Why Can’t the Republicans Nominate a Genuine Right-Wing Nut?
Conservatives are fired up. Thanks to the Tea Party and Obama’s general left-wing bungling, we’re mad and ready to go for the throat on government spending. So who does Intrade show as having a 70% chance of winning the Republican nomination for president? Mitt “Social Security is just fine” Romney.
The left is always shrieking that the Republicans are going to nominate some right-wing nut for the presidency; if only that were true. The Republican base’s perfect candidate would be someone who emerged from his bomb shelter toting a shotgun with the sole purpose of dismantling government. We want someone who can barely restrain himself from violence when talking to the normal useless, arrogant, tax-and-spend politician. Someone who, when given a bill to raise taxes, wouldn’t only veto it but would also publicly burn it and then hunt down the perpetrators who wrote it.
So who have the we nominated for president in the past? John McCain. George W. Bush with his “compassionate” conservatism — not that mean old conservatism that holds people responsible for their actions. Bob Dole. Exciting, right?
Obviously there is some sort of disconnect between what the conservative base of the Republican party wants and who the party ends up nominating for president. The states that go first in the primary and thus hold the most influence — New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, Florida — seem random, but from the results in past elections one has to conclude they were chosen by some sort of RINO genius to ensure that only a milquetoast right-of-center candidate will win the nomination. Right now the country is a car speeding towards a cliff due to out-of- control spending, and conservatives want a president who will seize the wheel of that car and turn it around. But the Republican we nominate is always someone who only promises to ease up on the gas a little.
The left don’t have this problem. They nominate impractical left-wing nuts for president all the time. In fact, their more centrist candidates like Bill Clinton are the exceptions, not the rule. So why is that? Are the left just more devoted to their cause than we are?
The problem is that at the end of the day, conservatives are just practical people. Why do we have the bomb shelters? We like to survive. And you don’t survive by getting caught up in wild-eyed fantasies. While we want to nominate some crazed anti-politician, at the end of the day we can’t pull the trigger when we know it just means we’re guaranteeing four more years of having a far left Democrat in charge. Sure, we’d love to send an extreme right-winger to the White House screaming about how Gardasil makes you retarded — if for no other reason than to make the left apoplectic — but we know that’s not going to happen. That’s why we always end up with someone like Mitt Romney, the creator of Obamacare’s predecessor. Yes, conservatives loathe him, and he loathes us, but he seems like the best chance to win.
And maybe it’s best that there is some loathing between conservatives and our presidential nominee. The last thing we want to do is fall in love with a politician. Because what type of people become skilled politicians? People who hate government? No, those people never learn to work in the system. The people who succeed in politics are those who kinda like government and see it as a great tool for change — i.e., they’re the enemy. No one gets to the level of being able to run a skilled campaign for president and remains a true conservative. So that’s why conservatives holding onto Reagan as the ideal politician hurts us in the end. We have this fantasy that the move to reduce government will one day be led from the top, but it’s just not going to happen. Anyone who makes it to that level is no longer one of us.
Conservatives just need to come to grips with the fact that it’s always going to be a Mitt Romney-type who leads the ticket, which is why we can’t make the president the standard bearer for conservatism. The true conservatives are always going to be those of us who never have the taint of politics on us, and if we want real change that reduces the size of government in this country, that means we’ll have to put even more pressure on a Republican president than we do on a Democrat. When the car is speeding towards the cliff, we have to be on the hood of that car, screaming at the driver, “TURN THIS THING AROUND!” So the ideal candidate for conservatives isn’t some extreme right-winger. It’s a skilled politician we know we can bully.
“The true conservatives are always going to be those of us who never have the taint of politics on us…”
Good line. The obsession bordering on paranoid delusion in some folks (you know who you are) about getting a Palin or an Allen West in the White House seems to undermine one of the bigger lessons of 2010: conservatives and conservatism can win at levels closer to home. There is “taint of politics” involved at those levels, but conservatism is just not well suited to a monstrously large role like the POTUS — and that is by design: “The people who succeed in politics are those who kinda like government and see it as a great tool for change.”
“conservatism is just not well suited to a monstrously large role like the POTUS” — yeah, I guess Ronald Reagan just couldn’t cut it — just wasn’t up to the job….
no.on? or on.no?, that is a question?
So true, Jack. Obama, a believer in big government, expensive and trendy vacations and hip House parties, is such a successful President and is leaving the country in such great shape for the next RINO President in 2012.
Rockefeller, Bushes, Dole, McCain, Romney…a proud tradition continues.
You do realize that as great as Reagan was, he would not be considered a conservative today? Reagan raised taxes when he needed to, “saved” Social Security, and ran huge budget deficits–necessary deficits, but deficits none the same.
Deficits from waging a war with the Soviet Union (cold war, but war nonetheless) are not the same as deficits from an agenda of redistribution of wealth and paying off political friends.
You are correct that Reagan raised taxes, but he later said that was the biggest mistake of his Presidency, because his deal collapsed and he got the tax increases but not the savings that were supposed to go with it. Reagan today would not repeat that mistake.
I wish he had saved Social Security through the option of private accounts, which would have been viable then, but to be fair he had a lot on his plate. I doubt he would have done the same thing if he’d known the results were going to be greater insolvency down the road.
He was by far our greatest President since whenever(*), but that doesn’t mean he was perfect, not by a long shot. Nobody is.
D
(*) He’s probably the most effective President since Roosevelt in getting his programs implemented. I don’t think of Roosevelt as “great” because he created entitlements, which I consider the worst mistake in American history.
The Reagan administration, defined as the set of policies put in place by the administration, would not be viewed as conservative today. Reaganism, as the set of policies advocated by Ronald Reagan, those are still conservative. Reagan, the man, would be a conservative because he was someone who adjusted to reality and lived on the edge of the Overton Window, pulling it to the Right. To make the case that he is not a conservative you would have to demonstrate that after his victories, he would have just said “stop” and not been with the movement for even further restoration of the pre-progressive order. I don’t think you can find that in his writings or his record. He was critical of conservatives who were too far outside the Overton Window and would set the movement back that way but that does not make him a moderate.
Which new govt programs did Reagan start?
Words such as “government isn’t part of the solution. Government is THE problem” suggest he was Conservative and Tea Party
The logical flaw in this article is to assume that the movement that will reduce the size of government is the race for political office. We might never see a Right-winger nominated for President by the GOP, but that only means that the size of government will never be reduced by politicians. So, those who are serious about taking on the Federal Government and shrinking its size and scope will have to do so by means of a movement outside the political arena. We have Thomas Jefferson’s call to duty to do so. Jefferson was a supporter of both revolution/seccession and Nullification on Constitutional grounds.
I couldn’t agree more with your comment even though I tried to.
This article is so logically flawed that I almost completely lost interest in leaving a comment at all. The writer Frank J. Fleming seems to think of us in the right as being caged in a collective partisan box, which is quite a deep contrast from the essense of the American revolution and the ideology behind it.
I can’t agree with this. While I can accept the unlikliness of a “true Conservative” president, change to laws still comes from government. You may not need to be in the driver’s seat, but you still have to be in the car to cut the ignition or grab the wheel. At a minimum, we need to have at least one house of Congress with enough members to say “no!” and make it stick.
Your post makes more sense than the rest, thanks for me knowing I’m not alone out here.
True conservatives like government, but only one that follows the constitution ands doesn’t grow like a cancer into ever nook and cranny of their lives.
Makes them the perfect candidates- esp. Palin.
I agree. Genuine right wing nuts can get elected to the House of Representatives, state legislatures and county governments; even the governorship of some Red States. The more right wing nuts inhabiting the lower levels of politics, the more pressure can be put on the RINOs at the top not to sell out to the libs.
The problem is that “skilled politicians” are too slippery for us to bully. The only people who get to bully “skilled politicians” are people like George Soros, or for that matter, Bill Gates – people with tons of money.
By the same token, being genuinely conservative does not imply that one is a right-wing nut. If you equate the two, you are merely telling us that YOU aren’t much of a conservative yourself. Furthermore, you have already let the leftists define the terms of the debate.
Well said! The GOP will lose if they continue to foist these Romney types on us. Reagan showed us that people will elect a stand out conservative.
Nothing like extrapolating a trend from a single data point, eh?
Uhh ok, how about Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge?
By the same token, being genuinely conservative does not imply that one is a right-wing nut. If you equate the two, you are merely telling us that YOU aren’t much of a conservative yourself. Furthermore, you have already let the leftists define the terms of the debate.
Yes, indeed. The Establishment Republicans want us to sit down (preferably in the back so no one can see us) and shut up, except they also want our votes and our campaign contributions. They really love our money because that allows them to make big bucks running the machine.
Here’s a clue to the Establishment Republicans – insulting people by calling them nuts isn’t exactly the way to win friends and influence people. Insult them enough and they won’t donate money or vote for your guy.
Now, we’ve had Establishment career politicians running the country for decades. They’ve all gone to the “right” schools, go to the same parties and enrich themselves and their cronies at our expense. They’ve ran the country to the brink of bankrupsy. It’s said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. That being the case, why should we keep putting career politicians back in office? Maybe it’s time to try something different.
Oh, and by the way, RINOs get into power the same way the Democrats do. They (or their campaign chairmen and advisers) use dirty tricks to steal elections. (See: Who is behind the high-tech lynching of Herman Cain?)
