Seven Rules for a 2012 Victory
3. Think about the debates. Eventually the GOP nominee will need to get on the stage opposite the incumbent president. He or she will need to be more presidential and more credible than the fellow the moderator refers to as “Mr. President.” That is no easy task. It helps to be not old, not a grouch, and not imprisoned by policy minutiae to the exclusion of broader themes and an aura of gravitas. That’s what Ronald Reagan had to do in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992 — convince the public to like them and to trust them to fix what ailed the country.
4. Be able to run a full-throated attack on Obama and the Congress. If the task will be to throw the bums out, then a successful GOP leader is going to have to combine core conservative ideas with a healthy serving of populism and unbridled opposition to liberal-dominated government. What did the candidate do to fight Obama-ism? Was he part of the spending pork-a-thon? In short, the candidate is going to need to both distance himself from Washington and show some political bona fides in having battled the very policies he is now running against.
5. A little boring is okay. If we are facing stagflation or multiple international crises we don’t need a stand-up comedian or a pop culture icon in the Oval Office. Former Vice President Dick Cheney showed us that you need not be more charismatic or “cooler” than Obama to win a policy debate, just better informed and more focused on a clear, fact-based message. Yes, we don’t want to run afoul of Rule #3, but there is something to be said for running a stunt-free campaign.
6. Figure out the demography. The old, white, southern men don’t vote in great enough numbers to elect the next president. Take a credible position on immigration and stress the benefits of assimilation as the key to the American success story. Explain why conservative ideas benefit the poor and newcomers to America. Make the argument for the American dream. And if the party’s tone on immigration has been off-putting, change the tone and lead by example.
7. Don’t banish a single person from the party. Rush Limbaugh, Colin Powell, David Frum, and all the silly conservatives who backed Obama should be part of the campaign and part of the candidate’s outreach. Even, you know, Democrats are welcome. Never should the words “not a real Republican” pass from the candidate’s lips, as tempting as it may be. Only fools think a minority party losing market share needs to thin the herd.
Now how hard could that be? Harder than you think. There may be only a handful of Republicans in the entire country who could get all seven right. But that is fine — we only need one and we only need him or her by 2012.
Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney are the only ones that fit all of this. Giuliani won’t run. I’m guessing he’ll run for New York governor. It’ll bet Newt vs. Mitt in the primaries.
I think your poll numbers got lost in an internet ad.
So here are the official results-
For our little trolling friends-
We didn’t make this up your former Obama lovers are jumping ship.
poll shows worst president in history.
Barack Obama will be easy to beat in 2012. The American public is quickly losing faith in his ability to respond to our economic challenges and external threats like North Korea and Iran. We should actually be more concerned about Obama’s mental health and whether he will resign long before the end of his term. Rasmussen’s most recent poll results are devastating. It is only the beginning of July and the president has only been in office six months. I can’t imagine any improvement is his current numbers. He simply does not have a clue on how to improve the economy. Obama merely knee jerks to the fatuous doctrines of John Maynard Keynes. He does not believe in the common citizens. No, these people are deemed too stupid to handle their own affairs. They are supposedly better off handling over power to the elites who attended the “best” schools.
With 80+ percent (maybe even more)of the country conservative and begging for 35+ years either party to produce a meal, instead of a snack, Ms Rubin uses a 7 page epistle to say “no” to Sarah Palin as the GOP’s guarantee for 2012.
But wait, she isn’t finished. The GOP also needs to learn how to properly submit itself to all of the two-face turncoats – like Colin Powell, hollywood and the mainstream media, but not any of them thar old white folks from the south.
And we all live in a zoo so we must all be so nice to each other children. Mr. Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are really our friends.
#8 – Demonstrate they have fiscally conservative principles, and can show they have lived by those principles.
Jennifer,
I sincerely enjoy both your written and video stuff. Great research, analysis, and delivery.
Yet you seem to take a tactical view here. Is it possible that, if we don’t look at the longer-term aspects of the collapse of the 50 United States into a single unit ruled from DC, that all seven of these good points of yours are sort of moot?
Thanks,
Chris
If Palin continues to draw crowds as she did, then she’s in.
Or the GOP is dead for 2012.
Well we better find someone soon because The One never left campaign mode. The way these things keep coming earlier and earlier, we’re probably running late for the 2016 contest.
Not Mitt, not Newt, not Rudy, and not Huckabee will draw the tea partiers. Until and unless they can show otherwise, they are not serious contenders.
The GOP should deep six the GOP and rebrand it. Change the name to the American Progressive Party. Fanfare, hoopla, new direction, etc., etc. Done it once when the Whig party got rebranded. Heck, we could even adopt the oil well as the party symbol (just kidding).
A rebranding would allow the part to just sweep things away, ditch the Spectors, have the old GOP be the party of Powell and all the folks that would still vote Obama in 2012.
If American Progressive is too far out for some (but it does co-opt the Left’s moniker), then the American Prosperity Party. The APP also fits into all the “apps” you see on the tech sites so every commercial will pitch the rebranded party.
What a pathetic set of rules. These seem to be a mere disguise for shilling for your preferred nominee.
Instead of being the ‘referee’ on the field, this analysis belongs on a flyer discarded in the parking lot.
“Maybe it isn’t fair to penalize those who are victims of a hostile media storm, but if between now and 2012 People magazine has more material on the candidate than the Economist, it really is time to exit.”
False. Whoever is a frontrunner for the Republicans will automatically be the focus of a hostile media storm. If there are no actual liabilities to talk about they’ll make it up. This is why I have online access to George Bush’s dental records from Alabama in 1972 but can’t get a copy of the President’s birth certificate directly from the authorities in Hawaii.
I spent a good amount of time with my friends at the beach last year. Every one of them would be a better President than the current one. A 30 year lawyer who practices many kinds of law, humble, smart, tough.
An athletic director who is a great stock investor, a single Dad with three daughters because of his wifes early demise who has Midwest common sense, financial savvy and is a Man’s man.
A professional fund raiser who understands education, how things succeed and one of the smartest, most creative people I know.
A CFO for a major fast food franchisee with over 130 stores who dedicates himself to fund raising, a whip smart CPA who leads well, very analytical, great problem solver and not afraid to make tough choices.
there are more of them, but you get the idea. Every one of these guys has coached his own kids, is financially frugal, loves his country, married to the same wife and can play hoops and golf. What in the world makes our current President smarter than them? Oh, by the way, all of the wives are even smarter than these guys! And they dress better than you know who!
This list should only be one item long:
Hope and pray the econonmy isn’t on it’s feet.
Are you still glad that you voted for Obama?
Without picking each and every rule apart (which wouldn’t be too hard) I’ll give you the ONE rule that applied to Reagan, Clinton, and yes, even Obama in the last election:
The candidate needs to be able to INSPIRE the nation to win the Presidency.
Simplistic? Maybe, but you cannot win without that “IT” factor of being able to draw crowds and INSPIRE them to better themselves and their country by voting for you.
That is why you cannot rule out Sarah Palin (anyone who can draw the crowds she can, cannot be dismissed!) and that is why the rest of the “pack” have yet to really break out though there is still time.
That is also why Obama will be TRULY vulnerable come 2012…his “inspiration” will have evaporated to bitterness and despair, malaise and apathy, and NO HOPE and NO CHANGE.
Republicans will have an opportunity NO ONE could have imagined just 6 months ago…but we are just now seeing it starting to germinate and sprout as we speak.
Paul, yes definitely.
Obvious,wrong,or silly advise. Rubin sounds like she’s advising someone running for class president.
I tend to agree with #4 and #7…
…while this list is interesting (less #1…”drama” is what got SOBama in…), it is by no means sufficient to “win.” After all, maybe there the reason the Left (incl. the Antique Media) shows so much hate towards her lays on them.
I do think Palin is right up there with Romney and Gingrich, among others (I am not saying any of these is “the best” at this time…but now is not the time to be “executing” potential candidates) as being a contender for 2012.
Gosh, wasn’t it just a couple months ago that Democrats were full of hubris and self-confidence. Strutting around telling us how they had won and we need to get over it. How many times did we hear President Obama gloatingly reminded us that HE was elected President. Oh and then there was Queen Bee herself, Nancy Pelosi and Sir Harry Reid looking down upon the countryside, licking their collective chops at the spoils that lay before them. And then it began in lightning fashion, Democrats passing outlandish spending bills, sight unseen, which have saddled future generations with mountains of debt. At the same time, the veil came off the centrist candidate revealing the true being and President Obama began implementing the most far-reaching leftist agenda in U.S. history.
Now fast forward six short months later. Unemployment is reaching record highs; uncertainly has completely taken over the national psyche; Obama Motors has replaced decision making based on best business practices with best environmentalist wacko practices; Obama Doctrine means cozying up with vicious dictators in Iran and Venezuela and North Korea and against liberty and freedom loving people around the world. And the President just can’t stop apologizing at every opportunity. It’s truly said to see our President discredit the efforts and sacrifices of the generations of young American men and women who have sacrificed their lives in major conflicts all around the world in defense of freedom and democracy and the rule of law. It’s all been absolutely astounding and embarrassing to watch unfold.
But the American people are starting to finally wake up to the realization that this man and this party are a threat to our future. Senators such as Nelson of Nebraska, Dorgan of North Dakota, Bayh of Indiana, Bennett of Colorado, Conrad of North Dakota, McCaskill of Missouri and Tester of Montana are on the endangered species list. You may all think you are safe but beware. You can not escape your part in this calamity of a mess.
The time is nearing when the American people will stand up and as they look at the crisis that this President and these Democrats in Washington have created, the American voters will take matters into their own hands and rally to the most recent famous quote “never let a serious crisis go to waste”. And when that happens, Democrat Senators or House members will not be able to hid nor escape the wrath of the American voter.
@15. Paul -Indiana:
Are you still glad that you voted for Obama?
More than ever, particularly given the alternatives.
Just a little correction on the “generic ballot” polling – there is still a five point gap in favor of the dems if you look at the averages. More to the point, Jennifer cites Rasmussen as her only source – a quick look at the polling data shows that they constitute an “outlier” in this series.
Also, on Obamas approval rating (@#2), the same caveats apply. Obama appears to be doing well, with consistent approval over 55%.
Other than that, it’s hard to argue with Jennifer that these would all be good rules to live by for the GOP contenders.
Peace.
DS
Forget #6
Most Americans across the board support tossing out all the illegal immigrants and sealing up the Southern border. Coming out strongly on that issue will only help you win the election. It’s the wishy washy pro-amnesty approach that will disenfranchise most Americans.
Food for thought, Jennifer.
My two-cents’ worth are contained in my March ’09 essay, A View From the Center-Right: http://emmeffemm.com/id151.html
Great list, Ms Rubin! Just hope the powers-that-be in the GOP have the same amount of common sense. Because that is what its going to take. The grown-ups need to take charge! Frankly, I hope someone new, possibly a governor, will come to the forefront. Don’t think the left-overs from the last election cycle are going to do it for the electorate.
13 Tennessee…
I believe you.
Will any of them be available?
Normal people haven’t been valued in public life for some time. That accounts for much of the firestorm that broke around both George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.
“Pretend normal” (Bill Clinton and his aw shucks lip-biting crap)is praised. Genuine normal is vilified.
“Only fools think a minority party losing market share needs to thin the herd.”
Wow…did you just call the majority of PJM readers fools??? Right on!
Then there is the librul view expressed here by Perkins, #9:
“Not Mitt, not Newt, not Rudy, and not Huckabee will draw the tea partiers. Until and unless they can show otherwise, they are not serious contenders.”
