one of the most thorough takedowns ever presented on the “living Constitution” canard.
Anyone can read Scalia’s ideas on this topic in their entirety here if they’re interested in understanding his position. That is, that the Constitution is completely rigid with respect to what it defines; its flexibility is inherent in its limited scope (i.e., that which it does NOT define), which is what Scalia was referring to.
Problems arise when the Constitution is treated as a “living document” by constantly reinterpreting and increasing its scope to artificially attribute to government authority and powers it was never intended to have based on the original meaning of its text.
Here’s an excerpt from Scalia’s talk [my emph. and comments]:
What are the arguments usually made in favor of the Living Constitution? As the name of it suggests, it is a very attractive philosophy, and it’s hard to talk people out of it — the notion that the Constitution grows. The major argument is the Constitution is a living organism, it has to grow with the society that it governs or it will become brittle and snap.
This is the equivalent of, an anthropomorphism equivalent to what you hear from your stockbroker, when he tells you that the stock market is resting for an assault on the 11,000 level. The stock market panting at some base camp. The stock market is not a mountain climber and the Constitution is not a living organism for Pete’s sake; it’s a legal document, and like all legal documents, it says some things, and it doesn’t say other things. And if you think that the aficionados of the Living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again.
My Constitution is a very flexible Constitution. You think the death penalty is a good idea — persuade your fellow citizens and adopt it [i.e., because this issue is OUTSIDE THE SCOPE of what the Constitution itself specifies. -ed.]. You think it’s a bad idea — persuade them the other way and eliminate it. You want a right to abortion — create it the way most rights are created in a democratic society, persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and enact it. You want the opposite — persuade them the other way. That’s flexibility. But to read either result into the Constitution is not to produce flexibility, it is to produce what a constitution is designed to produce — rigidity.
The irony Scalia is emphasizing, which is the same irony that supports Marc’s statement, is that a non-flexible, i.e., rigidly applied Constitution – one whose use is limited to the scope of its original intent – provides a democracy with the greatest level of flexibility possible. In effect, that which is erroneously read into the Constitution – through a “flexible”, “living document” interpretation – is effectively removed from the realm of that which can be decided, democratically, by the People.
18. goy:
I think it’s pretty clear by now that I don’t turn to Scalia for me preferred interpretations. But thanks for confirming your rigidity.
Apparently “Goy” thinks readers of these comments are too uneducated to know the difference between “flexible’ and “living” (sigh). In the quote which “Skeeziks” cited, Scalia is clearly contrasting one to the other. In fact Scalia accuses the “living” constitution backers of seeking “rigidity” . . . which is just what “Goy” seems to want . . . .
(BTW — the fact that we are debating this subject shows the impossibility of having a rigid constitution and the impossibility of being governed by same. Constitutional rigidity is just an excuse by self-appointed “intellectual” elites to justify their ideological dictatorship.
This discussion certainly does not inform the childish tantrums/critiques of Steele on this board.)
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/guest_commentary/scalia-constitutional-speech.htm (paragraph 20 of Goy’s source.)
My Constitution is a very flexible Constitution. You think the death penalty is a good idea — persuade your fellow citizens and adopt it. You think it’s a bad idea — persuade them the other way and eliminate it. You want a right to abortion — create it the way most rights are created in a democratic society, persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and enact it. You want the opposite — persuade them the other way. That’s flexibility. But to read either result into the Constitution is not to produce flexibility, it is to produce what a constitution is designed to produce — rigidity.
Here’s an article about the same speech:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa022701a.htm
Calling his view of the Constitution an “originalist” view, Scalia conceded it often places him in a position of supporting laws that do not seem to make sense.
“It may well be stupid, but if it’s stupid, pass a law!” he said. “Don’t think the originalist interpretation constrains you. To the contrary. My Constitution is a very flexible Constitution. You want a right to abortion? Create it the way all rights are created in a democracy, pass a law. The death penalty? Pass a law. That’s flexibility.”