Thanks to the blogosphere, we don’t have to put up with that any more.
I don’t care for Ann Coulter, but she makes a compelling indictment against David Axelrod.
She prefaces her argument by the fact that the two “alleged” women’s cases trace back to one city in one state: Chicago, IL.
Moreover, Sharon B. lived in the same apartments as Axelrod. The, Ann describes the sexual claims that Axelrad used to remove the democrat and republican opponents in Obama’s US Senate run.
I find it curious that a man with such a varied carreer as Herman Cain, who led so many organizations seems to have all of his accusers coming from ONLY ONE of those organizations. The National Restaurant Association.
Based in Washington D.C., Ties to SEIU…. Hmmmm
It also strikes me as funny that not a single one of the supposed “victems” came forward until Cain was a serious contender. I would think that as soon as he entered the race they would have said something if it really happened.
See: How David Axelrod and the Chicago Machine smeared Herman Cain…with a LOT of help from the MSM and the RINOs!
Now is the time to put a stop to the practice of Republicans throwing their fellows under the bus for what they think is political advantage.
Does anyone remember how Barack Hussein Obama got elected to the US Senate from Illinois? – I cited Ann Coulter’s gumshoe work and added our own research and recollections from when we lived, and voted, in Chicago. We were there for that election.
Those were the days … NOT!
It is wisely said that “…even if Satan himself speaks the truth…” so on that premise, I’ll go along with Ann’s observation, but I have completely weaned myself off the naive belief that the establishment GOP really wishes to oppose the socialist takeover of America -starting with Coulter and the rest who shot down Sarah systematically because she represented true reform of their lucrative status quo.
Just as the left would dissapear without the black community staying poor and victims that they may pretend to desire to change it, so does the GOP pretend that it care about abortion, defense of marriage, true economic freedom with responsible government-they too seek nothing more than ruling-class control and care not whether they win the silver or gold medals in the elections -their lifestyles don’t change a bit.
The past is not prologue.
When you consider Romney garners no more than 25% of poll ratings, Romney has no chance.
Should Romney somehow pull the nomination out, rest assured of a brokered convention.
If the remaining vote is split among enough candidates, then Romney still wins, even at 25%.
What you fail to appreciate is the natural attrition of candidates that will accrue to the other conservative candidates.
Actually, I’m kinda praying for it…
What attrition? Seems like everyone’s going to hang on to the absolute mathematical end in this never-ending nomination fight. It’s like Survivor, only you can veto being voted off the island.
When it comes to nominating rightwing nuts, the Republican Party has tried that in the past.
At the very best you get Ronald Reagan at the very worst you get Barry Goldwater.
“Why do we have bomb shelters?” Mostly fear. Bomb shelters turned out to be useless unless you needed lead-lined storage space. Republicans have a fear of another Goldwater that keeps them from finding another Reagan.
The GOP HATED Ronald Reagan. They are more a rino establishment (Rockafeller, Nixon, Ford, Bush (HW & W), etc). If people didn’t see that during the election cycle ’10 (tea party conservatives VS gop candidates in virtually every race) nothing will make it any clearer.
The MSM killed Goldwater, just as they did Palin. People like Northern believe in and get their propaganda from the MSM; as we say down here, bless his heart.
Actually I was talking about electoral success. I don’t think the MSM are wrong when they say Goldwater lost.
And bless your heart too. We usually say that a bit differently in the north.
Yeah, things are quicker in The North; it only takes two words.
I think Barry Goldwater is bad comparison. He was up against LBJ who was immensly popular because of the sympathy vote of JFK being shot.
nobody was going to beat Johnson that year.
But lets go back further… Calvin Coolidge and Warren Harding are two other hard conservatives that won big after a radical left wing ideologue like Woodrow Wilson.
It seems to me that when the American public is exposed to the absolute radical left to the point where it borders on progressive and communism creates a ratch whiplash back to the right.
We saw that in my comparison of Woodrow Wilson (Obama) vs. Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge (Cain and Gingrich)
Wrong.
Get a grip.
Never, NEVER, again will I vote for the compassionate socialist waving a token.
There will be a third way.
Obama thanks you for his second term.
As opposed to …
Mittens (Obamacare is just fine, we have too many guns, taxes aren’t too high, illegal immigration is fine)Oba-romney?
We have run liberal squishes since 1988.
The result — ‘a thousand points of govt spending lights’, a viagra salesman whose turn it was to be the nominee, ‘compassionate liberalism’ and sellout who thought that Americans were lazy. Oh, and active support for tripling the size and power of Sodom on the Potomac.
Its time for a Republican to be the Republican parties nominee.
And it’s THAT attitude that gets us stuck with democrat lite every damned time!
Screw it! I’m with the guy that said he’s not voting for the compassionate conservative (read: socialist-lite) ever again. I’m sick of voting for the lesser of two evils – it’s still voting for evil.
If the gop puts a romney up then I wash my hands of this country. Let it fall.
When you’re over your martyr complex and want to at least pretend to be a grown-up, let me know.
Problem for your position, Jeff. We’re not childish, we are INSANE!! And each of the very many of us has the same vote you have. Time for you to join us in making sure we don’t have Mittens for R.
OR…
Conservatives for Cthulhu would like to thank you for your support.
Nomination of Romney guarantees Obama’s second term. Either directly, because he will not fight Obama just like McCain [the last RINO foisted upon us by the Institutional Republicans] would not fight him; or if a miracle occurs and Romney is elected, he will continue Obama’s policies, working with the Democrats against Conservatives. And his presence at the top of the ticket will discourage turnout to the point where down ticket races will be affected negatively.
Show me one thing in his record where he has taken a principled conservative position and held it for any length of time in the face of Leftist opposition. Show me anything where he has taken a position that could not be taken by a so-called “Blue Dog” Democrat, and with any more sincerity than a Blue Dog who always talks at home against the things he votes for in DC.
The Institutional Republicans always insist that no matter how worthless the candidates they force on us; we conservatives are required to support them. And at the same time, if a conservative gets the nomination the Institutionals go all out to make sure that the Democrat wins. Karl Rove’s main target for the last few years has been the TEA Party, and not the Democrats. Since his paychecks all come from the Institutionals, he is obviously doing their bidding.
Here in Colorado, we have a Democrat as governor because when a TEA Party candidate won the nomination fair and square; the Central Committee cut a deal with the Constitution Party. Former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo switched to the Constitution Party, and in return for Republican Party funding, the Constitution Party named him as their candidate. They deliberately split the vote to guarantee a Democrat win and a loss for the TEA Party Republican. Two weeks after the election, Tancredo changed back to Republican and sits at the right hand of the Central Committee.
Conservatives have been forced to engage in coprophagia by the Institutionals for years. A whole lot of people have had enough. For myself, I will not vote for Huntsman; because he is a Democrat plant. I will not vote for Ron Paul, because while even a squirrel will find an occasional acorn, he is still a squirrel. And I will not vote for Romney, because we are at a critical juncture. The country does not have another election cycle after this to peacefully start the process of restoring our country. If we do not start fighting back now politically; we will not be able to later without crossing lines our country has not had to cross for a century and a half.
Obama’s appointees and political allies are already openly calling for the end of elections and reducing the amount of democracy in our political system. Governor Purdue [D-NC] called for canceling elections. Peter Orzag who till recently was head of OMB wrote calling for transferring the functions of elected officials to “non-political” appointed boards. Van Jones [one of Obama's Czars] called for an American Fall like the “Arab Spring” in North African countries that took over the governments. And lo, and behold, he is one of the organizers of the #Occupy movement that is openly supported by the Administration and elected and appointed Democrats; and which is functionally above the law in anything that they do, including violence.
Romney is not the cure for this disease. Romney is not the cure for a hangnail.
Subotai Bahadur
Look, I’m not saying Romney should be in charge of setting policy. I have no desire to see a President Romney, and I’m not going to vote for him in the primary, not that it matters, things will be settled one way or the other by the time I caucus. But when the general election rolls around I will vote for the Republican nominee. Because at the same time I’m going to be voting for the most conservative congressman I can. Romney will go whichever way the wind blows, Obama is going to fight to the left. It is up to us to ensure the wind blows to the right.
We didn’t get into this mess in one election cycle, and it’s going to take more than one to get us out. Victory is a ratchet. We moved things our way a bit in 2010, we have another chance next year. If we win, great. If we don’t we cannot throw our hands up and quit, we have to hold our gains until the next opportunity comes around. Nothing is over until we decide it is.
So be it. I’ll take my chances with that prospect rather than giving any power to that sleezeball Romney. Grow a spine and take a chance for once in your life! Stand for something and go for the win! You may lose, but even so go down fighting, rather than surrender. Otherwise, you should beg Britain to take us back into the Empire.
I have no need of a candidate who emerges from a shelter with a shotgun.
I insist on a nominee who will pull the nation to the right of it’s current center.
Romney will instead try to pull the party left.
I will not go backwards, I will not vote for Romney.
The establishment needs to accept that, and that they put the Oval Office in peril if Romney gets the nod.
Romney says “Government is playing too heavy a role in health care.” Translation: Government — i.e., force — has a role to play in health care.
Can force diagnose your illness? Can force deal with illnesses as they come available for the doctor to treat? Can force treat or cure an illness? Every regulation imposed by government answers “yes” to these questions and is wrong. Why? The mind does not and cannot work by force.
Society by gun IS NOT the answer. Society by gun IS Romney’s answer.