But seriously maybe there ought to be rule 8. It might state the candidate must not be a Republican who sponsored or signed on to a major leftist program and claims falsely that it is a big success.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121728669884991317.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
The GOP also needs to be hammering away at tooting its own horn, especially after 2010. I can just see them picking up some congressional seats and easing the economic disaster a bit. The dems will then take credit for the better economy while blaming republicans for it not being fully recovered.
the dems got where they are by controlling the message – in media, hollywood and in schools. if the gop is to make a comeback in the long run, conservatives must begin to wrest control of these institutions from the very liberal.
as for the “don’t put anyone out” thought…I don’t thinks the author means to compromise with the powells…but accept their support. after all, think of the bombshell his support (and others’) for obama was…to trot him out and be able to say, “look the even the educated (and black) man who betrayed his party to support obama has seen the light and no longer believes in him.” In that way, those people could be valuable (after all, did the democrats turn them away because they were republicans?)
But in no way should the wishy-washy be allowed to dictate policy. The “democrat-lite” types like mccain are not going to inspire a gop comeback, and the “social conservatives in flyover country” are pure poison for collecting votes from the rest of us.
solution: find a new reagan (preferably young and dynamic), and let the palins campaign for them throughout the midwest while letting the powells campaign for them in the blue areas.
I say we continue onward and let the Democrats eat their own young. They seem to be doing a great job imploding with the ever-effusive, liberal cheerleaders like David S. now qualifying his remarks with “Obama APPEARS to be doing well…”. Yeah right. Someone is getting low on his kool-aid stores.
We keep trying to remodel what is a great thing as we seem to now be taking marching orders from the DNC and buying into their statements about us. Why? Have we now bought into the MSM also? Are we now to walk in lock-step with Rahm and his ilk?
Obama won because people like David S. with no education or life skills to base an informed decision on, voted for a persona.
Do we hear about Obama’s handling of ANY issue? Nope. It’s all about how fabulous he reads a teleprompter or how wonderful he looks on date night. This, apparently, is enough for now for the David S’s of the world. When the economy catches up to them (as it will soon enough with unemployment now at 9.5% and climbing), we just have to be there to welcome back the Independents who will be wanting a way out of the Obama forest.
Until then, I say we just keep the GOP boat faced headlong into the wind and let the liberals continue to drill holes in their raft. It will sink on it’s own without any need of infighting from us.
David S. says “it’s hard to argue with Jennifer that these would all be good rules to live by for the GOP contenders.”
That’s all you need to know.
The Dems picked the GOP nominee in ’08.
If the GOP is stupid enough to allow the same thing to happen in ’12, it deserves to lose.
Palin-Cheney in ’12!
I am still stunned at what a poor collection of ‘rules’ Jennifer proposes, but some analysis is required for other readers to appreciate just how bad her analysis is:
1]”No Drama” is just a code phrase for don’t get attacked by the media. The attacks are unavoidable for any Republican. Even McCain got attacks for his wife’s “prescription drug abuse”. A history of charitable acts that rival Mother Theresa did not spare Cindy McCain from those charges.
2) Experience in the form of tenure items on a resume are no substitute for actual results. This is a problem for your “not Sarah Palin” hidden agenda. Get over it.
3) “Think about the debates” is hardly a rule. Given the gross anti-American bias of Obama, and policies that have failed every time they were tried, being more credible than “Mr. President” Obama is a given for any Republican.
4) A full throated attack on Obama and the Congress. It seems that Sarah Palin did an outstanding job of attacking. It was only a thought-challenged McCain campaign putting every weakness of Obama beyond the pale that prevented success in the attacks.
5) “Boring is OK”. Yes, that will inspire people to vote in numbers that ACORN cannot fake. Boring is as boring does, Ms. Forest Gump…
6) “Figure out the demography”. This tone business on immigration is not going to impress people looking for any job to keep their family going. It does not even impress Latinos in the US legally.
7) “Don’t banish a single person from the party”. No elected official or candidate banished anyone. Dick Cheny noted that Colin Powell seemed to have left the Republican party.
The 11th commandment to not criticize any Republican does not make your list, but thinly veiled criticism of Republicans is found in all these silly “rules” except for praise for being boring.
What an epic failure. I hope you have a future in the Obama administration.
I don’t care what anyone says, Dick Cheney is much cooler than our current president.
And can we put an end to the prejudicial comments towards elderly white males please? And prejudicial comments towards white people in general that I’ve seen on this site? I’m tired of people acting like it’s some crime or mark of shame to attract the votes of old caucasian males or any other caucasian demographic. My father and granfather are both members of that “evil old white males” demographic and they’ve always seemed like pretty nice and upstanding gentlemen to me… They’ve never uttered a single prejudicial thing in their lives, they worked hard, they never committed a crime, they raised families well into their 60s and 70s and beyond and both served their country in the U.S. Army in three wars. That often lambasted “evil old white males” demographic also helped build and safeguard Western civilization last time I checked. They also make up the majority of the population in this country. So shouldn’t we be trying to cater to them instead of alienating them by routinely protraying them as some kind of monsters? Someone please explain to me the reasoning behind being ashamed of attracting their vote. If anything we should be immensely proud of winning their votes. I’m simply sick of people acting like attracting the old white male vote is akin to attracting the support of the Nazis or the KKK… I expect to see this kind of thing at prejudicial leftist sites like the Daily Kos and The Huffington Post. But not on conservative sites like Pajamas Media. White males are grandfathers, fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, soldiers, doctors, police officers, fire fighters, medical researchers, engineers, etc. Please stop demonizing them…
Seven for 2012:
Nominate Palin
Nominate Palin
Nominate Palin
Nominate Palin
Nominate Palin
Nominate Palin
Nominate Palin
The long-term path to victory is not at the ballot box. Rather, it is in taking back the narrative which sets the agenda for discussion. For the past several decades, the socialists have dominated it, and continue to do so. If this country is to turn around eventually, it is to follow the Radical Whig prescription to return to first principles: taking back the textbooks, academia, law schools, journalism schools, entertainment industry, and fundamentally the moral high gournd of Justice. It is not enough to show that socialism, in all its forms, is unethical and unjust, but that the classical liberalism (small limited govt) of the Founder’s is clearly the most just form of govt.
As long as socialists can claim Justice as theirs, they will continue to win.
The Politikos blog notes independents who supported the Dems may be starting to jump ship.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24717.html
#22
Ms. Rubin didnt say change the goal and objectives. Duncan Hunter (Sr.) says a lot of the things Dana Rohrabacher, Steve King, and numerous Southern Republicans on reducing illegal immigration, but he does so tactfully and focused on the the objective without giving much “red meat” controversial speech snippets to the Raza and MSM types. Hunter (and Tancredo to boot) also did their time in the “barrio”, as an attorney and teacher, respectively. Hunter would have been a perfect complement to McCain, but natch he was thinking with his pee-pee.
Jennifer, when it comes to setting strategies for 2012, you sound like a sixty year old headline for a direct mail pie in the sky product.
Twelve ways to happiness.
Seven ways to improve your golf swing.
Five things not to say at a job interview.
Jennifer, you need to take marketing 101 before you teach an advanced course in winning politics.
I’ll give you an example of marketing strategy in the 21st century, then I’ll be on my way.
The product is beer. Good old American beer. These strategic insights don’t apply to gasoline, Snicker bars or politics.
Just beer.
Okay, first how not to sell it. You can’t build a beer brand by talking about ingredients or the people who make it or drinkability, whatever that means. Putting on an owner to talk about it is an act of desperation.
Talking about golden hops, experienced brewmasters, choice barley won’t sell your beer.
Talking about anything that goes into the bottle, the people who make or own it is marketing money down the drain. Beautiful sun backlit pour shots as part of the strategy will get you nowhere.
There are two overall beer strategies that sell.
One, cool people drink it.
The “What’s up” campaign is just one
example of an execution of this strategy.
Two, it must be good stuff.
The half off night for women by a bar with
guys dressing up as women to get the half
off is an execution of the “must be good
stuff strategy”
There are the same types of touchstones for politics, but they have nothing to do with any of Jennifer Rubin’s points. If she were the marketing director or creative director for the 2012 Republican campaign, the Republicans would get trounced. She has no experience or expertise in this area. Being a political pundit doesn’t qualify her. She’d just muddy the waters.
Look, I enjoy lots of her columns. I’m a big Jennifer Rubin fan. But knowing how to win an election takes specialized knowledge. If I’m going to have brain surgery, I want a brain surgeon, not someone who wrote a column on healthcare.
Only blacks and hard core socialists will vote for Obama in 2012. The independents and moderates who bought the “hopenchange” BS will have had their fill and vote Republican.
The problem is the Republicans will win big without deserving it. The party is run by wussypants RINOs that need to go. To put America on the right path after years of destruction, we need staunch conservatives in office. The Wussypants Republicans in control right now are little better than the DemonRats.
I wrote this on Angry White Dude last night:
The Wussypants Republican Establishment Must Go!
http://angrywhitedude.com/?p=1998
Angry White Dude and others like you . . .
I think you should just keep doing what you’re doing. Here’s an example:
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Pool-Boots-Kids-Who-Might-Change-the-Complexion.html
Why anyone has a problem with that is beyond me.
David Howell Petraeus
I hope he’s a republican.
Our number one rule Jennifer,is that we don’t allow commentators to pretend they are as important as you are trying to be!
A real leader does not need your junior high guidelines!
Sheesh: For once you may be right. Palin would be a great option! Of course I vote we allow the George W. Obama ship to keep taking on water whilst we wait for ALL of the wonderful GOP candidates to surface but Palin is definitely on the short list!
Did you just wake up from your Obamanap or something! Glad you are at least now seeing the light. Please, tell others.
Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose YOUR job. Recovery is when J.Rubin loses HER job. Please Jennifer, do tell us who’s camp you’re in or working for. We’re all on the edge of our seats; hanging on your every word. Rinos4Romney perhaps?
For Rubin respectability is all. An obvious RINO.
Angry White Dude,
You’d better be able to tell people why your policies are better for them than the other guy’s. Name calling is not going to do it. My creds are better than his creds is not going to do it. Most people don’t care about who is the most ideologically pure. They care about who makes sense and appears competent.
I suspect that in a while the Obama kiddy band may become apathetic if not disillusioned. Don’t tell them they were fools; tell them why the current policies are not working. You probably won’t win them over, but you can take away their enthusiasm, confuse them a bit, and cause them to stay home on election day.
Re #40 Sheesh:
Here’s what liberal voters do when then feel emboldened by George W. Obama….
http://www.ohio.com/news/50172282.html
“6. Figure out the demography. The old, white, southern men don’t vote in great enough numbers to elect the next president. Take a credible position on immigration and stress the benefits of assimilation as the key to the American success story. Explain why conservative ideas benefit the poor and newcomers to America. Make the argument for the American dream. And if the party’s tone on immigration has been off-putting, change the tone and lead by example.”
This is where the GOP will always hit the wall. You just don’t have the numbers. There are not enough angry old white men to carry a GOP candidate to victory. Hispanics do not vote GOP. Young people do not vote GOP. Women do not vote GOP. Blacks do not vote GOP. Jews do not vote GOP. And since the GOP will not change its values to appeal to any of these voters, it will continue to lose.
How about making sure they can keep thier pant’s zipped or panties on. We don’t need any more Ensigns or Sandfords.
It’s bits of information like our fashionista First Lady carrying an $6,000 purse made out of Alligator (hello PETA?) during an ever-worsening recession that makes one think of that statement uttered so long ago “let them eat cake”. If Obama gives her a post would she be a Czarina?
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, the GOP needs to do nothing but sit back and let the SSObama continue to sink.