Scalia suggested that supporters of the “living Constitution” view, allowing for flexible interpretations molded to meet the changing times, really wanted “rigidity.”
@19. “skeeziks”: – … I don’t turn to Scalia …
No, but you clearly have no qualms about cherry picking something he supposedly said in order to suggest he holds an opinion that, in fact, he doesn’t hold. That’s such a common leftist deceit that it’s gotten boring.
- … thanks for confirming your rigidity.
No problem. And thanks for noticing. I consider it preferable to the flaccid, intellectually impotent nonsense you insist on spewing.
.
@20. Menehune: – Apparently “Goy” thinks readers of these comments are too uneducated…
Apparently you were too drunk or too stoned, or both, to read who I addressed the comment to. Or maybe you were just PMSing, were looking for an argument, and didn’t want to bother reading what I wrote? Or maybe you just thought you could contradict what I wrote by quoting the same passage I quoted and effectively parroting what I wrote? You pick.
- Here’s an article about the same speech:
Pay closer attention. It’s not about the same speech at all. This is the same lack of awareness you used when you wrote “which is just what ‘Goy’ seems to want”. I gave no such indication.
First, check the dates. The transcript here is from a talk given in March of 2005. “Robert Longley” at About.com is referring to a different speech allegedly given 4 years prior.
Next, look at the quotes attributed to Scalia (which “skeeziks” mindlessly copied and pasted from somewhere). None of those are found in the talk Scalia gave in 2005. Listen to the video if you don’t trust the transcript.
Finally, that “article” is a great example showing how About.com is just as reliable a reference as Wikipedia. Note well: Longley doesn’t cite, let alone link to, a source for what he’s quoting or what he’s basing his opinions on. The whole thing could be completely made up as far as you or “skeeziks” know. For instance, Longley writes “…Scalia conceded it often places him in a position of supporting laws that do not seem to make sense.” Did Scalia concede this? Is that what he actually said? We have no way of knowing without a link to a transcript or video of the speech in question. “Concede” may very well be Longley’s subjective interpretation, for instance. No way to know. In point of fact, there’s no reason to believe “Robert Longley” even exists.
All of this does, in fact, pertain directly to Steele and his “moderate”, center-left ilk. In coddling and endlessly compromising with the socialist left – in order to build a “bigger tent” and accrue political power for its own sake – the current GOP “leadership” (so-called) has effectively acquiesced to the “Living Constitution”.
There is no explicit authority granted to Congress to control funding for or content of public education, or to redistribute wealth from those who pay taxes to those who don’t, or to use Taxpayers’ funds to run a retirement fund, or to use Taxpayers’ funds to run a health insurance program for retirees (let alone extort their retirement benefits by confiscating them if the retiree refuses to participate in that program)… the list goes endlessly on. ALL of those things require effective deconstruction of the Constitution’s text so as to attribute new meaning. That new meaning is then used to expand the federal government’s authority beyond that which was originally intended in 1791. The current RNC/GOP has bought into this expansion completely. That has to change. It won’t change with people like Steele in leadership positions.
GOY sez: “There is no explicit authority granted to Congress . . .
1) to control funding for or content of public education, or
2) to redistribute wealth from those who pay taxes to those who don’t, or
3) to use Taxpayers’ funds to run a retirement fund, or
4) to use Taxpayers’ funds to run a health insurance program for retirees (let alone extort their retirement benefits by confiscating them if the retiree refuses to participate in that program)… the list goes endlessly on.”
So GOY wants to abolish:
1) the Dep’t of Education (Reagan tried that)
2) the income tax (Court rulings killed your constitutional argument decades ago)
3) Social Security
4) Medicare
OK, Goy, we’ll call you. Meanwhile we have an election to win. But thanks for telling us what it will take to win your precious vote. Unfortunately the electorate is focused on other things like:
1) Stopping Obamacare (thank you Scott Brown)
2) Stopping cap & trade
3) No new taxes
4) Cut spending/ no new “stimulus”
But just as soon as you win over the electorate to focus on the issues YOU care about, you be sure to let us know OK?