Romney’s nothing more – and nothing less – than another smirking, ruling-class elitist.
I guess it doesn’t matter who gets elected then. If all we can elect is a Romney or the like the American experiment has failed. Our choice is between radical socialists / statists and moderate socialist / statists. Self sufficient libertarian minded Americans should start thinking about succession or emigration.
Secession that is.
You’re stuck with emigration then chum as no state’s population is going to sign up for secession once the impact is spelled out to them–no longer an American. The question for emigration is where?
Don’t write the Herman Cain obituary just yet. He’s solidly conservative, and evidently resilient.
His nomination would go a long way to shattering the current paradigm and opening the door for others in the future.
I understand that he doesn’t satisfy the policy wonks, but I for one see an intelligent man that’s more than capable of handling the challenges of the Presidency in a way that we haven’t seen in my lifetime.
Herman Cain is not a Conservative. In any way, shape or form. He’s a pimp hat wearing race hustler who knows NOTHING about domestic or foreign policy–but will hire those who do–is willfully ignorant and uninformed, says stupid things on a regular basis–but just joking!–and yet you Cainiacs insist that he’s your great, Conservative messiah. He’s just another affirmative action joke like the one we’ve already got in the White House.
Affirmative action race hustler? Are you kidding me? Please look up the man’s accomplishments before you slander him. He’s a self-made man and that’s says a lot about him.
That statement speaks for itself as to why nobody takes Perryvangelicals seriously. Even the Ronulans aren’t that rabid.
And Kath is most likely just another Democratican troll. Ho hum.
Now, would you like to share with us your real, deep down feelings about Herman Cain. He is none of the things you say he is, and he is everything you say he is not. Obama is not a product of affirmative action in the country; He is the product of some very clever and astute political planning and strategy, with the fingerprints of George Soros all over it. Taking him from community organizer(can you say ACORN?)to POTUS in 4 short years is nothing short of phenomenal. He is the child of Chicago-Style politics, cumme laude. Herman is not loved by the Black community; He is encouraging them, as Bill Crosby has, to get their butts off the Democrat “plantation”.
I agree with you. Are other conservatives so dense that they cannot see this? And he supports TARP as having been necessary… this is the one thing that separates the men from the boys in the current slate (Bachmann and Santorum being the only ones besides Paul who did not support it).
Then we have a bit of a problem. Because Bachmann, Santorum and Paul don’t excite anyone. It would be hard to win a national election with someone who doesn’t even excite the base as well independents.
from what I see, Herman Cain has admitted to making the mistake of initially supporting the bailout, but after seeing what a disaster it is, allowed to change his mind on this.
I remember September 2008, we were experiencing a rollercoaster like drop in the economy and for a couple of weeks we were all scared about what might happened so for the most part some of us believed the so called “experts” in passing that monstrosity.
I don’t have a problem with a politician changing his mind on something that has over time proven itself to be a mistake…. What I can’t stand is a politican that changes his tune depending on who he is front of .
I always despise my liberal friends when they conclude conservatives are racist… and I will scream until I’m blue in the face that it isn’t true.
Then I read Karen from WY… If she truly is a conservative, then perhaps there is some truth that there are racist in the mist of the conservative movement.
But I think shes a left wing plant troll.
What did she say that was racist? It was a little bit stronger than it could have been but it sure wasn’t racist. Her list of Cain’s achievements during the campaign was more than accurate. He has played the race card at every opportunity. He has shown his abject ignorance of foreign and domestic affairs many times and he has waffled more than any other candidate in memory. His so-called business accomplishments when closely examined are mediocre to downright failures. He was for TARP and a member of the Fed. He thinks Alan Greenspan is a fine fellow and just what we need at the Fed. He lies about his bimbo eruptions. In short he is and will be a disaster unless he is stopped in his tracks soon.
All you Cain supporters can’t argue facts and won’t do it. You automatically fall back on RINO and racist insults of the thinking people who are trying to talk some sense into your heads.
“Pimp-hat wearing”, that’s not racist? I’ve never seen the guy in a hat. It’s got to do with skin color, and that’s it.
Affirmative action? “Let’s go buy Godfather pizza! A black guy runs it, and if we don’t take pity on the inferior race, they’ll never get ahead!”
You Lefties are pathetic with your Alinsky games. I’m talking to Mike and Kathryn of Wyoming (not “of bedford” any more you sock-puppet jackass?) – stand up like men and argue from your center! Pranks are for children.
Oops, forgot to add my handle to this:
“Pimp-hat wearing”, that’s not racist? I’ve never seen the guy in a hat. It’s got to do with skin color, and that’s it.
Affirmative action? “Let’s go buy Godfather pizza! A black guy runs it, and if we don’t take pity on the inferior race, they’ll never get ahead!”
You Lefties are pathetic with your Alinsky games. I’m talking to Mike and Kathryn of Wyoming (not “of bedford” any more you sock-puppet jackass?) – stand up like men and argue from your center! Pranks are for children.
* * *
“Kathryn of Wyoming” is just “william of bedford” again. Here was my reply to “him” on Mauro’s last piece:
* * *
But you’re not on our side, william of bedford. You’re a lying little prankster, and other commenters here are just you with a different e-mail address.
My guess is you’re that Adult-Baby guy on Full Disability – mommy’s out to buy formula, and you’re being naughty on the computer the taxpayers financed.
Here’s my reply to your comment on Klavan’s last post:
“You’re a conservative? A conservative who disdains Cain, loathes Clarence Thomas, sneers at Sarah Palin, and craps on Rush. Big conservative.
“‘I’m old fashioned, I don’t believe in sending someone to the White House who has cheated on his wife.’ You think you’re making fun of us, but we can see that you’re a little girl wetting her pants for giggling.
“Or, as I said in response to your comment #28 on Dr. Helen’s ‘Why was Sharon Bialek Fired’ post, you’re another white Democrat bigot. Go call somebody an oreo, Lefty.”
And that’s why we keep losing. We have principles, but we keep selling them short.Why do we have to settle for another RHINO? Why do the real conservatives like Jim DeMint fail to run? Probably because they feel like we will sell them short.
Let’s face it. Too many Americans depend on government for their livelihood; it appears that the great experiment of self government has lost. Most people can’t govern themselves; look at the idiots in OWC, complaining about their college loans. Did someone force them or did someone tell them it would be free? People run up credit card debt and then blame the banks. Did someone force them to get a credit card and use it?
Lyndon Johnson put the final nail in the coffin, aided by Roe vs Wade. We now have a country where laziness and immorality is rewarded and murder is condoned, then we wonder what is wrong with society.
“We now have a country where laziness and immorality is rewarded and murder is condoned, then we wonder what is wrong with society.”
This statement comes as close as I have seen so far that explains the root of the problem (Pubs’ failure to put a true conservative in the WH). There are simply too many people out there who do not want to mess with the precious gov’t entitlement programs. They shudder with fear over putting anyone up there who might try to reform these programs. Self sufficiency & self reliance are things which are simply beyond too many people’s “pay grade.”
That is the sticking point — entitlements. They start small and end enormous and any politician who suggests that they are not a human right and unsustainable will cede an immediate advantage to his Democrat opponent in any election.
Nothing but collapse will enable us to revive the Constitution of the First Republic (1789-1861) and return to living within our means.
The saying “what can’t go on won’t” is a warning that only a few will heed. Franklin’s wry observation should be our new motto: “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”
School is in.
All beside the point. Voters have little historical understanding of the run up to the Constitutional Convention, do not understand the solution crafted by our ancestors, are indifferent to the legal assaults on it, failed to absorb the lessons of totalitarian destruction and murder in the last century, are ignorant of the blessings of economic freedom, surrender the education of the children to leftists hostile to their way of life, and countenance massive uncontrolled third-world immigration that is changing the very foundation of the nation, among other absurdities.
Why would these same voters be amenable to reasoned arguments in favor of fiscal sanity and limited government?
Then let’s call the Hail Mary Pass. We have one shot to take this back, improbable though it may be, let’s go for broke. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so let’s take our chances with the conservative and hope it works.
We now have a country where laziness and immorality is rewarded and murder is condoned, then we wonder what is wrong with society.
True enough. And nothing new. Titus Livy, in the introduction to his monumental history of Rome remarked that his purpose in writing was “to trace the progress of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them.”
That was 2000 years ago. Unfortunately for us all, the outcomes are nothing new either. For the dark dawning of our own modern day, partial civilizational collapse is a real possibility.
The only path to national greatness is to return to worshiping Jupiter Optimus Maximus! Gloria Allred would point out that building temples to Venus is stimulative.
Too bad Goldwater didn’t win. What a different scenario if that piece of crap, LBJ, had not won.
Amen. Next to FDR, he did the most to develop & promote the huge dependency class that will continue to undermine any chances of ever having a serious reduction in the size, scope & expense of gov’t. The entitlement mentality is far too entrenched.
“the ideal candidate for conservatives isn’t some extreme right-winger. It’s a skilled politician we know we can bully.”
Well, but you’re ignoring that other people can bully him too, i.e. the Left.
There is no use in having a driver going toward the cliff, with right wing people saying “turn this right!” and moonbats screaming “turn left!”.
Which is why the down-ticket elections are so important.