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2009/07/09/2009-07-09_michelle_obama_flashes_expensive_taste_carries_5950_black_bag_alligator_russia_.html
It’s not a question of fair. Allow the media/donkey complex to succeed at that, and they’ll do it to anyone. And they can. Nobody’s so teflon coated that they can’t throw 100 false allegations and create a fog of war so thick that the public believe that there’s got to be some fire somewhere (to mix metaphors).
This isn’t something that the GOP can dodge. They must counterattack and destroy this tactic. Otherwise, they have the means to destroy absolutely anyone.
Who needs 7 rules when only 2 will do?
1. If the GOP can act like they will work for us, the people, rather than act like the ruling class – as they have been, and as the Democrats have been – then they will have a good shot.
2. Focus on the economy, and forget the conservative social agenda.
fear Obama writes:
“So here are the official results..Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5..”
Fear, it’s worse (or better) than that. As of this writing, The Boy King is a negative eight. Probably caused a whole herd of new zits on sheesh’s face this morning.
I was with you right up to point number 7, on which we may or not agree. I believe that for the Republicans to have ANY chance of success, they will need to drop the social issues almost entirely. That may well alienate a large part of their base, but their inclusion alienates almost everybody else. Do the math:
If 2/3 Republicans are turned on by the “abortion is murder” jive and Republicans are roughly 1/2 of the population, then you have a message that will only appeal to 1/3 of the electorate and turn the other 2/3s away.
So, appeal to the economy (irresponsible DC spending, to be followed unavoidably by either or both huge tax increases or runaway inflation and unemployment) and to national security (coddling dictators (Iran) and would be dictators (Honduras) and lashing out at allies, e.g. Israel). These are issues that can appeal to all Americans!
A general, a governor, a business person, or a foreign policy guru will at least have some standing to say, “Obama got X wrong. I saw X coming a mile away and know how to fix it.”
The fact that you had to use X instead of an actual catastrophe says it all.
Seriously though, guys – Palin/Bachmann. That’s your only hope.
I can’t believe what I’m reading here. Starting with the silly rules. If we follow those rules we will lose unless the economy is totally in the tank. Second, I was for Rommney in ’08 but since then he seems to be a man who can’t see reality or remember the past. Newt would make a good advisor but God help us if he had to lead. He can’t even answer a hard question without telling both sides and then comming down in the middle. It is so easy to see what kind of person will win next time! An honest, charismatic, inspiring leader! They should stay from negative positions like immigration but have answers that will satisfy the public as to where they stand on those issues ie, for immigration reform with border security. Leave the details to be worked out later with bi-partisan commities. After Obama gets through with our country anyone who stands for honesty and has lived that way will beat this crook. The economy will be number one but as everyone knows, it isn’t
the president but his experts that run the economy and its agencies. And boring will kill us because the right wing voters will not be motivated to vote period but the left wing liberals and blacks will to keep the messaih in office.
Palin in ’12
David S, you can play with the numbers all you want, but it’s the trend that’s gonna kill ya. The Alleged Kenyan shot his bolt early on, is taking daily hits below the waterline — self-inflicted and from stumbling to react to current events. He and his crew will be soon bailing feverishly before their ship of state goes down by the bow..
I can hear the strains of “Nearer my God to Thee” from the band on the fan tail.
Rachel (38),
You just explained also why this bunch of ivy brainboys (and gurlz) in the whitehouse are such a disaster. There’s no such thing as a general-purpose genius. The one with the specialized knowledge win every time.
As I said in another thread, imagine that you’re in an airplane taking off from LaGuardia, and geese strike both engines, and you lose all power, and your only chance for survival is a water landing.
You want at the controls:
1) the smartest aeronautical engineer at MIT, or
2) a very experienced pilot.
Kind of a no-brainer, if you know what I mean.
You really expect a liberal to comprehend those big, esoteric words?
I was for Rommney in ‘08 but since then he seems to be a man who can’t see reality or remember the past.
Hold on there. That worked great for Reagan.
These 7 rules require a professional politician, and the last thing that could or should get elected is yet another professional politician. Palin’s appeal is precisely that she is not generally perceived as part of the chattering class. Even if she is not the candidate, the candidate must NOT be a person of that kind of experience; the people with that kind of experience are the ones who mucked up the economy, our foreign policy, and our culture to the unspeakable shape it is in today. The winning candidate will need to show that he/she is free of personal responsibility for the current mess, a tall order indeed.
At this point, I think a rabid monkey with a dart-board, cell-phone and a lifetime prescript of Viagra could win against this derelict administration even while throwing his/her own poop at the MSM.
I’m waiting for plan ‘Z’.
61. Delia: “At this point, I think a rabid monkey with a dart-board, cell-phone and a lifetime prescript of Viagra could win against this derelict administration even while throwing his/her own poop at the MSM.”
…unless that dart wielding, cell phone possessing, poop hurling, Viagra-popping rabid monkey has an (R) at the end of his name. If he does, he hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell. By the time the 2012 primaries come around, he will have already:
1. Nailed his best friend’s monkey wife, and paid her off to keep their monkey affair quiet.
2. Fled the country, his monkey family and his governmental responsibilities to his consitutents to have an affair with a hot Argentinian monkey.
3. Quit his job as governor because the mean monkeys in the media were mean to him and his monkey family.
That monkey’s done for.
From my vantage point, with a very few exceptions, I haven’t seen Republicans offer any effective counters or even protests to Obama & Co. and their actions; they haven’t mounted any filibusters, haven’t tried to use whatever leverage they might still have as the minority on Congress to slow this train wreck down, have apparently been stymied by Democrats who have used all sorts of underhanded parliamentary tricks, yet have not pointed them out, vigorously protested in a public way or widely publicized them, haven’t walked out and held a press conference on the steps of the Capital, or taken any other major action in opposition that I have seen. Moreover, eight Republicans helped pass Cap and Trade in the House.
It seems like they are too gentlemanly, too polite, too scared, or don’t want to offend fellow members of their exclusive Congressional club, like they are embarrassed to champion the values embodied in our Constitution and, perhaps–after their time in the toxic atmosphere of Washington’s “good life” for members of Congress–they no longer believe in these bedrock principles or consider them to be worth fighting for. Moreover, few, if any of them, have offered a compelling and alternative vision to Obama’s Socialism/Fascism/Marxism.
So I say, getting in a lifeboat and pulling away from and waving goodby to these guys lounging on the upper deck of the Titanic, and starting a new Conservative party–one founded on the bedrock principles of strict construction of the Constitution, Judeo-Christian moral values, limited government, state’s rights, capitalism, low taxes, a strong national defense and freedom and personal responsibility—sounds like a good idea.
In this context, the idea of abandoning Sarah Palin, the only reason for the enthusiasm and the huge crowds that jammed McCain/Palin rallies from the moment she was added to the ticket, is insane. She is just as much a draw as Reagan was, and has the same appeal. She should be the leader and candidate of such a newly reborn Conservative Party, however named.
You need to give Sarah a break on the drama the media projects onto her. She could continue to control herself, her family, her finances, and her life and the media will still be hostile towards her. All it does is stiffen her resolve–and ours.
Strawman queries:
You really expect a liberal to comprehend those big, esoteric words?”
..”Kenyan” is esoteric?
63. Mike W.,
Yeah. Tax dodgers, poop slingers and wife cheaters with a ‘D’ always get a free pass.
-Even when the ‘wife’ is dying!
Go figure?
Sarah Palin is a right leaning liberal.
The GOP is ready to follow this women of no ideas and solutions right off the end of the pier.
We have the worst president in U.S. history in office now. He is totally incompetent. He’s an uneducated anti-American bigot.
The Palin nitwits are ready to give Obama 4 more years because of their own stupidity.
“You’d better be able to tell people why your policies are better for them than the other guy’s.”
Barack Obama’s poll numbers according to Rasmussen have dropped another three points since yesterday. At this point time, the odds overwhelmingly favor whoever earns the Republican nomination. This means that Sarh Palin does have a legitimate chance and will not have to wait until 2016.
I think much of the PDS is due to the fact that Sarah is not a lawyer.
Ms.Rubin seems to care a whole lot more about the GOP than I do.
I may not be not lawmaker material, but I’d be making news right now if I was in opposition to this administration.
If I could only get rid of these closed primaries in my state, I could get off of their rolls…
@64. Wolla Dalbo:
Sign up as a Republican precinct captain in your area, and attend meetings. You and a few friends will be able to vote out the old guard.
Enjoyed the article and the comments. Looks like General Petraeus would thread all seven needles without trying too hard. If Sarah Palin throws her support behind his candidacy, he would be a mighty contender. Is he interested? who knows?
He certainly prepared himself well for a the challenge of turnings things around in Iraq when he saw it. First he wrote the book, next he got himself tasked to turn it into practice! Before that, he had already done a bang job of running the difficult city of Mosul.
Someone who can make a plan in the first place, and execute it once in power, Wow! In 2012 it may no longer be about “Yes we can!”; It might be more about “let’s get this straight!”.
He’s an uneducated anti-American bigot.
“Uneducated” is a new one. Even the most rabid ODSers usually recognize he’s educated.
It never fails… here and at DailyKOS… the only thing I can really think would help either party is for them to disassociate themselves from the people living in Internetland where their side is always winning in some sense. For gods sake, Obama is doing fine in the polls overall, taking one poll and trying to make it fit what you’d like to see, is just as bad as 99% of what I read at DailyKos. Politics are about compromise and working together. Until you The People figure out its not a fighting Win/Lose match between two teams, we’ll continue going from asshole to idiot to incompetent and back again.
What is GOOD for America is for Americans to at least try to actually see reality without partisan blinders. From what I can tell the blogsphere is making the problem worse on both sides, rather than better. If we keep this up, 2012 is just gonna be another failfest for both parties and America will die a little more.
Sure there are corrupt politicans on the Dem side of the house, there are some on the GOP side as well. Sure Obama has some really bad ideas, but so did GWB. If our Congress tried to work with the President when he wasn’t being dumb, then it might have a chance of stopping him when he was acting dumb. Yet, neither party seems to care… whoever has the power runs for the door and everyone else tries to pile on.
It’s pathetic and its far more likely to end this nation than Socialism, Torture, Electric Cars or Kicking some Ass in the Middle East.
“Uneducated” is a new one. Even the most rabid ODSers usually recognize he’s educated.”
A number of us long ago saw through the Harvard University con game. The degrees granted by this less than admirable academic institution are often phonier than a three dollar bill. Barack Obama is a shallow and poorly read individual who played the affirmative action game for all that it’s worth.
blarty ….having gone to an institution of ´higher learning´ doesn´t prove he is educated.
…just present. his deeds seem to prove he is not educated but indoctrinated.
there is a big difference as you will see and feel (in your drained bank account) but hey if you aren´t too old you will have free health care ….maybe.
75. David Thomson: A number of us long ago saw through the Harvard University con game. The degrees granted by this less than admirable academic institution are often phonier than a three dollar bill. Barack Obama is a shallow and poorly read individual who played the affirmative action game for all that it’s worth.
Precisely what I’m talking about. That comment is pathetic and trite. It has no basis in actual reality and is simply an example of bias on your part… “He doesn’t think like I do therefore he’s uneducated”. For gods sake man, you sound like someone with Bush Derangement Syndrome from two years ago. Bush wasn’t an uneducated person and neither is Obama… just stop being an asshole and try to be an American. PLEASE.
A number of us long ago saw through the Harvard University con game. The degrees granted by this less than admirable academic institution are often phonier than a three dollar bill.
So true. That’s why nobody wants to go there. You’re pretty much guaranteed a spot just for sending your application in. That’s how desperate they are for students.