Meanwhile all you are doing is demanding that others do the job which you are unable or unwilling to do yourself.
It doesn’t work like that and it never will. As I said before, “constitutional rigidity” is just an excuse for a self-appointed pseudo-intellectual elite to justify its (your) ideological dictatorship.
I don’t work for you. And neither do the rest of America’s voters. If you want to convince voters of the four points we dragged out of your long-winded posts, then convince them. Don’t try to use the Constitution to excuse yourself from that battle.
And don’t blame Steele for not joining in your crusade. His job is to raise money and win elections. Period. And that is exactly as it should be.
GAME
SET
MATCH
@22. Menehune: – GOY wants to abolish: … blah, blah, blah…
You haven’t the slightest clue what I want (or want to “abolish”), so your hallucinations in that regard just make you a fool. Looks like you suffer from the same intellectual cancer as “skeeziks”/Moho/Sybil/et al. and the rest of the totalitarian, leftist trolls: you can’t function without the assistive aid of a straw man device. Sad, too, because your entire little tirade grew out of the fact that you never took the time to understand what Scalia said or what I wrote.
All your angry venting is simply a reaction to me pointing out that your post demonstrates a complete failure to comprehend Scalia’s thesis: a rigidly applied Constitution provides a democracy with the greatest level of flexibility (“My Constitution is a very flexible Constitution”). Hell, you couldn’t even discern one of his talks from a different one given years later, for that matter. Wake up. You’re not even IN the game yet, let alone winning matches.
You still don’t even realize that your earlier response simply reiterated what I’d already written. You seriously need to go back and read it again and realize that you failed to comprehend it. I’m confident you won’t do that, however, because your rage has erased your intellect and left you sputtering made-up nonsense.
Contrary to your pathetic attempt to put words in my mouth, what I want is for government to be scaled back to a system that works within the limitations that are already clearly defined in the Constitution. A growing segment of this nation wants that same thing, but the current RNC/GOP “leadership” has no interest whatsoever in pursuing that goal. I also want the ignorant fools among us – and apparently that includes you – to learn that just because the Constitution doesn’t expressly forbid some action by the government, that doesn’t mean the government can just then go ahead and usurp the authority to take said action, as they have with virtually EVERY failed or bankrupt program they’re running on the Taxpayers’ dime. The current RNC/GOP “leadership” has no interest in educating the electorate in that regard, either.
- … we’ll call you.
Really? We?? Heh. Which ‘we’ is that, exactly?. The only thing you have “called” is the insipid argument you made up and falsely attributed to me, genius.
- …the electorate is focused on other things … Obamacare … cap & trade … new taxes … new “stimulus”
LOL!! Right. Here’s a news flash: the electorate is focused on whatever The Left Wing Media TELLS it to focus on, sport.
- The electorate wasn’t focused on “health care” until the media began helping Pelosi, Obama and Reid in their gambit to nationalize one sixth of our economy with socialized medicine.
- No one is focused on “cap & trade”. Anyone with half a brain or more knows it’s a dead issue, now that AGW is a demonstrated fraud and we have a Blame Duck president who is openly, publicly ridiculed by his peers when he pretends otherwise.
- NO ONE who actually pays any taxes wants new taxes. Duh.
- Very, very few people in the electorate, generally, have the slightest clue what this administration’s plans are regarding a second “stimulus” (see also: “jobs bill”).
Left to themselves – that is, minus the noise from the chattering socialist classes – the electorate as a group is focused on two things: the ridiculous and unnecessarily high level of unemployment – currently approaching 20% in real numbers, if it hasn’t exceeded that already – and the economic indicators that point to a double-dip recession, the second half of which this administration seems intent on making worse than the first, by attacking the banking system, again.