Romeny is a wind-sock. The good thing about a wind-sock is that you can make it point in any direction by putting a fan in front of it. Congress can be our fan. If we can get a GOP majority in the Senate and a Tea Party majority in the House we will be able to achieve quite a bit of good. Romney’s not likely to veto many bills coming from a Congress controlled by his own party. He’s also not going to be able to ally himself with the left, since there wouldn’t be any real power there.
It’s time to stop worrying about who the Presidential nominee is going to be and start worrying about who’s going to be on the ballot for Congress.
I think along those same lines & have said so (Romney is “malleable”); thus, I am not overly concerned about him becoming the nominee. I would prefer though to see it go to either Gingrich or Cain.
The country is right of center. Like it or don’t.
It is not far right…and it is certainly not far left. It is middle of the road, slightly to the right of center.
It doesn’t like extremism.
The enemy here has been poorly identified, poorly classified, poorly marginalized, poorly isolated. The small c communists who wish to overthrow the free market, destroy capitalism, replace it and transform us…have slapped around conservatives like a pimp on a street corner disciplining his streetwalkers.
The “brand” called “conservative” is badly damaged…because the standard bearers for it have allowed themselves to be beaten to a pulp by the co-conspirators in academia, Hollywood…and especially the mass media.
Watching John McCain in a national debate wander around like he’s at the Leisure World bingo buffet, trying to find the rice pudding…or watching Rick Perry stare into the abyss that is his memory bank…is simply a cringe factory, pumping out an assembly line for ridicule, humiliation and scorn like Henry Ford was making political Edsels.
So we wind up with radical leftists pretending to be centrists going up against marble-mouthed windsocks pretending to be centrists. That’s because the small c communists don’t want a centrist at all…and the conservatives call them RINO’s…as if that is a disease. Except…the COUNTRY is center-right…not any further than that…in EITHER direction.
It’s not the “moderate” element that makes a McCain a weak candidate, or a Romney a weak candidate…it’s that they stand for nothing…except getting elected…and they are not small c communists.
If, instead…we actually ran a candidate who reflected the center-right ACTUAL position of this country (Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels)…we would win every time.
IF…the stupid party would actually stand up to the co-conspirators…shine a light on the conspiracy and attack it head on…we would win all three Houses and the Supreme Court every time.
But, they won’t. They will continue to fumble away this country into the hands of the conspirators…because they are simply too stupid to do anything else. And, we will join the PIIGS at the gates of leftist hell. Conservatives can’t figure out which mountain they want to choose to die on…so they choose them all.
In my observation, the fundamental change in US politics is the advent of electronic media which gave the President such a dominant role in political life. Constitutionally, the President is a working bureaucrat, not the “leader of the free world.” Almost everybody can tell you that FDR was President during the Great Depression and the Second World War, but only a handful of political junkies and history freaks could tell you who the leaders of Congress were in that same period, and it has been that way pretty much since FDR.
To become President, one must get 270 EVs and you can’t get them in the conservative rural counties of the Red “L” encompassing the South, the Plains, and the Intermountain West. Barry Goldwater couldn’t get the whole rural “L” and I hold that he couldn’t have gotten the South had it not been for his opposition to the ’64 Civil Rights Act; the SoCons of the Bible Belt could look away from Goldwater’s rather libertarian social views because race trumped everything.
As much as self-styled true conservatives like to canonize him, Reagan didn’t govern very conservatively on the domestic side of things. For most of his terms he was saddled with Democrat control of the Congress. The price for his tax cuts, military build up, and his confronting the “evil empire” was letting the Democrats spend a lot of money domestically, much of which was borrowed.
If conservatives want power over the direction of the Country, they have to get it in the Congress, and especially in the House. Only in the House is there enough cultural and demographic homogeniety in the relatively small districts for a member to effectively represent a significant portion of his/her constituency. A senator, a governor, and especially a President has to represent broad diverse constituencies. Many look at Alaska and Sarah Palin as an archtypally conservative state with an archtypally conservative governor, but it is a myth. In her heyday of stratospheric popularity, Sarah Palin couldn’t carry Southeast Alaska which has more in common with the US West Coast, the heavily Native American rural areas, or the affluent highly urban sections of Anchorage and Fairbanks. Rep. Don Young has represented those diverse constituencies for forty years, winning with over 70% of the vote in some elections, but I’d bet few here would embrace Young as a “true conservative.” In fact, most of you would dismiss both Young and Murkowski, and Stevens in his time, as the worst sort of RINOs, but they could win elections and were pretty reliable caucus votes. Sarah and the “true conservatives” propped up that flake Joe Miller and almost cost the Republcans a Senate seat and did make Lisa Murkowski pretty much totally independent of the Party and the Caucus. And that’s just one state with the population of one congressional district. Comrade Obama has pretty much ignored the constituencies that didn’t support him and look at his numbers. The fact that Lincoln’s Republicans could elect a President and get control of the Congress with NO support in The South was the proximate cause of the secession of the first seven Lower South states; they all knew that they could no longer control their fate in the Congress.
We now face the distinct possibility of Comrade Obama being re-elected with a totally urban and coastal constituency that despises us bitter clingers out in flyover Country. We need a Presidential nominee that can carry enough of the rural and suburban areas of some Blue states to get to 270 or we face becoming as irrelvant as the Whigs in Presidential politics and that irrelevance may well be inevitable because of seemingly inexorable demographic shifts. If that is the future we simply must make the Congress the dominant branch of government or face an urban leftist dictatorship.
“If that is the future we simply must make the Congress the dominant branch of government…”
As there is allegedly supposed to be a balance of power between the 3 branches of gov’t, how exactly is one to effect a dominance in the case of one of the branches?
Because it is a myth that there is a balance of power. The Executive Branch can do almost nothing without the authorization and funding by Congress. Congress has given away a lot of its power by authorizing the Executive to promulgate regulations, by allowing the President to “choose his team,” by working from Executive Branch budget proposals. All of those were hallmarks of the Republican Congresses of the last several years. Remember how the Democrats regularly pronounced Reagan’a budgets as “dead on arrival” when he transmitted them to Congress?
We just desperately need some dynamic polished political leaders, not a bunch of hail fellow well met types who came up in the dog eat dog world of the Rotary or the JayCees. If we had those, they’d have call the communist SOB out for the threat to cut off Granny’s SS checks and all the other community organizer/union goon crap he does. ‘Course, I’m willing to bet none of the Republican leadership has ever dealt with a union goon and I doubt any of them have ever read more than the Cliff’s Notes version of “Rules for Radicals.” It’s the same thing you find on conservative/Republican blogs; all sorts of blathering about “big ideas” and not only does nobody have an effing clue how to turn those big ideas into a program, or what sort of legislation/regulation/EO/AO it would take to initiate that program, or how to pass the legislation or promulgate the regulation or issue the order. The primary liability most Republican appointees have is that they have to be shown the light switches and restrooms in their new office by a Democrat.
Art,this present Marxist is making a mockery out of the limitations on the Executive Branch.
He is usurping power, his lackeys and minions are thumbing their noses at our “silly rules” and our even sillier Constitution.
The appointment of czars, the runaway NLRB, the passage of monstrous legislation by fiat or closed door reconciliation, the ignoring of limits on making war, printing money, lending money, seizure of industries, passage of legislation, imposition of taxes, control of the press…don’t look now but it is beginning to smell like bananas in our republic.
Clinton and the media’s playing Gingrich like a cheap fiddle in the “government shutdown” is seared in the minds of Republican leaders. They’re afraid to call the communist on stuff and cut off his money, their real power. He wouldn’t have dared cut off granny’s SS check and he should have been called on that. The problem is the mainstream media has great influence on the mushy middle, and that is where elections are won and lost. The useful idiots and self-servers will give the Democrats 30-40% no matter who the candidate is. The Republican/conservative base will give the Republicans 30-40%. That leaves 30-40% unconcerned, uninformed, and easily swayed by the last TV commercial they saw before leaving for the polls.
I think the Rs need to bare their breasts to the storm and confront him the next time he threatens to shut the government down if he doesn’t get his way; the election is still a year away. They just have to “man up” and call him. I think he overplayed his had with killing the Keystone pipeline and every time he mentions jobs, we should bludgeon him with it. But, I lived a lot of years with Rotary Club Republicans and they don’t do that confrontation and controversy stuff real well.
It can’t be put any better than that.
The great Milton Friedman once wrote that we won’t ever succeed at getting the sort of change we want by electing “the right people;” rather, we have to reform popular attitudes toward government such that there will be overwhelming incentives for “the wrong people,” when they attain high office, to do the right thing. At this time in American history, the incentives are entirely perverse, such that attaining high office depends almost exclusively on pandering to various interest-sectors:
– The civil-service sector;
– The retiree sector;
– The union sector;
– The environmentalist sector;
– The “youth” sector;
– The welfare-state sector (i.e., both beneficiaries and vendors to the system);
– The defense sector;
…and so on. And in that sort of political environment, doing the right thing isn’t just difficult; the demonstrated commitment to it will either deny you office, or get you thrown out of it!
I disagree entirely with this article. Another Nixon or Bush would end the GOP. Why waste votes on a Romney who will obviously stab us in the back? He doesn’t pretend to be conservative – he’s a liberal pretending to be moderate.
Frist, Hastert, McConnell, Bush, etc… They all campaigned as conservatives and massively expanded the size of the government.
I feel like the best Republicans (Daniels, Jindal) are sitting on the sidelines.