Barack Obama is a shallow and poorly read individual who played the affirmative action game for all that it’s worth.
How did he “play the affirmative action game”? You have evidence that he obtained something preferentially over a more-qualified white man?
having gone to an institution of ´higher learning´ doesn´t prove he is educated. …just present.
You believe Columbia and Harvard hand out degrees for “just being present”? I suspect you’ve never known anyone who graduated from Columbia or Harvard.
I disagree with you about not having any Governors who could win, and I think Rick Perry and Sarah Palin could still do it. I think Palin/Perry has a great sound to it, and a winning combination. I could be wrong, but who knows.
The way to win is in the numbers, his polls, just look at them. Now is the time to stop second-guessing the Republican Party and start taking a winning attitude as you write, talk, make speeches, and no apologies please? No apologies for anything, because the Democrats and their leaders have proven they are apologists on foreign soil.
Where are the people out there who need to be counting the numbers who show up at the tea parties? Every small town and big city had one, and there are big numbers there when you combine the total.
We need good representation and a winning attitude from now until the election. The tea parties I went to had this, they had a winning attitude and they had the attitude they will be winning in 2010.
I still love Mike Huckabee and you do not mention him.
May I suggest that you focus on making Palin/Coulter a ticket for 2012?
Please? Please?
Obama and the leadership in Congress has already blown the the roof off credibility and fiscal responsibility. Obama cannot be trusted in anything the says. He is a smile in your face never tell the truth individual. Congress is on a spending binge that is doing abosolutly nothing for the country. This majority rule in Washington is killing the spirit and comfort of hard working Americans.
I still love Mike Huckabee and you do not mention him.
Huckabee’s the only shot y’all have at getting votes from anybody other than the twenty-nine-percenters. He’s the only Republican with national name recognition who isn’t a (total) wacko or a slimeball.
75. David Thomson:
“A number of us long ago saw through the Harvard University con game. The degrees granted by this less than admirable academic institution are often phonier than a three dollar bill. ”
You’re absolutely right.
Harvard let George W. Bush in, so they’ll allow anyone in.
Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard posted the following:
“An instant-classic from yesterday’s New York Times letters page:
The solution to binge drinking problems on campuses is simple: college curriculums need to be more rigorous. If college programs required their students to put in a significant number of hours per week doing work related to their classes, campus drinking would soon find itself limited to one or two nights a week. Furthermore, those few nights a week would be more moderate, since the students would drink knowing that they needed to get up in the morning and keep hacking away at that thermodynamics problem set.
I suspect that one of the main reasons students who aren’t in college drink less than college students is that they have to get up in the morning and go to work at a real job, where they are accountable for their behavior.
Caroline Figgatt
Munich, July 1, 2009
The writer is a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
MIT is an Ivy League school. These academic institutions do indeed have high standards—for those trying to get into the door. Things often get much easier after they officially become students.
“You’re absolutely right.
Harvard let George W. Bush in, so they’ll allow anyone in.”
George W. Bush is likely a victim of his Harvard University education. This almost certainly where he got his big government economic ideas—that has so damaged the country. Bush is also a politically correct whack job. What can I say? Harvard is simply bad news. Bush is similar to Herbert Hoover and Obama reminds one of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is fair to describe the current president as Bush on steroids.
I think this list is too superficial. Also the so called “old, southern white men” are getting fed up with the Washington attitudes and are ready to throw the bums out!
#33 Blackwater – I agree with you. I would like to see candidates who have actually worked for a living, supported their families, worried about giving their children a good education. I would prefer they were not too young OR too old. Too young: don’t yet have a clue. Too old: just biding time until they can retire on their cushy pension. Where is another person who thinks like Reagan?
Look at Victor Davis Hanson’s article of July 7. Good insight: “…but I saw more stupid people in graduate school and three decades in academia than I ever did who ran 100 acres without going broke-and more of the latter whom I’d trust not to bankrupt the country and let down our defenses than of the former.”
“While we rightly argue that the Sarahs of the world, if they are to be taken seriously as leaders, must read and study more, why do we not also suggest that the Baracks of the world could do a little more chain-sawing, run a coffee shop for a summer, or drive a Winnebago cross-country? (Who knows, he might meet a fellow woodcutter who knew there were 50 states or that it was dumb to make fun of the Special Olympics.)”
Sounds like good common sense to me.
It’s really quite easy. All the Republicans have to do is prove they are more progressive than the Democrats. Oh wait.
You only need one rule for the GOP: Stay Classy!
http://blog.indecisionforever.com/2009/07/08/the-health-care-debate-is-unleashing-creativity-from-every-crevice-of-america/
MIT is an Ivy League school. These academic institutions do indeed have high standards—for those trying to get into the door. Things often get much easier after they officially become students.
MIT is not easy no matter how you define “easy.”
It’s also not an Ivy League school.
OK, two rules: Rule #2 Keep sending Democrats money:
In the last chapter of a stinging loss to now-Sen. Al Franken, Minnesota’s Republican Party has sent the Democrat almost $96,000 to cover lawsuit costs. Reminds me of the lawsuit Fox News filed against him, which was literally laughed out of court – dismissed as “wholly without merit.” Hey, that’s a good tagline – “Fair and Balanced and Wholly Without Merit.”
#50 A Thinking Person
Was she or wasn’t she carrying a $6000 purse? The WH says no, it was ONLY an $875 purse. Oh, well, that’s different. Don’t we all have $800 handbags and $600 tennie’s? I know I certainly have several.
Jennifer,
Here is the problem, many of us have been on Republican committees with people like you. It is exactly your calculations and timidity that have created the problems you see. If it takes another year to get rid of all of the ‘wussy
pants republicans’, before we can get on with actually living freedom with courageous real people it will have been worth it. I’ll know it when I see it, I don’t see it at all in you.
90. sheesh: “In the last chapter of a stinging loss to now-Sen. Al Franken, Minnesota’s Republican Party has sent the Democrat almost $96,000 to cover lawsuit costs.”
B-b-but Fox News told me that Franken used ACORN to steal the election! I just don’t understand! If Franken stole the election, then why did Coleman not appeal? How could it be possible that the Republicans now have to pay Franken’s legal bills ?
My bwain hurts!
I think Newt can do it. He’s sharp, he’s agressive enough, and he’s well known. By 2012 the economy is going to be so bad and the American people are going to be so desperate for some real hope and change that Newt will look fantastic, despite some of his minor shortcomings. He’s not a true conservative and he won’t sit well with people like Limbaugh or Mark Levin, but he’s still the smartest and most charismatic Republican out there and can blow anybody away in a debate. The question is, will there be anything left to salvage by 2012? The economy is collapsing by the day and Obama’s policies are guaranteed to make things worse. Well, Obama promised “Hope and Change.” We won’t have any hope left and only a little loose change in our pockets. Go NEWT!!!
Jindahl fits the criteria
29: Obama won because millions couldn’t figure out why they should vote for tired old John McCain amidst a meltdown on the GOP’s watch. McCain’s claim to be a “maverick” was as tone deaf as his insistent use of the fingernails on the blackboard phrase, “my friends.”
The outcome would be no different today: McCain is still clueless and Obama still persuasive.
The GOP needs a candidate that read the Federalist papers, some Roman history and has some private sector experience. Someone who believes that a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.
Another GOP “government drone,” –e.g., Jindal won’t cut it. Neither will someone whose sole qualification is being a “maverick.” Nor will bitterness at Obama, who is a fair and decent man, despite his status as a tax and spend leftist. Its almost 2010: the GOP has no one other than Palin and a series of philandering family value candidates who are now toast.
BLARTY: He is credentialed, not educated, at least not educated in the sense that is meant here. I would guess the same applies to you too given the completed lack of knowledge of history, general ignorance and the paucity of critical thinking skills your posts here consistently betray.
“Ill-educated” or “poorly educated” would be perhaps more apt, but the results are nearly the same. Spending his whole undergraduate years in a Student Union’s Rathskeller would have achieved as much (I mean, look at you). He shows about the level of education that we would expect from an average high school junior of 30 or 40 years ago, and from an average high school at that. Of course, that was back when a high school degree was actually worth something.
That you think that this level of knowledge and intellectual skill he displays is “education” in the higher, collegiate sense just goes to show how lost you truly are. No wonder you hold the “beliefs” that you do.
You really do not grasp that, do you? High school graduates of years past were better educated than a great many college graduates of recent years, and this includes a good many graduates from the Ivies. My goodness, they have had to adjust for SAT test scoring to adjust for the decline. GRE scores have been troubling for years, not to mention the weakness of a large group of students pursuing graduate degrees. You can thank the Democrat Party for all of this.
That is just your problem and a problem with most “liberals”: They are so poorly educated in the true sense of the word that they cannot think clearly. They are so dumbed down that they are incapable of critial thought; they have little understanding of their own civilization, which is, no doubt, why they are so arrogantly and fearlessly eager to get about destroying it. They do not know how the world works and they know little about it that is useful, yet they imagine that they are “educated”, and highly so too. They merely have credentials, and generally in completely bogus “subjects” such as “Political Science”, or “Communication Arts”. Even English majors can more or less be assumed to have mediocre grammar, unbelievably hideous prose and no real philological knowledge of their own native tongue. And, again, no critical thinking skills whatsoever. We used to expect batter language skills out of factory workers, or at least the ones that were not in a union.
These “educated liberals” are so dumbed down that they cannot think clearly. General Liberal Arts education has, even for a student that does not get an AA break, become so childish that is worse than useless. It is not an education, is it a prepackaged set of bromides, slogans, agitprop and talking points meant for the indoctrination of the student in to various hues of Marxism. It is most certainly not an education, and this has been more or less true since the 1970′s.
Let us see his transcripts from Columbia. Why can we not find anyone that wants to talk about his days there? Just look at that idiotic paper of his which is floating around the internet–high school level work.
As to Harvard Law, well this is very strange indeed. How did he manage to get in and out there?
Let me tell you that it is almost impossible to get into Harvard Law without having an honors degree of some sort and demonstrable intellectual accomplishment far above and beyond one’s course work and grade average. There should be publish work of some kind. At least that was true of HLS in the years that he was there. It is highly improbable. How did he get in? What do his transcripts there show? Where are his legal writings? The course notes from his stint at a lecturer which were published during the campaign were boilerplate, PC nonsense–completely fifth rate work.
I would wager that Tribe or someone up there at HLS let him take unsupervised “open book” exams, and possibly he did not even take those exams. If Tribe or some other faculty from HLS who were faculty back them gets on the SCOTUS I would not be shocked at all.
Looks to me like Captain Zero was groomed as a Marxist Trojan horse from very early on to me. Perhaps not as a potential POTUS, but groomed for some political role.
He makes no sense at all as a Harvard Law graduate. His language ability is terrible, he cannot think on his feet, his “logic” and is rhetoric would not withstand open rebuttal with any HLS grad i have ever met.
Something is fishy here.
I don’t think that Barack Obama will finish his term in office. He will likely resign due to medical reasons. That leaves Joe Biden—and Hillary Clinton is still around. Whatever, the real race for the presidency will take place within the Republican Party. The individual who captures its nomination will easily beat the Democratic Party challenger.
I hear these great pundits for the Republican Party say the Palin can’t win because she not up on foreign relations. I wish they would look at the end of their noses and tell me how that jackass Obama got elected. He knows nothing about anything except how to destroy this country. The Republicans will continue to lose as long as they listen to these idiots. Ann Coulter told the Republican Party to stop taking advice from their enemies, they still have not listen to that advice. This is stupidity compounded by idiocy.