Clearly, you’re not only completely ignorant of what I want, but you’re also totally out-of-touch with what the electorate is focused on, and why. That blinds you to the fact that the RNC/GOP “leadership” has offered exactly squat in terms of what to do about either of these real issues – even in the context of “winning elections”, as we saw in Massachusetts. The ONLY guy who has offered anything substantive that has a chance of addressing these problems is Paul Ryan.
And to add insult to injury, in the ONE case where they had an opportunity to slow down the socialist agenda, the RNC/GOP took a pass – until the conservative grass roots FORCED them to pay attention. You said it yourself: “thank you Scott Brown”. And that’s half right: thank you Scott Brown and the conservative grass roots and Independent Tea Party folks who supported him. NO THANKS go to Steele and the RNC/GOP “leadership”, who utterly lacked the vision required to see what’s happening in this country. But that didn’t stop them from demonstrating their bottomless, unmitigated gall when they took credit for Brown’s victory in the context of asking for MORE money from their erstwhile supporters. That shows exactly why he, and they, need to go. And soon.
- … “constitutional rigidity” is just an excuse …
Is that a term you just made up? Because neither I, nor Scalia, as far as I know, have used that phrase in describing the originalist approach he favors, and which I fully support. You desperately need to re-read the transcript of Scalia’s talk again until you understand it. Clearly, you don’t.
- … don’t blame Steele …
I’ll blame whom I like, thanks. If the description of ANY job – in either party – really has degenerated to “raise money and win elections”, then that’s a clear sign that this Republic is finished. You claim “that is exactly as it should be”, so it looks like you’re just fine with that.
But here’s the thing. The political landscape has changed dramatically over the last 12 months while the RNC/GOP are still operating on an outdated scenario: sitting back and letting the Democrats overplay their imaginary “mandate” and p!ss everyone off, so they can then just move back into the majority for big-spender, “compassionate conservative”, out-lefting-the-left, business-as-usual. THAT is not LEADERSHIP.
Steele, as the public voice of the GOP, could fulfill even your pathetically dumbed-down job description – “raise money and win elections” – if he would demonstrate to the conservative grass roots and the Independents of the Tea Party movement that he, the RNC and the GOP fully support limited government, elimination of entitlement deficits, fixing Social Security and Medicare (by privatizing both), fighting socialism and fully supporting small business and ALL forms of capitalist, entrepreneurial enterprise that lead to a growing economy, increased employment, lowered public debt and a nice trade surplus. They could demonstrate this commitment by seeking out and supporting candidates who will work for these things. Like Doug Hoffman. But instead, they push RINOs like Dede Scozzafava and only, reluctantly acquiesce when they are forced to do so by their constituents.
The last time the RNC/GOP were in charge, we barely got lip service paid to the important issues mentioned above, and we (former) Republicans know it. Instead, the Republican majority exploited 9/11 and used the GWOT to spend our taxes on growing government. Beyond that, their “compassionate conservatism” (aka Socialism Lite®) coddled and compromised with the socialist agenda to increase entitlement benefits, ignore the looming Medicare and Social Security disasters, dig us deeper into the economy-destroying “affordable mortgage” sewer and reward a failing public education system with MORE Taxpayers’ dollars. Absent 9/11, GWB’s administration would have been virtually indistinguishable from his predecessor’s. Just like his father’s was. Looking back on Clinton’s popularity, and fearing repercussions from the 2000 Election debacle, they tried to “out-left” the left, domestically. Ironically, even that deceit wasn’t enough to maintain their majority in the face of a relentless, withering barrage of lies from The Left Wing Media, which went essentially unanswered for years.
As a result, which I mentioned above, we now have a government that comprises far-far-left ideologues on one side, and far- or center-left quislings on the other. That’s the very definition of Steele’s RNC.
The RNC/GOP needs to FIX that broken situation or the electorate is going to do it for them. The movement to begin taking control of local party committee precincts is already seeing to that. Firing Steele will be the next step in that process if he doesn’t wake up and realize that the future of the Republic is of infinitely greater import than his failed and demonstrably phony “moderate” agenda OR his personal ambitions.