“So the ideal candidate for conservatives isn’t some extreme right-winger. It’s a skilled politician we know we can bully.” PERFECT! We need to ride his behind harder than Obama’s. Just like the left does to Obama, we need to do the same. Had we been doing that to Bush, instead of sitting back and thinking we had nothing to worry about, we might not have Obama.
Read page one. Would have woke the Mrs., got uot the shotgun, marched around the kitchen table while singing Waltzing Matilda.
Read page two. Would have shot the computer.
Read the comments. Ah, back in the fight.
How can you tell a RINO blogger? When he rationalizes for power without a single clue escaping his tiny head as to how that will be any benefit.
I think this goes behind pragmatism. The reason we can’t seem to nominate a genuine conservative is because too many of us lack confidence in our moral position. At some level, we believe that government should be “compassionate.” And so George W. strikes a chord. At some level, we believe the need of one man places a moral claim upon the life, labor, and property of another. And so we hang our heads in shame in the face of an aggressive budget cut. Basically, we’re wimps with conflicting root philosophies who refuse to seize the moral high ground. If Republicans learned to embrace objective morality in the realm of civil government, we would be unstoppable, and our candidates would burst from their shelters bearing shotguns with pride.
Well said. In summary, “We have met the enemy, and they are us.” Decades of leftist media and education have completely corrupted our culture in that the vast majority of our citizens no longer understand or appreciate the fundamental principles of our government or the reasons for its founding. No real conservative is likely to be nominated or elected because their views would be alien to the “masses”, that “multitude of fools” who elected Obama. This country began as a constitutional republic; it is currently a Democracy where anything goes as long as the majority has voted for it. We have only begun to reap the consequences of our democratic folly.
I believe that we conservatives are looking at the wrong office, the presidency, for the implimentation of what is best for this nation when we should be focused on the office of Speaker of the House. A conservative speaker who has the ability to articulate and appoint those into leadership roles who live by conservative priciples will be far more effective than a conservative president who has to live with deal making mush-mouths like Boehner and most of his predecessors (Newt exempted). Here’s a good trivia question. Who was Denny Hastert?
Just to add a thought to my previous post. Can you imagine a scenario in which President Mitt is handed solidly conservative (responsible) legislation by solidly conservative House and Senate leadership with an attached dare that says “here a**hole, make our day and veto this”? If we fail to recognize that the people’s power comes through congress and don’t demand more than the current mushy Repblican leadership then our victories will always be limited. We must turn our attention to this fact and act upon it through Tea Party pressure and the like. That’s how we are going to save this nation!
Flawed argument as it assumes the Presidency is not a co-equal branch of government with more to its power than signing bills sent to it. The Presidency appoints judges, which also ‘write law’, and sets policy.
For evidence, just look at what the current presidency has done to circumvent Congress and the Courts to implement devastating environmental and business policies. What is killing more jobs Obamacare or environmental regulations or labor regulations.
As to the premise of this post: No. We need a Conservative in the White House. History does not comport with your argument. Just ask Presidents Dole, Ford, and McCain. Moderates, all. That horrible right wing nut Reagan won two terms – and although he forgot he was a Conservative in his second term, GWB ran as one.
If the President simply appointed judges then Harriet Miers would be a Justice. ObamaCare, the EPA regulations etc. can’t be made functional if not funded. Congress has exclusively the funding and approval power that it doesn’t utilize or direct in a conservative manner. A Mitt Romney would be a less than ideal choice in my view but I can’t imagine that he would be a devious tyrant as we now have. If a President Mitt couldn’t get his judicial nominations approved unless they were conservative nominations and he couldn’t get his government expanding wishes funded then he would be bent in the right direction. GWB, etc. failed conservative values because of weak congessional leadership. No, I don’t believe you see the big picture and are a little weak on the facts and the way the executive and congressional relationship works.
Yooper, you explain clearly why we should work to maintain
the Majority in the House and elect conservatives to the
Senate with a majority. A veto proof majority.
This would also stop activist judges in the Federal Courts.
No matter who is elected President this should be our goal.
The Presidency really isn’t “co-equal,” though Presidents and other members of the executive branch like to say it is and act like it is. The executive branch has little if any intrinsic power; it exists merely to execute the expressed will of the People through the Congress. The President can appoint the officers of the executive and the Judicial Branch but the nominees are subject to the advice and consent of the Senate and all executive and, yes, even Judicial power is subject to the power of the Congress and particularly the fiscal power of the Congress.
Unfortunately, the advent of electronic media and its domination by, at best, fellow travellers almost from the outset has made the Presidency the most understood and powerful Branch since with television the President has far more than just a “bully pulpit.” The President can use his lectern with the Great Seal on it to very literally bully the Congress and to some extent even the Judiciary, and this is expecially true when the President is a Democrat who makes the media’s legs tingle.
We have never had truly powerful and effective Republican leaders in either the House or the Senate since the advent of radio and television Gingrich came close but his personal foibles and the fact that so many Republican officeholders view power as a zero sum game doomed him. Democrats have much more caucus discipline and will tolerate very heavy handed caucus leadership. Entirely too many Republican politicians beleive that one person’s power comes only at the expense of another’s and refuse to grant necessary power to leaders and when powerful leaders arise, to everything they can to tear them down. In other words, with friends like a lot of Republican politicians, you don’t need many enemies.
You have to remember that the backbone of the RINO wing of the party consists of the crony capitalists; the really big money. The ones who split their campaign contributions to buy power from wherever it seems to flow.
It is incorrect that the nation is center right. They only think that because they don’t think they could wrest power from the crony capitalists. Therefore they are inclined to beg for a little(center-right) than demand a lot ( far right and home of their heart).
You want to know where the Republican party’s heart lies? Winnow the field to Romney and Paul. Make the choice stark. Remove the chance for win by plurality. That is the hill to die on, today. The moreso in the general election.
The ones who want power for its sake will reject this. They would sell the nation for the keys to its ruins. For them, conservatism is a nicer ride in the parade. Its still the same parade a democrat would ride in.
THIS IS THE HILL TO DIE ON.
Is it really too much to ask that our politicans actually read the Constitution and follow what it really says? And the the “progressive” view which render th constraints as meaningless. Is it really too much to expect that politicans stop lying to us? If not, then we are really too far gone as a nation.
If we can’t or won’t control our borders are we still a nation? If “law” can be make by bureaucrats or by judges are we still a Republic? The answer is no, but an oligarchy of the anointed.
“Conservatives just need to come to grips with the fact that it’s always going to be a Mitt Romney-type who leads the ticket.”
If that is indeed the case, the GOP should come to grip with the fact that I will no longer vote Republican.
If it’s Mitt Romney this time, I’m switching my registration to Independent and voting third party.
I have held my nose and voted GOP in every election from 1988 to 2008. I figure that continuing to do so only encourages the squishy establishment RINO wing of the party to take my vote for granted – so from now on, the GOP nominee has to earn my vote. Being a slighly better option than the Dem is no longer good enough for me.
Although I have to admit losing elections doesn’t seem to get through the establishment GOP’s thick skull, either. If McCain wasn’t enough to warn them off nominating Romney, I guess they’ll never learn. Their contempt for the base knows no bounds.
Yeah. I can go with this. I feel better now, like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Go Romney!
What? Perry is invisible? The state works just fine in Texas. I’m here. It’s great. I wish ya’ll could see it. I don’t know how to make this get across. He’s good at his job- which is running things. And working with legislatures- ours is mostly Democrat. We got out of a financial hole dug courtesy of the Democrats.
Perry is conservative, pragmatic, tested, and not a lunatic. I wish you could see it.
I’ve been saying this for years. There is no way to save this country. We COULD save a large ( way more than half ) portion of it however. We just need to lop off New England and the western third of California, Oregon and Washington and let them starve and freeze. The rest of us could have a great country. We could go back and reacquire the amputated badlands after the zombies eat each other.
Don’t throw away everyone in New England out with the bathwater.
The 20th century Fox is about to be replaced by a 21st century Lion. >:)
This is going to be a bottom-up reformation, and effort expended winning
the top slot in the top end of the government of the US of A is wasted,
because power has already begun devolving downward to the States,
the cities, and the people.
South Carolina has a OPEN Repug primary- that is how a loser like mccain won here. . . .the dems voted for him.. .
A conservative like DeMint??!! Where the hell has he been on Gunrunner/walker, drill here, drill now, and for that matter , the “o”s inelligibility to even run for office- his father was not a US citizen. Little jimmy is sliding down the slope to RINOism. . . . too bad.
How long til all you armchair philosophers realize electing these scumballs doesn’t matter. . . we are way beyond that. You can sit like the Senators in Rome did when the barbarians came to wax them, and have your stupid moot-point arguments. As for me, (and many I know) I am concerned soley with the protection of my family and those I care about. If there is anything left in the ashes after TSHTF then those of us who can will try again.
Then close the Republican Primary, it is a matter of Party discretion and the USSC upheld it.
Republicans are known far and wide as the stupid party, electing a RINO is just a half step towards democrats liberalism, elect enough RINO’s and ya got an Obama POTUS (pbuh) except he will call himself a Republican.
Electing a left wing Republican is about as stupid a move as can be done.
But Republicans will every floggin’ time. hence the tag “Stupid Party” just to be fair the Name for the democrats is “The Evil Party”.
A left wing democrat and a left wing Republican is the same as a one party system. Add a Lefty VP and ya got a Troika, that’s soviet.