#40 sheesh
You are doing what others do: automatically lumping “angry white dudes”, people from the south, Republicans, etc. into your preconceived notions. You have lumped us into the same bucket as KKK’s, racist white trash, skinheads, etc. I went to the link you provided and was as appalled as you probably were. What makes you think “we” would naturally go along with this kind of behavior? What do you know about “us” other than the typical sterotypes?
I will have to examine further Angry White Dudes (39) website, but what he says in #39 makes a lot of sense.
Anyone else notice the rising hysteria of the liberal posters today? It’s almost if they are foaming at the mouth or something. I guess seeing George W. Obama going downhill so quickly has touched a nerve? LOL!
Come on Sheesh, Blarty and Vivo….More please! More Elect Palin please (we should just to rub your sexist noses in it)! More “Obama is a genius!” More “We won, you not!”.
In essence, just more of your usual BS that we find ever so hilarious!
The shrill has reached dog-whistle decibels. Loving it!
You know that old saying about how you can take a man out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the man? Fits when you look at this recent photo of George W. Obama at the G-8. What will Michelle think?
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//090709/ids_photos_wl/r3356552547.jpg/
So much for the dignity of the office.
BLARTY: In the colloquial sense of the term MIT is most certainly considered an Ivy, so is CalTech. MIT is just not in the athletic conference of that name. You must be confused about what people are talkng about when they mean Ivys. They are not just talking about the conference. Included in the Ivies are ome of the older “Women’s Colleges”, and these are most definately in the Ivies.
Ask any high-end requiter ( I realize that this might challenge you a bit, but you must know someone that is not a mediocrity).
More ignorant pontification out of you. Too funny. Typical bumbling Democrat.
Of course, they have a much higher reputation because they still hae standards and expect people to actually learn something. They also have a much lower percentage of Liberals and Leftist. Difficult subject matter and tends to keep those folks out. I mean, look at you.
You would know that if you actually accomplished anything meaningful/
As long as batteries in the fat carts are charged and the shelves are full of cheap chinese crap, the American public will vote for whoever the state run media tell them to. Obama is proof that a pouty face from Katy Couric and a cheering section of “News” organizations can select the president.
102. AThinkingPerson: “You know that old saying about how you can take a man out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the man? Fits when you look at this recent photo of George W. Obama at the G-8. What will Michelle think?”
You know that old saying about how you’re a bitter loser spending your sad, pathetic life hating people who are more intelligent and accomplished than you are, simply because they have different skin pigmentation and different values? Fits when you read your posts on any given day.
Let me add… Why is it every tin pot dictator and third world tyrant seems to have an ivy league degree?
Forget the issues, debates, demographics and attacks. Good hair – and good hair alone – will win the Presidency in ’12. Sarah Palin & Mitt Romney qualify here. BHO will be a contender, but not guaranteed a winner.
105. Mike W.:
“You know that old saying about how you’re a bitter loser spending your sad, pathetic life hating people who are more intelligent and accomplished than you are, simply because they have different skin pigmentation and different values? Fits when you read your posts on any given day.”
What ‘accomplishments’? What ‘proven’ intelligence? Has B.O. ever even had an I.Q. test? We’ll never know, will we?
Uh huhhhh.
Color of his skin has nothing to do with it.
He’s an ill-educated white dude who used his ‘black’ half to lazily climb the ladder and then sit on his laurels and claim ‘present’…except for that saving late-term aborted babies thing.
Quitter/Plumber in 2012.
97 Mongoose
After reading your first paragraph, why would I read the rest of that wall of text?
Concision, people. Concision.
What ‘accomplishments’?
Columbia, Harvard Law, (incl. Editor, Law Review), two best-sellers, elected to state legislature, U.S. Senate, U.S. presidency
That’s just off the top of my head.
“No Drama” is going to be a hard one to pull off. The main stream media will almost certainly guarantee drama for and about any potential candidate. So if we discount a candidate because of MSM inspired drama then we will never find one. I agree that drama like Sanford’s is not desireable but we cannot allow fear of the MSM to dictate our choice.
“Figure out the demography.” We will have to craft a message that appeals to all Americans but we must avoid pandering to a particular demography for votes. A robust economy, limited governemnt, and a strong national defense should be of interest to everyone – especially when Mr. Obama ruins all three. If we want to attract Hispanics and African Americans then go after them on issues with which they are in disagreement with the Democrats – abortion and gay marriage.
“Don’t banish a single person.” Excellent advice but almost impossible. I have no problem banishing those who have already left the party or shown themselves to be less than supportive. People like Colin Powell, Katherine Parker, and even Christopher Buckley chosen to attack Republicans and conservatives rather than Democrats. We don’t need to make an example of them but neither do they need to be a part of any leadership team and definetly not a spokesmen.
We must stop putting down our own leaders, and unite. Palin, Perry, and all of our Republican Senators, and Republican Congressmen, we have to stop being so accusing and hateful and we must unite to succeed in winning. There will have to be stronger bonds and more pulling together as a Party of diversity and it will bring us strength. I heard quite a few speeches when I went to two tea parties and some of them were unique thinkers, but we all had our unity and we all had the belief that we must put a stop to the spending and the Socialism taking control of our country.
The Republican Party must embrace diversity. Embrace diversity and we become stronger, but most important is to take the winning position and positive attitude from now on. I am against Socialism, and most at tea parties are against Socialism and big government, so we are diverse, but we have our unity.
How do we become diverse? We embrace all forms of Republican voters and independent voters and we have to stand behind our leaders, no judging and being so accusatory. When you get the independent vote, you will also get the confused democratic voters, the ones that do not realize they are truly conservatives, but have been voting for the wrong party. We do not need Republicans attacking other Republicans in print, and the next Republican nominee needs to be like Ronald Reagan. I voted for Ronald Reagan when I was a naïve Democratic voter, I voted for him because I liked him, it is that simple. When I was eighteen and started voting I was too naïve to realize I was a conservative. I think Palin is the one to win, because Mom and Pops all love her too.
The man or woman who stands across the stage from Obama at the next presidential debates needs to be able to look him in the eye and tell him that he is a tent revival con man and that the gig is up. Anyone who runs against an incumbent in the next house election needs to tie their opponent opponent to being an egregious toady of a man who managed to spend more money than Bush did in 8 years and has NOTHING to show for it.
Five rules too many.
Rule #1. Know that the MSM is your enemy. Never let them define the issues. Bypass them at every opportunity.
Rule #2. Commit yourself to the principle that in your administration, the concept of “bailouts” will refer only to parachute jumping. Make sure to say this in every speech, every interview, and every advertisement.
Republicans and Sarah Palin should focus their energies on 2010.
Build a climate change policy around this interview: http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml
Oh Blarty, you forgot to list that he managed to get a LOT of money out of Tony Rezko and only had to get his knees dirty for it…oh wait I’m wrong, he had to get his knees dirty and get federal housing money for him;)
#94 Libety- Go Newt…and take (Son of George) Romney with you!! Barack Obama (D-Kenya) would beat ‘em both like a rented mule. Newt’s an AGW idiot and Romney is … well Romney
#105 Mike W. Can you translate your posts into austrian? I’m guessing that was a foreign language taught at Harvard.
#40 Sheesh
You do know that the John Duesler in that article is probably an Obama supporter don’t you? There is only one John Duesler listed in the Philly area and he’s an Obama contributer. Sorry about that.
How about reducing it to one rule:
1. Get rid of the chattering class and their clever panaceas.
#102 A thinking person: AWESOME!! LOLOL!!! Typical friggin’ male rubber neckin’ if you ask me. Even Sarkozy was rubber neckin’. Someone at Yahoo missed a golden opportunity for caption of the week award.
5. I don’t think boring is OK. Being an “electable” candidate is extremely important, especially up against Obama. People change the channel on a boring person. “Comforting” may work in bad times (worked for FDR) but not boring. BTW Cheney has more charisma than what you give him credit for.
6. Conservatives are a varied bunch. I like that we don’t all drink the Kool-Aid. Forget taking a stand on social issues. We always lose people that way. Stick with the conservative fiscal policy most Republicans support. An old story? You betcha! We got in trouble because Bush and McCain strayed from conservative fiscal policy. Backed into a corner on a social issue? Spin it into a fiscal issue. Immigration policy? We can’t afford to lose American jobs. We can’t afford providing them with services. Calling them criminals (even if they are) hasn’t worked.
Do the Democrats normally have their presidential candidate picked out 3 yrs before the next election? I don’t think so.
Here’s some interesting data from NC that shows new registered voters in June. See all those unaffiliated voters? Those people are our targets.
http://www.jwpcivitasinstitute.org/voter-registration-changes
My official G8 Ogler in Chief photo caption entry: “I said STIMULUS PACKAGE not STIMULATE PACKAGE”.
Forgot to mention: Republicans should be proud to be the “Party of No”. Works for me.
Blarty old boy—just off the top of my head.
Columbia—no transcript, and, strangely, no stories in the media by professors or fellow students reminiscing about their great days together with Obama at Columbia. There are, however, a few stories from Obama’s autobiographies about his two Muslim roommates who were dealing drugs, the curious fact that Obama was able, somehow, to travel to Pakistan, at a time when the hardline Muslim rulers there banned the entry of all but Muslims, and speculation that it was at Columbia that Obama first met up with Bill Ayers—long before the time Obama has said he did—a time when both Obama and Ayers were students at New York city schools only a half mile apart, and they both had a friendship in common with radical, anti-Semitic, Columbia teacher Edward Said.
Harvard Law, strangely, no transcript here either, or professors and fellow students fond recollections, but there are various stories saying that Khalid Al-Mansour, a Black nationalist convert to Islam and financial advisor to Saudi Billionaire Prince Bin Talal Awaleed, was trying to scare up letters of recommendation to Harvard Law for Obama and trying to raise tuition for him too.
Voted Harvard Law Review editor but, strangely, Obama only authored one, unsigned, page long law note in his entire tenure there.
Two autobiographies whose authorship is increasingly being questioned—Bill Ayers anyone?
Lecturer in law at the University of Chicago law school for ten years or so yet, strangely, during all those years Obama authored not one law review article or piece of legal research that anyone has discovered to date.
Illinois State Senator, yet, 130 votes of “present,” many on issues of great consequence, but several speeches opposing and votes against a law that would have required that babies born alive in botched abortions must receive life saving medical care; from the record, Obama heard nurses testimony that current practice was often to dump such babies born alive in a closet or room with a door (to block the sound of their cries), there to be left unattended until they died.
Elected Junior Senator from Illinois—
Appointed Chairman of the Western Europe subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and serving for two years, yet, his SC held no hearings at all during that time, even though, since this SC had jurisdiction over NATO, which was fighting in Afghanistan—the most important battlefield against Al-Qaeda according to Obama–his SC could have held hearings on the war in Afghanistan.
Legislative accomplishments—in those two years, exactly one bill sponsored by Obama that became law, and that a minor, routine bill dealing with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Quite a lot of strange, and nothing else.
Sheesh: Just to elaborate, Philly is completely controlled by Democrats. So was the KKK for that matter.
#113: Do you know what the root word for “diversity” is? It’s “division.” This is what “embracing diversity” does: it divides people. It points out differences rather than likenesses. It creates chasms that divide rather than bridges that connect.
It erases individualism and replaces it with group identity. It promotes bigotry, racism and closed mindedness. It foments a pack mentality among groups rather than a cohesion and assimilation into the greater common population.
Americans are more like Americans than Europeans or Russians. We have our own distinct, unique culture and customs, based on 200+ years of living out the “great experiment” that is a democratic republic, governed by a Constitution of laws that set limits to the power of our government.
Practicing diversity is to perpetuate the myth that certain people are inferior or superior to others. When we can finally get past this faux idealism of diversity, we might finally reach a stage in our society of true color blindness.
Dear Blarty–Oops, almost forgot.
Tuition to Harvard Law, now around 200K per year, back then, various estimates of around 75K or maybe even 100K. But, strangely, no scholarship records, and no information on how Obama’s white granny–a racist, “typical white person,” was able to foot the bill on her piddly salary.
#126 Wolla Dalbo: Oh, it gets even better: Obama attended First Unitarian Church in Hawaii that was a refuge for – anyone care to take a guess? Anyone? Anyone?
Answer: Weathermen Underground terrorists.
How about some focus on voter fraud? Were it not for voter fraud, I’m pretty sure the Democrat Party would not be in the position it’s in. The Obama Administration is cemeting voter fraud into the system as we navel gaze. Once that’s done, there will be no stopping them. Talking about elections in the U.S. will be like talking about elections in Iran and Venezuela. A complete joke. In perpetuity. For ever and ever and ever.
128. I disagree, because by embracing our diversities we will have unity. I will give you a conversation I had at a tea party about a sign.
A sign said “We are not a Muslim Nation” and a man pointed out to me that there are Conservative Muslim American Voters, but they are not going to these tea parties. There are Muslim Americans who are small business owners and they vote Republican. Even though we are not a Muslim nation, we are a diverse nation in my opinion and I certainly do not have one reason to call out a Muslim American who is planning to vote as I vote.
Now I say to you, I feel in unity with people that are voting like me, though we may have diverse opinions.
We need to embrace people of all religions, and colors and backgrounds, I mean all of our party members, and we need to hear all voices and even a diverse voice in the crowd. We need to listen to all voices that are concerned about the direction our Nation is taking.
We are a Nation of Diversity (VARIETY), we are one big melting pot of ethnicity, and it is prettier that way.
131. DofD:
———
If it wasn’t for voter fraud Al Gore would have been president in 2000.
“Mom! Mo-o-o-o-o-m-m! This is Sheesh, you’re favorite basement dwelling blogger son. . . . No! . . . I’ll loo for a job tomorrow . . . I got bigger problems. You see, I had an affair with a campaign worker. . .and I need your help. She wants money. I sa-a-a-a-i-i-SHE WANTS MONEY! And her husband, too. I need you to pay them off for me. I’ll pay you back, honest. Yeah, I figure $96 K oughtta do it. Yeah, I think we need to help em move, you know, maybe to Colorado. Yeah. Can you pay them for me? Pretty please? Oh, and can you make me pigs in a blanket for dinner? That’s my favorite. Thanks.
Blarty: Subordinate clauses confuse you? Struck a nerve did I? Not surprised. Not in the least. Nor does the infantile response surprise me.
You dodge my points with some rejoinder straght out of a dormitory.
This the the most amusing thing about you: You comically embody the observations that people here make about the Left at the very moment you attempt dismiss those claims. You unwittingly support your opponents’ assertions.
You just proved my point: You are poorly educated and lack critical thinking skills.
You grasp of language and thought is so weak that you cannot rationally and honorably defend yourself; in order to cover this very real weakness you first response is to resort mockery and insults. How Democrat of you. How childish, inept and cowardly you are.
Too funny.
134. sheesh,
You big goof! How come I can’t get angry at you any longer? You crack me up too much I guess. lol! You stinker!
I know you’re making a point about the same old ‘come-backs’ from the regulars here [including me, guilty as charged]. -And, if you were being honest before, you’re a father and not some teeny-bopper, so I gotta give you props for at least being a DAD. Dads need respect no matter what politics [if they are GOOD Dads anyway].
When you are in a fairly upbeat mood, I must admit, I admire and can appreciate your goofy sense o’ humor.
There, I gave you some positive attention. Please don’t make me regret it. Today sucked enough already. Pfft!
Let’s not forget that along with the mentions of Reagan and Clinton and their fresh optimism and spirit that voters bought, along with Obama.
Let’s not forget another President who came into office as a fresh face, an innovator and a breath of fresh air after an unpopular president left office.
Yeah he rode in on that wave and was swept out four years later.
I see a lot of Jimmy Carter in Obama so far.
Pat J: Try again, when the NY Times did a complete review of the 2000 votes in Florida, they actually found that Bush had an even bigger margin. It was the Dems that tried deperately to not allow the counting of the overseas military votes, and the only polling problems occured in districts completely controlled by Dems. So explain to me how Bush stole the election?
#78 Barty
“Barack Obama is a shallow and poorly read individual who played the affirmative action game for all that it’s worth.
How did he “play the affirmative action game”? You have evidence that he obtained something preferentially over a more-qualified white man?”
We still haven’t seen his transcript and grades from Columbia (but Bush’s grades were all over the internet in 2000) but he did graduate WITHOUT honors, and still got into Harvard Law School.
Hmmmmmmm, wonder how that could have happened????
Usually I like Rubin’s pieces. In fact I’m a huge fan of hers. In this case, I think her advice/vision might be off kilter.
To understand 2012 we have to understand how much all the rules of politics changed in 2008. Obama had tons of drama, little experience, and many vulnerable areas — but he won anyway. His victory defied every assumption Washington experts held about how to win an election.
The way for Republicans to win in 2012 is to defy conventional wisdom, be bold, and not so much break the rules but write our own rules. I wouldn’t dismiss Palin under the “drama” clause; nor would I go trying to make Colin Powell say nice things about us as part of some “big tent” strategy of the past. And Rubin’s point about the immigration debate and its tone is a little unpersuasive, because McCain was very circumspect about immigration and lost 70% of the Hispanic vote anyway.
None of the old rules apply now, thanks to Obama. We need to feel excited and emboldened. And too many of Rubin’s rules seem to run counter to what will excite and embolden us. Reading this particular article, I feel bored and dispirited.
136 Delia . . . We all have enough regrets. I don’t plan on giving anybody any more.
The boy king has done it again.
Besides setting fiscal time bombs that’ll be exploding over the next ten years and then some; besides sending our tail spinning economy deeper and deeper down the bottomless well of bankruptcy;
Besides planting the seeds of sky high inflation, Barack Obama has also managed to do something else.
Overseas, he’s busily snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. The war that was won is, as a sign of total administration incompetence, now being lost. Barack wants the history books to say that the surge didn’t work after all. That, when all is said and done, Barack was right.
But, guess what, like the millions who payed homage to an admitted child molester this past week, the Democrats couldn’t care less that Barack is busy molesting our nation; not just losing a won war, but in the process causing deaths by the tens of thousands in Iraq.
The boy who would be czar and his comrads are banking on the fact that most Americans couldn’t care less the harm Barack is doing us both domestically and overseas.
The polls are starting to suggest otherwise. Which is good for the home team. But I don’t know if the made in Indonesia boy blunder really cares. He has his eyes not so much on the polls, but on the prize.
Here’s his end game.
A secret so closely held, many in Barack’s inner circle have only heard rumors.
To explain it, let me hearken back six or so months ago when journalists carrying water for Obama during the campaign were hired by Obama.
That was the journalists’ end game. You see, they were guaranteed jobs before the campaign began.
Of course, Obama had an inviting carrot.
Friendly journalists, after being hired by Obama, will make enough money working for the White House that, with big pensions and paid health care, they’ll be set for life.
Never have to work again. Hey, “newspapers are going out of business right and left. If you don’t take the Obama job, you might end up selling apples on the street.”
Anyway, that was the motive for most of the nastiest, most unethical work product ever done by our constitutionally protected free press. And Barack did as promised. He hired them, most at a base salary of $350,000 to $500,000 a year.
So that was the journalists’ motive. To be set for life.
Barack’s end game in theory is much the same.
To live high on the hog for the rest of his days.
While he could live high off the hog being an ex president, that’s not enough to satisfy Barack’s seemingly insatiable desire to economically and militarily wreck havoc on the United States of America we know and love.
Teching down our weapons systems. Neglecting missile defense till the Russians are ten years ahead of us. Setting those time bombs of national bankruptcy and ghastly inflation.
Sometimes it’s this simple.
Barack and Michelle don’t like America and everything it stands for. Freedom. Liberty. The American Dream. Private enterprise.
Sotomayor feels exactly the same way.
Al Gore. Nancy Pelosi. Harry Reid. They’re all in cahoots.
And once they gut America, they have no plans to be anywhere near their handiwork.
Folks, they have no plans to stay in America.
With their Swiss bank accounts filled to overflowing, they’re planning to live out their days on foreign shores, probably Switzerland. Renouncing their citizenship is simply part of the dirty deal.
Who’ll be left holding the bag? We will.
Jennifer, I’m sorry to say;
It’s not a question of how the Republicans can win in 2012. It’s a question of how to prevent Barack’s masterplan from being carried out.
These vile, venomous Barackian creatures smell blood. They’re dreaming about seeing this nation figuratively being carried out on a stretcher.
From open borders, to a neutered military, to an economy that’s dead in the water.
7 rules for Republican victory? I don’t think so. What we need are seven rules for national survival.
Nope, not Newt, not Guliani, not any of the same old Republican dinosaurs, not MItt, not Huckabee. It’s going to Sarah Palin regardless of what the MSM, the talking air heads on tv or anyone else might have to say. Look at the facts folks. Wherever Palin goes she draws a crowd,numbering in the thousands. Maybe Palin and Romney. I could see that. But we’ve got to have star power to beat Obambi.
Palin? Do you want to win or just give Tina Fey new material? She got all the votes she’s ever going to get. Not ever going to be enough.
Cheney?!? The most hated man in America who was/is wrong about everything. Charles Manson would get more votes.
Coulter?!?!? LOLOL! Why not just drop out of the race right now?
Jindahl? He made a fool of himself last time he went up against Obama, he doesn’t have the chops.
Powell, Romney, maybe Newt might have a chance depending on what happens in the next few years. Or maybe someone we haven’t thought of just yet. A reasonable, logical, moderate could win; otherwise its Obama till 2016.
BTW: All of you do remember that George W. Bush was a REPUBLICAN. I have noticed he is mentioned more and more as of late as if the Republicans and conservatives didn’t back him 100% of the time till about 2 months before the last election. He was YOUR guy!! This is HIS mess!!! You blame Clinton/Obama for everything, as if Bush wasn’t responsible for anything. What is he responsible for then? Now you distance yourselves from him, while still denying that he was actually accountable for anything at all.
138. Tri Geek:
————
Whatever. The world would still be a better place today if Bush hadn’t been selected. And what’s up with his National Guard records?
@ Pat J. 133 & 145
“If it wasn’t for voter fraud Al Gore would have been president in 2000.”
Except every recount done by statewide rules and by the local newspapers shows Bush won Florida. Gore only wins when you let Democrats pick and choose which rules to use.
“And what’s up with his National Guard records?”
If they said what you needed them to, Rather wouldn’t have needed to use forgeries.
#129
Granny worked for a bank in Hawaii – bank employees are notorious for being loose with money because they can finagle long-term pay-deducted loans from the boss.
144. usafirst: “BTW: All of you do remember that George W. Bush was a REPUBLICAN. I have noticed he is mentioned more and more as of late as if the Republicans and conservatives didn’t back him 100% of the time till about 2 months before the last election. He was YOUR guy!! This is HIS mess!!! You blame Clinton/Obama for everything, as if Bush wasn’t responsible for anything. What is he responsible for then? Now you distance yourselves from him, while still denying that he was actually accountable for anything at all.”
I stopped supporting Bush early in his first term. I didn’t vote in 2004 election because both candidates were annoying (I regret that decision though). I bet you’ll find many conservatives that plugged their noses and voted for Bush in 2004 election. I plugged my nose and voted for McCain last time. I think a lot of conservatives stayed home in the last election.