Ya want to win? get all your seats available in congress? Then go balls out and elect a real live Republican.
Romney is just an all white Obama.
The situation is analgous to that of Margaret Thatcher and the British Conservative Party. Mrs. Thatcher was the real deal. She was tough, smart, and highly principled. The establishment Tories hated her for it. The Oxbridge types that dominate British politics saw her as a lower-class bourgeoise outsider who (gasp!) actually said what she meant. Despite her success they resented her for years until they were able to mount a party coup against her.
The situation is the same here. Conservatives in the U.S. are viewed as the true “lower classes” by the political elites of both parties. Part of it is fear of being ripped by the the sclerotic MSM (news and entertainment branches) for having “wacky” opinions. When the Tea Party emerged the general tone of our political classes was….”Just who ARE these people and where do they come from.” The underlying message was “Don’t they realize that they should know their place?”
I like Romney and wil support him if he is the GOP candidate. However I don’t believe he has the fire-in-the-belly to go out and go mano-a-mano with the Democratic media machine. He has to stand FOR something and express that something in the clearest and starkest terms.
Sorry guys (Author and Readers),
but I am going to annoy everybody for the whole next year:
the Republic is in the hands of a communist cell, that is the only point we have to debate.
Roll back the commies. Period.
I don’t care who, how, how RINO, how Tea Party Patriot.
Roll back the commies. Period.
There will be no America, no Rinos, no tea Parties if we don’t roll back the commies.
SZ…you and I can shout until our voices go hoarse…nobody is listening and the propaganda machine is covering up and distorting.
We are being whipsawed into oblivion. The country is being stolen under our noses and we quibble about the inane.
There is little hope here, SZ.
The small c communists have run up the score, seized the momentum, bribed the refs…and we are throwing out our second stringers onto the field.
We are staring into the abyss, SZ…and nobody is listening.
I hear you.
It is as you say.
That’s because America had never been infected by totalitarianism before and it has not developed the antibodies.
Most of the folks do not understand that this is war.
But we are Americans, aren’t we ?
OK, I have no big money and I have little time, but we must start doing something.
I am thinking:
we could prepare documents with complete listings of all the true and dirty tricks played by this administration, and appeals to unify the dissent, the opposition. Beat the drum like hell for twelve months.
I don’t know.
Please go to my blog, on the left column you will find, masked in the text, a way to contact me.
Let’s start. Let’s start talking.
We are Americans, we are not going to be silenced or drowned by the tricks of the commie machine.
I don’t expect the useful idiots that form the 30-40% that any Democrat can expect in a General Election to listen or even care that Comrade Obama is a Red Diaper Baby and we essentially had a coup d’etat in Nov. ’08. I don’t expect the mushy middle to listen to the situation in those terms because the salient characteristic of the mushy middle is that they can’t stand conflict or confusion so they vote against whomever upsets them. What bothers me is professing conservatives, most of whom are really libertarians but don’t know it or won’t say it, who say they’ll vote for the communists before they’ll vote for Romney. Or the SoCons/SIVVs who’ll sit out or vote third party rather than vote for Romney who can’t see or don’t care that either of those actions is a vote for the communists. It is staggering insanity!
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-mitt-romneys-perfect-storm_607876.html
Romney has been lucky this year.
As for liberals, they finally learned their lesson when Mondale proudly proclaimed he would raise taxes.
Now their left-wing nutters proudly lie that they are centrists. Why? Because they know that is what it takes to win. Since conservatives hate liars, we end up nominating people who really are centrists.
With Mondale they learned so well half the Dems hate Clinton’s guts and they put Obambi in the White House. You’re a maroon, proRomney.
um, Tom, since your post was so short I read it.
Are you even aware that you seconded my post?
Clinton personally learned a lesson after being spanked in1994, the dems learned nothing. Witness Hillarycare and Obama.
First of all, this piece is satire. I suspect Frank is making fun of the Republican establishment.
Second of all, none of the current crop of candidates can win. Romney can’t because he’s too obviously a sell-out–just like McCain. The rest of the candidates are damaged goods and no general electorate is going to elect them.
Sadly, the Republican party has done a crappy job of fielding candidates for this election even though they had three years to prepare for it and they knew what the base wanted. It doesn’t say much for the leadership of the GOP that this is what we have to choose from. We won’t get a truly electable, conservative candidate until the GOP is torn down and rebuilt. I thought the Tea Party was going to do that but it doesn’t look like it.
Any of the current candidates could win, the point is there isn’ t much point in Romney winning.
Yup.
Sure, doesn’t matter that Obama will destroy the rest of the free markets economy, it does not matter that Iran will have nukes. Israel ?
It’s all the same.
And this is the proof that Obama was elected by ignorance and stupidity.
Have you read a single paper about Romney’s economic plans ?
And his foreign policy ?
The Republic will not survive to all this ignorance.
Thatstatement is simply insane! So, you’d rather have an avowed communist make the next USSC appointment? You like all the Democrat appointees on the NLRB? You like that they are rooting as far down as they can in the regional and state level federal offices and installing activist Democrats in every vacant position?
We can have our fight in the Primaries, but anybody with a brain will vote for ANYBODY with an R behind their name in the General.
Newt and Romney will most likely be the last two men standng. Will I support the winner, certainly. America needs real leadership and we don’t have it. I will take the gamble and vote for whomever wins the nomination. I am not sitting out this election to let Obama have another term under any circumstances.
Ok so we wanted a steak, and we got a hamburger. Either eat it or go hungry because Obama and his administration are destroying this country. Your choice.
I’m just looking for a Right Wing Nut like Reagan. Newt could be it, or Cain.
Not Romney; he’s just McCain without the service record and PTSD.
Call me crazy.
It seems that Fleming is looking for a violent, paranoid, fascist dictator to take the helm of our Democracy, perhaps a Mussolini, a Franco, or a you-know-who. If we had such a type in the government now, Fleming would have disappeared in the night a long time ago. We don’t do that in America. A democratic republic is run on principles of compromise that take place in the public discourse and at the polls. In our social contract, we agree to abide by the will of the majority, and if the majority elects a putz, then we work to influence that putz and tolerate him or her until a change is possible. The reason that the GOP votes for moderate candidates is because the populace of the U.S. is dominantly moderate and corporate sponsorship favors moderates. In fact, a great many people see Tea Party legislators as obstructionists who take the if-I-don’t-get-my-way-I-won’t-play approach to governance, which leads to unproductive stalemates. These political machinations have undermined the credibility of our government in general, Tea Party GOPers included.
The answer is simplicity itself: the more the social conservatives screech about moral issues, the higher the rejection from the electorate. Why is the MSM in pursuit of Cain? Because they fear him? No. It’s because social conservatives are unfortunately the current face of the GOP and the “conservatives” seem laser focused on moral issues to the detriment of all else. Thumping “conservatives” is as simple as showing them to be liars about the only thing they seem concerned about. See: Fish, Barrels.
We get Romney because in a field of morally superior, prayer breakfast attending imbeciles, Romney seems like the only candidate capable of speaking intelligently about stuff that matters (global geopolitics, for example.
Were the GOP to drop social issues at the national level and concentrate on jobs and energy (i.e. the issues that matter to most voters) the left wouldn’t be able to win, ever. As for fiscal conservatism, this is stupidity on stilts. The US needs a national level investment in nuclear power so as to answer the needs for energy use. Cheap abundant energy and wealth go hand in hand. The fiscal conservative answer is WRONG (i.e. government reduction) in this case; what is needed is massive taxpayer investment in energy delivery that is proven to work. What obviously isn’t needed is for taxes to go up so that Obama can bail out failing solar firms. Taxes going up is inevitable and if we get cheap energy then we at least have something.
Conservatives need to wake up. What matters is jobs and energy. Focus on the stuff that matters.
Which is why we should all vote for Romney the Whig candidate in 2012.
What?!?
You’re kidding?
The Whigs got destroyed by this sort of economics only thinking, and their lack of moral courage led to the Civil War? Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican!
Man, I feel silly. I didn’t get the memo.
Still, I agree with our Whigs. Socons, stay home, don’t vote, you’re not wanted or needed, and your betters realize this would be a better party without your votes, energy, or money. Go WHIGS!!
This bigot’s argument ignores such politicians as Sen Scott Brown (Liberal Republican-Mass) who ran on fiscal conservatism yet betrayed every fiscal promise he made.
I agree America needs jobs and energy however America won’t have these things with such politicians as flip-flopping unprincipled Harvard-snot Mitt Romney, hand-raiser to Global Warming/Climate Change fraud created to enrichen Environmental tyrants.
In any case; the author Frank Fleming missed the real problem as to why Conservatives can’t win Presidential elections, ehe Ruling Class has all the campaign cash they’ve looted, pillaged and plundered through their Crony Socialist evil palm-greasing.
If running on social issues means we lose, so be it. It’s not worth winning if we lose our souls in the process.
Thanks for the replies, folks.
The point is that if you want to elect a GOP president then the candidate has to be electable, and electable means that s/he needs to appeal to the majority of the voters, and the majority is “centrist” — generally speaking, fiscally more conservative and socially more liberal. A candidate with social conservatism as the hallmark strength is doomed; this only appeals to the far right and is championed only in far right echo chambers like this one. A candidate focused on fiscal issues rather than social issues is a winner.