Liberals make the mistake of thinking Republicans are all alike but they are a very varied bunch. I personally don’t know any conservative that supported that 1st Stimulus Package. McCain and Republicans really caved in on that and I think it really hurt them.
Re usafirst: Who said we are trying to run from Bush? You make way too many assumptions which is typical for a liberal I guess. As for Palin, I know it pains the Democratic party to no end, but she has a huge fan base and would do well as a candidate or just out on the campaign trail. Again, liberals are so intimidated by an attractive, accomplished woman because they are few and far between on the Dem side of the ticket. Pelosi? Clinton? Boxer? Maddox? Yeah. We understand where the anger towards Palin stems from. It’s obvious.
I am now referring to President Obama as George W. Obama for the simple reason that he has adopted more of George W’s policies than he has enacted any change BS. Well, I should qualify that answer by saying he has “changed” the economy by tripling Bush’s budget and by throwing stimulus money down the toilet and by throwing small businesses under the bus with his CapNTrade BS not to mention card check that he’d love to gift the union thugs with, but as far as foreign policy and the Iraq war? Same.
Now, please feel free to trash the GOP all you want. We know the source. Little education. MSM spoonfed bias. Reads the HuffPo for “news”. Simple brains put out simple ideas in the liberal camp we’ve found.
142. Rachel Peepers:
I hope you are wrong, but I think much you say is right on the mark. I always like to read you when you show up, well really, there are many of you who write here and I look for you when you write here.
I have a question since I did not follow the news closely, when did Michael admit to being a child molester? My husband and I always thought that people sued him and lied to get his money, and we realized we could be wrong, but we were never sure if he did or did not do it. I must say I liked many of the words in his songs in the eighties and I was a teenager in the eighties, but now some of those words are hard to listen to today. When a song says, “It’s time to make a CHANGE” I seem to want to cringe now, when I used to love those words. Obama has ruined some of the songs I loved in the eighties, why do I feel that way. I do not know, but I think it is because of the Media, who tries to brainwash all people, and when I hear the words they have used repeatedly, it makes me feel sick.
I bought an old song called “Man in the Mirror” and though I listened to it, when I hear “Make the Change” I feel nauseous. I also have the Neville’s music, and I always loved to hear Aaron Neville sing, “A Change is Gonna Come”, but now Obama has ruined the music for me, and this makes me sad. Maybe the Media ruined the music, yes, they did it too.
What could possibly cause a Repub resurgence?
Suppose Michelle, newly proud of her husband’s country, shows up with $500 sneakers and a $6000 amphibian skin purse? Nah, she’s too smart for that. She wrote a treatise about herself at Princeton.
Suppose Obama goes all over the world giving the U.S. the blame for every failure in every other country’s history? Nah, he went to Columbia. He’s too smart to do that.
Suppose Obama says because of the stimulus program the U.S. is now broke? Nah, he’s a lawyer. That means he knows how to advocate for himself.
Appealing to Hispanics is just sitting there and it has NOTHING to do with immigration.
The way Honduras is treated will have more to do with the direction the Hispanic vote goes next time than anything else. Remember the majority of folks who move to the US are fleeing dictator rule at home. Republicans should start talking out about the disgraceful actions of obama and the Dems on this issue.
This is a BIG deal. Ignore at the risk of alienating the Hispanic ‘block’.
#152
Jindal and Palin(+ family) also appeal to Hispanics by just sitting there also…..
“The Republicans have no ideas. (All the stimulus plan suggestions and alternate health care plans don’t count.)”
Care to share exactly what the alternate plans consist of?
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. More tax cuts.
A plan that has been tried for 8 years and proven to be a monumental failure is not an alternative plan.
It is a plan that has already been tried and failed.
Rachel peepers @ 142: ‘scuse me, but your post is one of the most tedious rants on this thread. It assumes history started on January 20, 2009 and gives GWB a pass ofr 8 years of deficits and neglect.
delia @ 108: c’mon: you didn’t question McCain’s educational standards –such as they were–in 2008. Denying Obama’s intellectual agility makes you look like a sore loser. He won fair and square. The voters rejected Mr. “How Many Houses Do I Have Again Anyway?”. (I think you know you are on the losing side and are sliding toward an internet affair with sheeesh)
Fred Beloit:
“What could possibly cause a Repub resurgence?”
Hey there Fred.
How are you? Long time no see.
And I’d be happy to answer your question.
The GOP needs to get behind some sort of single payer or public health insurance, about 72% of American’s favor it.
Shut up about abortion. Most American’s do not want to see Roe v Wade overturned.
Get behind a fair tax code. One where ordinary Americans making 60 thousand pay less than Warren Buffett making 47 million. As it is now the 60K earners pay 30% while Buffett pays 17%.
Keep government out of religion. Though most American’s do practice religion only a fringe group want the government involved in their religion.
Nominate a VP who isn’t a ignorant buffoon. There’s a chance the VP has to assume the Presidency.
Don’t start war’s of choice on countries that are no threat to us.
there’s more but I gotta run.
Re #156 jharp: “Nominate a VP who isn’t a ignorant buffoon. There’s a chance the VP has to assume the Presidency.”
Biden.
145. Pat J:
————
“Whatever. The world would still be a better place today if Bush hadn’t been selected. And what’s up with his National Guard records?”
You do understand Pat J that whenever somebody answers a questions with “Whatever”, that is a sign that they have surrendered the point. So you clearly are proving you were wrong in claiming Bush stole the 200 election, so why do you crazy lefties keep it up?
Jharp: states- Tax Cuts are “A plan that has been tried for 8 years and proven to be a monumental failure is not an alternative plan.”
What a stupid comment. Tax cuts are what helped the economy rebound spectacularly after the dot.com crash, the Enron debacle and 9/11. You might not be old enough to remember what a depressed state the economy was in at that point. From 2002 until 2008, the economy rebounded brilliantly, and it wasn’t until the housing problem hit that everything started falling apart. Blame Freddie and Fannie and all their Dem handlers.
Have you ever studied history? During depressions or recessions, increased regulations and taxes are what have ALWAYS hindered recovery. Reduction in taxes and regulations have ALWAYS sped recovery. Get your head out of the Communist Manifesto and see reality. While I am at it, PROVE to us that Obama is NOT a Communist.
Gang,
As a rule, I try to avoid responding to the unwashed, mouth breathing, slow witted, light stepping, numb-nutted, air fouling, liberal space cadets that are drawn to PJM like lepidoptera (moths) to light, but when they bad mouth incredibly intelligent, thought provoking, talented writers like Delia and ATP I feel compelled to push the rant button one more time.
Look, you liberal, banal, incipid, mental pipsqueaks, here at PJM you’re just the butt of jokes. At times, I’m actually embarrassed for you because of your lack of logic and a coherent thinking process.
It’s not a gigantic mental leap to conjecture that as kids you weren’t picked for teams until last.
That you were a cliqueless high school, pimple faced pitiable.
That you flunked out of junior college after one morbid semester.
That you’re living lives of hopeless desperation in your parent’s basement.
I understand all that.
But, if you need a place to blabber away, I guess it’s okay for you to do it here.
However, please refrain from bad mouthing people who are so intellectually superior to you that it’s like the Yankees playing a T-ball team. With you, of course, being the ball they knock silly.
And this isn’t meant for Sheesh who’s no Billy Buckner; only miscue is playing for the wrong team. Incidentally, Sheesh really doesn’t have a blog home. He’s much too witty for Daily Puss and to level headed for moveon.youneedaholeinyourhead.
I predict by the end of the summer, Sheesh will be a ranting conservative that makes Rachel Peepers sound like a neophyte.
Butterfly mornings,
I checked.
All Michael Jackson admitted to doing was sleeping with other people’s children. “Sleeping with” is intentionally ambiguous.
The fact that he paid millions to people who accused him of molesting their children doesn’t prove anything one way or the other.
The only thing that makes me think he crossed the Chester the Molester line was that his father, an apparent child abuser, reportedly abused Michael.
Which is why Michael’s mother is not likely to get Michael’s kids.
Michael, to me, was a tortured soul without an evil bone in his body. May God have mercy on his soul.
Tom Perkins (Jul 9, 2009 – 4:23 am) said:
“If Palin continues to draw crowds as she did, then she’s in. Or the GOP is dead for 2012.”
Change the “Or” to an “And”, and I completely agree.
You guys have to decide – are we liberals “elites who attended the ‘best’ schools”, or did we “flunk out of junior college after one morbid semester”?
Peepers @ 160:
Oh THAT was an impressive display of the reason for the GOP’s ecclipse. Please take a moment to read what I wrote–or have it read to you. Then try again.
This site is not a gabfest for the synpatically dysfunctional, or for students that think their one whiff of Nobakov or Ayn Rand made them an intellectual (and I’m charitably assuming you read at least the 1st 90 pages of one of her books). Name calling-or in your case exhausting a high school therauas using one insult while thinking you’ve made a show of brilliance–is not thought. Well, OK, maybe it is where you attend school, but not in most places. The approval of some of the other flickering lights here doesn’t make you smart either.
Do yourself and everyone else a favor: just becasue no one will eat lunch with you is no reason to unload on us; give your emotive impulses a rest and go READ something other than PARADE magazine. Come back when you are able to contribute somehting other than a bag of insults.
155. white helmet,
McDoofus at least loved America and served our Country regardless of his I.Q.
Please, show me all of the amazing ‘proof’ that 0bama is a friggin’ genius. Ghost written books and teleprompter reading doesn’t count.
-And, leave Sheeshers and I out of this. I’m going to have his 8 babies all in a row and we are going to live happily ever after in his van down by the river. NOT!
You Lefties can be so silly.
160. Rachel Peepers,
The fish piling on in the barrel sure do squirm a lot, huh?
P.S. My email changed after I got spammed with the usual junk. I’m sure you have better things to do with your time but if you’d like my updated email:
che4z-dv@yahoo.co.uk
Anyway, keep the faith, GF. The more ‘they’ nag the more you are ‘getting’ under their collective shallow skins.
Okay White Helmet (as in surrender), now that you have impressed us all with you superior intelligence, why don’t you explain how history is wrong and raising taxes and adding government restrictions has ever been proven to be a successful way out of a struggling economy? Or, are you only good at putting other down? While you are at it, I need you to list verifiable proof that Obama is not following Saul Alinsky’s teachings. Maybe you can answer like Pat J, and come back with a “Whatever”.
This is going to sound very simplistic, but think about it…the most handsome and charismatic man has always won! Getting somebody good looking and smart is the problem. LOL
Delia at 165: I agree McCain did exactly that. I do not impugn his very honorable military service. (But I think Sheesh is dissapointed now). I never said Obama is a genius: but I don’t think he’s Armageddon like everyone here does.
Tri Gek at 167: White helmet as in White Knight you loser! I didn’t mean to be snotty-I was reacting to Racherl’s “Mountain of Insults” mode of speaking.
But I’m curious: Please explain how running an economy into the ground with deficits, unmonitored bank lending, unsupervised hedge funds and all manner of berni madoffs–all during a repub congress from 1994-2006–entitle repubs to whisper even one word about what it takes to cure the rescession we’re in?
We have to raise taxes anyway, to pay the Chinese who bought up our debt and financed the war in Iraq, so taxes had to go up. Bush could have raised taxes then to cover the cost but he borrwed. I assume you agree we have to pay our debts. Its fiscally responsible to do so now, instead of running up deficts based only on more borrowing. At least Obama is biting the bullet and doing it.