As for “fiscal conservatism” vis a vis the tea party mantra of gutting government and such, this isn’t going to happen. There is no fiscal conservatism and there has been none in the lifetimes of any poster on this board. The interstate was a government investment that grew the economy immeasurably, as was Reagan’s SDI (gave us the internet and GPS among other easily seen trickle down technologies.) Computers, rocketry, vaccines, all of these things were brought up far faster than pure marketplace innovation due to investment by government. The reason the US is the world’s only superpower is **republican** directed investment — not because some vapid tea partier waved a “don’t tread on me” flag and promised to gut DOE.
Are there bureaucratic excesses that need addressing? Certainly. See Pournelle’s Iron Law for example. But the “fiscal conservative” tea party answer of getting rid of agencies is just silly. Dial them back, sure. Do a better job of funding and defining mission and scope. The EPA is useless trying to classify CO2 as a pollutant, we all agree on this. The EPA is still useful for dealing with multi-state or multinatational polluters.
The overall point is to concentrate on issues that are winners for the GOP and the voting population — and jobs and energy top the list. Drop the idiotic and ahistorical requests for “fiscal conservatism” and instead ask for simple common sense and responsibility.
Romney can not be elected President. It will just ensure Obama another term!
Well, if Romney clones will always be at the top of the GOP’s presidential ballot, then the GOP is going to have to get used to never holding the presidency again.
And the rest of us need to start looking at investing in gold, guns, and food.
Mitt Romney’s candidacy ends with this video from his 2002 campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_w9pquznG4
He was not just pro-choice, he was PASSIONATELY pro-choice, as a 56 year old man who strenuously denies he was EVER pro-Life. He even cited the brave example of his pro-choice mother, who lost a Senate campaign because of her “principled” stance. Is he going to throw his dead Mom under the bus? No Rom-bot is going to be able to argue with this, to defend this blatant pandering. Watch and be revolted!
I’ve never understood how easily the republicans have let the democrats take the candies from their hands. Take the black community, for example. The republican party was CREATED by abolitionists. The very first republican president ended slavery, and it have always been republicans who have fought for equality for the black people. The democrats opposed this. The KKK was an organization of democrats. Many white republicans were lynched by the KKK just like many blacks were. Nevertheless, today the black community votes democrat and the republicans are seen as the “white racists” who want to put blacks back in the plantation. It is not a coincidence that the more the blacks vote democrat, the worse off is the black community. But republican leaders don’t even have the heart to set the record straight.
There are many other key issues in which the democrats have effectively shed off their guilt and cast it on the silly republicans, who have so far proved to be too stupid to make things right. Even the word “liberal” has been hijacked because it has a tone of “freedom” that the words “statist, collectivist, totalitarian, socialist” lack. What the republicans need is a leader with clear conservative principles, with a solid philosophical and ideological foundation, and with the political knowledge, wit and experience necessary to set the record straight and take on the enemies of the government of the people. We are waiting.
“So why is that? Are the left just more devoted to their cause than we are?”
No, the reason is that hard Left does not have a majority in the country and neither do the hard Conservatives.
That means that the Presidency, as well as control of Congress, is repeatedly determined by that 30-50% of the people in the middle, the Reagan Democrats and the Clinton Republicans, the RINOs and the Blue Dogs, that everyone loves to despise, and who, with no functional party of their own, are left voting against the cores of the other two parties more than they go out to vote for one or the other.
For Congress that only affects the unsafe swing districts that determine majority or outright control.
For the President, it means that hard ideologues of either side have a strong tendency to fail, and fail mightily, except when the other side puts up someone worse.
Obama did not win because of a mass surge by the Young Socialists.
He won because people were upset with the economy and didn’t trust another Republican.
Obama will not lose because of a collapse by the Young Socialists.
He will lose because people are even more upset with the economy.
Unless of course that is Republicans put forward a bland irrelevance like McCain or Dole.
More, if they put forward someone who is not merely portrayed as a frenzied ideologue but acts like one, they practically guarantee that he will only have 1 term, and that Congress will flip back mid-term.
Forgetting that the vast, despised Center votes against more than they vote for is what is destroying Obama, what got Pelosi booted, what put Pelosi and Reid in power in the first place, and what got Gingich booted.
Remembering it is what got the second Bush, Clinton, and Reagan second terms.
What bothers me most about Romney is that he is SUCH a RINO that he will not even meet with Tea Party members. He treats them like they’re the brain-damaged idiots of the party, instead of the people who actually come out on election day and get people elected. It is the very base of the Republican Party now and if this drip doesn’t want to play nice with it, he’s never going to go over 23% in the polls.
So if you’re going to vote for a RINO, at least go with Newt Gingrich. At least he’s a good debater and will make Obama look like a fool before election day. At least that’s something. Newt also knows how Washington runs and how to get things passed in Congress. So if I’m going to get a RINO, at least get one with a pointy horn on its nose. As it looks now, Cain is going down and my favorite, Michele Bachmann, doesn’t stand a chance (although I never quite understood why). So unless Bachmann starts getting her act together and wins Iowa, I don’t see that she’s got much of a future.
I will not get tired.
Anyone saying that he/she will not support the GOP candidate against the commies IS a democrat plant.
They did it in 2008 , the plants were all over all the forums, and they kept home a substantial part of the conservative voters.
They are doing it again.
Roll back the commies.
This is the point of these elections. Period.
Since your second sentence is completely wrong (have you READ our posts??!!) I didn’t waste my time reading the rest of it.
“When the car is speeding towards the cliff, we have to be on the hood of that car, screaming at the driver, ‘TURN THIS THING AROUND!’”
But watch out for overpasses… that’s Mitt’s dog strapped to the roof!
You don’t defeat a liberal with a liberal-lite candidate. That is why Obama and the Dems want Romney. If the voters have a choice between, “Lots of free stuff at someone else’s expense” and “Less free stuff at someone else’s expense,” they will choose the Santa with the bigger bag. But when the voters have a choice between “Lots of free stuff…” and “I won’t take money from your right pocket to put it into your left pocket – after deducting a handling charge,” Santa suddenly loses believers,
Resist Romney – who has changed positions more often than an insomniac with restless leg syndrome, and whose only skill may be delivering a better concession speech than did McCain and Dole.
Once, just for once, please God I’m begging you, I want to be able to vote FOR someone instead of against. I’ve held my nose to vote so damned often I think I’ve forgotten how to breath threw my nostrils. If we continue to vote for one party despite the fact that they fail again and again and again to deliver for us, just because we hate the other guys, how are we different from the black community that vote 90%+ for Dems because they think we’re racists?
What we need are bold, contrasting colors, not pale pastels. If we get another McCain/Dole/Bush squish/convictionless/technocrat then let the whole damned thing burn to the ground. Ill move out of the city, shoot my families own food. After the “99%” kill each other off and starve to death, people with basic math and logic skills can get together and start over.
With the country leaning ever further to the Left and America becoming increasingly dependent on the government, welfare, food stamps, extended unemployment benefits, student loan relief, WIC, etc., it is becoming increasingly unlikely that any conservative, elected official will serve more than one term. The entitlement crowd and let’s exclude the social security recipients from this discussion, besides becoming less self reliant, over time become convinced that government largess is their just due.
Conservatism is nothing if not grounded in self reliance and individual, personal responsibility. In a conservative America the opportunities are there; failure to take advantage and make the best of what you have to offer is no ones fault but your own. Where is this attitude of self reliance today?
Conservatives will necessarily have to promote and institute policies that will infuriate an ever growing population of have-nots determined to get their “just rewards” by taking it from the rich who they’ve been taught are guilty of holding them back, motivated by a perverse desire to keep them hungry, homeless and poverty stricken. That this is completely illogical not to mention completely false never enters their confused, indoctrinated minds.
When the Occupy Whatever crowd was a small minority of the voting public these demonstrations were a minor nuisance; annoying, amusing, a curiosity but a non issue. This has increasingly not been the case. The Democrats have been courting this crowd for decades, catering to all their emotional pleas for government support and financial assistance and actively participating in their indoctrination. One result: fully 47% of taxpayers pay no income tax but scream about the rich not paying their “fair share.”
The balance of self reliant, patriotic Americans VS government dependent, dissatisfied, disgruntled, unpatriotic Americans has been and continues to shift towards the latter. When a young man on the street, part of an Occupy crowd, says he doesn’t give a f**k if there were 911 more 9/11s one has to wonder how prevalent is this attitude. If this mind set ever becomes dominant, America, as we conservatives know and love it, will cease to exist and the Liberals/Progressives/Communists/Socialists/Islamists/Obamas will reign supreme.
Awareness of this pending catastrophe is perhaps what prevents conservatives from picking “Right Wing Nuts” as nominees for political office. It’s pick the guy or gal best able to defeat The One and perhaps start us down what will be a very long, rocky road back to first principles. We’re talking generations not one election cycle. Getting folks off the dole and back to gainful employment will be a great start.
“Conservatives just need to come to grips with the fact that it’s always going to be a Mitt Romney-type who leads the ticket, which is why we can’t make the president the standard bearer for conservatism.”
No I don’t. Sooner or later this will mean a third party and all the pain that will entail. Screw the GOP.
If Cain wins the GOP primariy; Obama will have to run only on his record…
If Romney or Newt win the nomination; Obama will run only on theirs.
And the MSM will help him.
All of the Republicans running for the office of President of the United States of America are better qualified for that office than Barack Obama (even with his four years’ experience, because he has not grown in office), and the only nut, Ron Paul, is LESS nutty than Barack Obama.