And the low taxes didn’t seem to stop the collapse of the economy did they? Its time to tax the surviving madofffs, hedge fund managers etc. And FYI–they all VOTED for Obama! If they did and know they’re going to be socked with new taxes, what does anyone making less than 200k care?
Time to pay the piper! You guys should have been this alert during 2000-2008. But no! Whatever Bush did wasjust fine!
Mr. White Hell Mutt,
Look, if I hurt your feelings, I’m terribly sorry, but in politics, even as a lowly commenter, you need a thick skin.
Actually, I expected a little cutting sarcasm from you, but apparently all you’ve got in your tank are a few lonely insults. And that’s not only called sad, but also a smidgen hypocritical (from the Latin, hypocrisis, third declension dative case). Here’s why.
You accuse me of insulting people; imply it’s bad form, yet that’s precisely what you tried to hurl at lil’ ole’ bright, blue eyed bushy tailed Rachel. Incidentally, does your wife know how mean spirited you sound when you besmirch this missys’ missives, sully her good name and take me away from my studies. Huh? Does your wife know that you pick on girls?
While I’m reading about how to waive the tort and sue in assumpsit, I’m badgered by a guy who shouldn’t be in the kitchen if he can’t stand the heat. Maybe it’s time you put those Obama style hobnail boots on and goose step your way from the fridge to the micro wave where you can cook yourself a Boca burger, put a piece of low fat cheese on it and fill that empty spot in your life, whatever it is. I suspect you spend too much time watching reruns of Golden Girls and worrying about your cholesterol.
Me oh my, Barack is conspiring to figuratively see this wonderful U S of A carried out on a stretcher, and you’re lollygagging your way through life thinking he’s the second coming.
Old friend, the brown eyed handsome man is a low life; downright disgraceful. Running our economy into the ground, spending money we don’t have that will surely deny generations from realizing their American Dream. Just because you don’t have children of your own doesn’t mean you can’t feel for others.
This is an American Tragedy (footnote to Ted Deriser). White Hellcat, don’t your care? From sea to shining sea to overseas Barack and his bedfellows are trying to destroy the free enterprise system that has given us the highest standard of living in history, while dismantling a missile defense system capable of at least protecting us from attack and potential annihilation. What is it about terrorists, crazy talking countries like Nut Korea and Iran; and the threat of sneak attack that you don’t understand?
You want to cross verbal swords (fiddle around with) an admittedly politically obsessed just graduated from college girl, kicked off the Stanford cheerleading team in her senior year for “conduct unbecoming the school”. I lost my boyfriend over it. They won’t let us date anymore. And my father can’t do anything about it.
In reality, you should be on my side using your resources, small as they might be, to clear my name at school while unseating the sociopath we put into the oval office.
White Helmet, I want you to consider helping to bring about the day when Barack and Michelle are led out of the White House in handcuffs.
They aren’t out to save the economy or help the troops. They’re out to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq.
White Helmet, it’s like injecting antibiotics into someone who just contracted samonella poisoning. Bad.
Electing George Obama was like trying to put out a wild fire with gasoline.
I ask for your help, White Feather, and you mock me. I know you never served in the military. But you can still serve your country. It may have needed you before, but neverbefore has it needed you like it needs you know. We here at PJM have a small coterie of brothers and sisters that have banded together to save this ship of state before it’s intentionally grounded on southern beaches and left to rot.
Tomorrow is a new day. I am willing to take you, White hair and all into my confidence; into our group. Washington crossed to the Jersey side and raised hell with British troops. Let us teach you how to fight
But first I’ll give you a crash course about what we’re fighting for. It’s going to be a three ambien night for Rachel. I’ve got to do a paper and fall asleep.
I spent a lot of time with you tonight white helmet. Next week tell me if we can meet someplace around school where we can make the most of it.
Rachel
Sorry Sarah, I’m not a big supporter of quitters. As a retired Army officer, quitting when it’s tough doesn’t a good commander-in-chief.
This thread was originally about the 7 rules. I like them. What will really dissapoint me is if our republican representatives vote No on everything just because the Dems are proposing it. I’ve seen some good legislation get passed already that I wondered why we didn’t do that the last 8 years, like raise the MPG standards.
If the GOP wants to win back the WH then we need to come together as a party and stop behaving like individual kings of the hills.
1: Own up to the fact that many GLBT Americans agree with the fiscal responsibility of the GOP should take charge in the equalization of all Americans. Call it a civil union or even (and here’s where the constitution comes into play) cut the church out of since they have no involvement in the matter and make it same sex marriage legal.
2: Call in the accountants and have them go thru the Dem’s plans that have been put into effect so far and prove how they are and were the wrong decisions.
2.5: Have them come up with plans to fix the Dem’s mistakes.
3: Get the bailout money back and give it to the people: Fix the school systems, offset college tuitions, give the troops better and more support. Don’t just do something, make it big and public.
I hope and pray that Americans see how WRONG OBAMA has been for us.
Thank you for a thoughtful piece.
In addition to all the rest, Republicans need someone who will be highly articulate about the causes of, and solutions to, the credit and financial crises.
The 2010 congressional elections will give potential candidates the media exposure and new job titles to establish their credibility, stature, and name recognition with voters.
“House Speaker Ryan” conveys instant national stature, whereas Rep. Ryan (R-WI) remains a long shot. If the word “former” precedes a prospective candidate’s title, he needs a resume refresher. As we’ve seen from Obama, author tours don’t hurt.
If Obama’s popularity somehow tanks by 2012 things will still not be a cinch, because Hillary looms. A major Republican sweep back into power in 2010 is much more likely to lead to Republican success in the next presidential election.
Rachel @ 170:
Pining for Obama to be frog-marched from the White House only makes you sound as mean-spirited as the porcine Michael Moore who wanted Bush prosecuted for Iraq and keeping a trim waistline that made Moore look bad.
The greeks and the romans criminalized each other like that, causing Athens to tear itself apart and Ceaser crossing the Rubcon etc. Its unhealthy and has to stop. I think you agree, but are so frustrated with the current situation you are letting your commendable emotions get the best of you.
You don’t hurt MY feelings (I’m too busy changing batteries on my hearing aid, remember?). Your emotional outbursts just confirm that even bright, personable Stanford educated cheerleaders will attribute the current ills of the US to Obama rather than throw the dart at Bush and the republicans who controlled congress 1994-2006 and the WH from 2000-2008.
Trying to grapple with the present w/o fairly assessing how it came to be, leaves you sounding as enlightened as the spittle-flecked Keith Olbermann, who I know you detest.
I’d like nothing better than to meet, but bed check in the retirement home is 8. They won’t let me play any 50 cent either. (PS: forget that waive the tort nonsense: if its a suit worth bringing, keep the tort if you can).
Ut oh. I think White Helmet is smitten with my dear friend Rachel!
White Helmet, you is gon’ be mightily disappointed iffin’ ya wants to attempt an ‘internet affair’ with Ms. Peepers.
Just sayin’.
Tee-hee
“Pining for Obama to be frog-marched”
When did Rachel say ‘that’???????
Balderdash!
Delia,
The more I listen to White Top pontificate, the more interesting he becomes. I’ve had enough college boys to sink a battleship. An older man like our White Knight somehow whets my appitite.
Incidentally, I told my father about the new direction my secret internet life is taking, and he’s threatening to take my jet black Mustang away if I don’t bend to his wishes. And start studying like my life depended on it.
At the same time, WH was spot on with the thing he said about Keith Olberwoman.
Furthermore, it’s not as if there wasn’t any foreshadowing going on in my fairly short but rich past.
I’m, of course, talking about the high school letters I used to write to Bill Clinton, reminding him how the late Billy Mayes swore that Oxy Clean could get most any stain out. Sadly, he never wrote back.
Anyway, I’m picturing White Helmet as a young Harrison Ford. And, frankly, I like what I see.
Golly gee, what’s gotten into me?
Hopefully, in the next few hours I’ll feel one of my old Rachel rants coming on. And forget these silly day dreams of my knight in shining armor coming to sweep me off my feet.
maak:
“Liberals make the mistake of thinking Republicans are all alike but they are a very varied bunch. I personally don’t know any conservative that supported that 1st Stimulus Package. McCain and Republicans really caved in on that and I think it really hurt them.”
Republicans make the mistake of thinking all ‘liberals/independant/Democrats’ are all alike as well. We are just as varied on our side. I didn’t like any of the stimulus/bailout packages either. I had to hold my nose and vote as you did, but John ‘the fundamentals of the economy are strong, I don’t have a single new idea” McCain/Sarah “the clueless hockeymom” Palin decided my vote.
Athinkingperson:
“Again, liberals are so intimidated by an attractive, accomplished woman because they are few and far between on the Dem side of the ticket. Pelosi? Clinton? Boxer? Maddox? Yeah. We understand where the anger towards Palin stems from. It’s obvious.”
And you call yourself a thinking person. Just because I don’t think Palin is fit to be president doesn’t mean I dislike her personally, and I am certainly not intimidated by her. I don’t care if she’s attractive, ugly, old, young, a woman, or a man. That doesn’t affect my vote at all. Your comment is clearly sexist, as you apparantly only see as far as her looks. My wife is far hotter than Palin, and I wouldn’t vote for her as president either, and I love her.
“Now, please feel free to trash the GOP all you want. We know the source. Little education. MSM spoonfed bias. Reads the HuffPo for “news”. Simple brains put out simple ideas in the liberal camp we’ve found.”
Are you serious? Education? I have a master’s degree, not that that means anything, education and intelligence are two different things anyhow. Just because I don’t agree with you, doesn’t make me ignorant, and vice versa. Look at the last election, Obama/Biden had way way way more education than McCain/Palin, and that didn’t seem to sway you any.
MSM spoonfed bias, HuffPo?? Ever hear of Fox News? Fair and Balanced? What a joke. For every ‘left wing media’ source out there, there are 10 right wing. Hannity, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc etc. I don’t get my news from any one source, I like to get everyone’s point of view before I make my own decision. Anyone who just watches to MSNBC or Fox only wants to hear what they want to hear, not be informed. Where are your sources coming from?
#156- except the majority of Americans DO want to overturn Roe v. Wade: 51% of Americans are pro-life, and well over 80% support expanding restrictions on abortion.
FYI- many social conservatives adamantly refuse to vote for someone who is not pro-life, thus ignoring social issues is a non-starter. You can’t win if 1/3 if the electorate who would support you boycotts the election because they see you as no better than your opponent.
Abortion has been legal since 1973. Nixon (R) was president at the time. Since that time Republicans have had the White House for 22 years to 12 for the Democrats. Abortion is still legal. The Republicans don’t want the laws to change because it gets them voters. If it weren’t for that single issue, they would lose a consideral amount of their base. On the other hand, a change in the law would mobilize more votes on the Democratic side, whom already have a bigger base. Add in all of the people who are dissed by the Republicans (i.e. anyone who isn’t white or Christian), and you can see their dillema.
It doesn’t matter how many Americans like or dislike the law, it only matters if the Supreme Court finds it constitutional or not. That one is very debatable, as are many, many more. Even in a democracy, majority rules don’t override the constitution. Its a good thing too, as we would gradually lose all of your rights otherwise.
I personally can understand the pro-life’s point of view on this issue more than the pro-choice’s view, but I am not going to vote Republican across the board on this one issue. Especially since it won’t change things anyhow (see above). It is an effective vote getting tactic they work well however.
176. Rachel Peepers:
ROTFL! You rascal! He-he-he!
You watch it there, Rachel. Them men folks can be dawgs er frogs and they don’t turn into Princes when you kiss ‘em [politicians maybe, Princes?...no way]!
How many internet proposals are you gonna rack up, you nawty, nawty girl?