Why must Republicans buy into these stupid mischaracterizations pressed upon us all by the dirty wing of the Democratic Party at the national level?
These people are neither nuts (except Ron Paul) and they don’t even qualify for right-wing, especially according to the standards of this article.
“Right wing” is an INSULT used against a very pragmatic, centrist American party by a fundamentally dishonest pack of lefties.
While I enjoyed the tongue in check,the concept of a right-wing nut hiding in a bomb shelter and carrying weapons or threatening politicians is no service to conservatives.
I have known such people and they are as likely to follow a left-wing politician as any so-called right-wing politician. Comparing them to conservatives is about on par with comparing them to the OWS crowd. And no, I am not including everyone who owns a tornado shelter or an emergency generator: Imean nuts. The nuts are not, generally, conservative. (And for the lefties, no I don’t mean the mentally handicapped either.)
As for Rombama: We need Tough Love. If the Republicans want Romney, conservatives should vote for Obama, and then demand he print money until the cows come home.
Yeah, I know what will happen, but so what? The best Romney will do is slowdown the collapse just enough to squeak outof office and not get blamed.
If the economy collapses under Obama we will just lose everything now, while we are awake, we have the internet, and we have time to clean up the mess.
In twenty years, the Democratic party will control the country with a sizeable population of people who do not speak English (or rather will not), and who believe every kind of vile and malicious calumny their masters print. If Romney can help the Democrats reach that promised land, we can endure some hardship to stop him.
Or… we can have 4 years of Bush on steroids empowering every Lefty scheme a Republican can get away with. Heck, Romney might even get us into a few more wars! Hey, great they can blame that on us too.
Just sayin…
“The best Romney will do is slowdown the collapse just enough to squeak out of office and not get blamed.”
Exactly, Fleming even admits that in the article:
“But the Republican we nominate is always someone who only promises to ease up on the gas a little.”
Yet he still insists we should vote for him. I’m sorry but that’s crazy.
The comments on this article are far mor insightful and reasoned than the article itself.
What thel establishment Republicans don’t get is that they are not off the hook
ALL Americans blame them as much as the Democrats for our current poor state
Don’t mistake the conservative winning in 2010 as energy for RINOS.
The solutions will not come from the likes of Romney nor any liberal no matter what party they are in.
This article, with all due respect, is perfectly illustrative of the sort of ‘loser’s mentality’ that has seized conservatives in this country and which is letting this country fall down the hole.
It would be great if all the mental energy that goes into deciding that things’ll always suck and we’ll never get what we want went into figuring out how to get what we want.
sheesh.
i have held my nose for too many election cycles. I won’t do it again. I have followed Buckley’s commandment and it has left me with pseudo conservatives and losers. As long as the collective ‘we’ continue to put up with the machine politics of the right we will get only retread machine politicians. The country is in critical need of a leader not a political weathervane, but we will only have another party apparatchik….again. The constant drumbeat for Romney, Romney, Romney, even by the left tells me that an October surprise is an almost sure thing. They know that he is the only candidate that will leave the Conservative base as un-enthused as the progressive left is a about CheBama. They know that they can beat Romney. And I don’t care if they do.
Conservatives don’t have to resign themselves to any such thing. All they have to do is form their own party and both failed parties will have to start seeking their votes. Why? Because they ‘ll be free at last to call the truth about the GOP what it is. It is the causesd of liberal successes with its deliberate refusal to oppose the evil that is socialism.
One of the realties of life is that a majority of citizens are not conservative or liberal. There are always going to be folks in the middle that are for example fiscal conservatives and socially liberal or who are moderate on some issues and not on others. They are and will always be uncomfortable with the “if you’re not fer us, you’re agan’ ust” attitude parroted by both parties. They see that while there are standards reality must by nature be addressed.
Let’s take abortion for example. Fact there are lots of people having unprotected sex, there are rapes, incest and times when the life of the mother is in danger. For some of these events there needs to be a procedure to address a wrong perpetrated by someone other than the woman (apart from the criminal aspect). Both sides of the debate seem to forget this is a medical procedure and should have stayed just that. It is not nor should it be, used as birth control or for the convenience of the parties involved.
The lefts stand of it’s a woman’s body and she gets to decide what happens to it is fallacious and the rights stand that no matter the circumstances the procedure should never be done is just as ridiculous. As with zero tolerance policies they fly in the face of logic and reason and have entered the realm of Kabuki theater. Our Judio-Christian legal system operates one case at a time and while I understand it is easier to lump all similar things together and make draconian for all, it just isn’t right.
The President has to be the president for “All Americans”. He has to stand even for those he disagrees with. If he doesn’t he will eventually stand for no one. We on the right should now be able to understand, that given political agenda of the current resident of 1600 Penn. Ave. Does he represent us, NO! Does he respect our opinions, beliefs and desires? Seriously? So this is a good way to govern?
But I guess to some of us, as long as our side is the perpetuator, that makes it right (pun sooooooo intended)
Then let them form their own party. Quit trying to hijack ours.
“Conservatives just need to come to grips with the fact that it’s always going to be a Mitt Romney-type who leads the ticket, ”
This started out so well. What happened? The way it ended, this could have been written by Mitt Romney.
Why do conservative always assume that the policy positions a politician takes during a campaign are a gauge of their conservatism (or lack of it?)
We never assume that for Democrats. When Obama goes all moderate on us, no one is fooled.
Dudes! Politicians take positions based on polling! What a revelation right?
Gingrich talks conservative (sometimes) but has lived liberal. Romney talks liberal (sometimes), but lives conservative.
In the end, it’s irrelevant–the real problem is that conservatives have not done their proselyting.
WTF???? You never heard of a guy named RONALD REAGAN?….
Frank- you reek of karlrove-esque establishment elitest liberal republican dogma. With your snotty attitude you talk down to us mere citizens by explaining that we should just sit down, shut up and do as we’re told by our betters. Your purpose is obvious by the title which insinuates that any candidate besides the liberal romney is a “right-wing nut”. Then you assume your sitting on a rock with your chin on a fist position to inform all of the little hobbits of establishment republican ‘truth’- the republican nominee will always be who karl rove and the establishment republicans says it will be. Then you suggest that we, in effect, should just cancel all of the primaries because intrade and the establishment republicans have determined that- guess who?- the liberal romney has already won. You are laughable frank. I don’t know who the eventual nominee will be but I can guarantee you two things, first, the republican nominee will not be the liberal romney. And second, if the GOP doesn’t get it’s house in order I predict a third party, the Conservative Party, will rise up to reclaim America. Then you have a whole paragraph (“at the end of the day”) designed to inform all of conservatives who we really are, and including the ever so insightful pronouncement “while we want to nominate…”, because we little hobbits do not know who we are and what we really want. You do not speak for conservatives frank because you are not a conservative. Liberal republicans, and marxist democrats, are always trying to tell conservatives what it means to be conservative in much the same that athiests are always trying to tell Christians what it means to be Christian. You do not define us frank. You do not speak for us. And you certainly will not make us ‘come to grips’ with anything. Frank, you and your elitest establishment republican bunch, along with the marxist democrats, have gotten us into the sorry state America is in. And it is up to Conservatives- at 40% the largest group self described- to get America out of it.
This article exemplifies the cluelessness of so many who have landed gigs as “conservative” writers. It isn’t 20 years ago. We stand on the brink of hyper-inflation (and perhaps a total collapse of our currency). That means we can’t afford to let false conservatives tap the breaks a little to slow us down. We need politicians who intend to turn things around. If the GOP doesn’t run leaders like that, there is no motivation to support their candidates. If the choice is to let Obama destroy America or to let Romney destroy America three years further down the line, neither will get my vote. If the GOP STILL hasn’t figured that out, they don’t deserve conservative voters’ support.
“Brakes”, not “breaks.”
We still have the residual Reagan coalition trying to hold the party together. I wish Reagan were here today to scold Rush, Eric, and the other malcontents playing to their base, rather than trying to unite the party against Obama.
Head-To-Head: (FLORIDA)
Mitt Romney 45% (+3)
Barack Obama 42%
Barack Obama 45%
Newt Gingrich 42% (-3)
Barack Obama 45%
Herman Cain 41% (-4)
Barack Obama 46%
Rick Pery 40% (-6)
The party IS united against Obama. They are also largely united against Romney. What other candidate has REPUBLICANS who are so against him that they’ve built a website specifically saying “NOT [candidate's name]“?
The last time I voted for a Republican was Reagan’s second term, all the other times I was voting against the Democrat. This time I will again be voting against someone rather than for someone. Getting very tired of having to take a bullet in the leg in the hope of preventing a bullet in the head! But this is where we are (have been for a Century now) as the two true Conservative R candidates (Bachmann and Santorum) can’t muster even 5% support. America’s two Party system has morphed into a Marxist Party (D) against a Liberal Party (R) as America’s Politicians pave the road for their race toward Big Government Socialism. I’m going to commit a mortal sin and mention Historical president; Historical Fact does prove this never ends well for the masses.
Perhaps Frank is right, but if we accept this as true then we will lose our faith to continue the fight. Conservatism and a massive spiritual revival are both necessary to turn the country around. A Mitt Romney cannot be the agent for either of those things. Personally, I hoped for a Sarah Palin candidacy right up until she opted out. The very attributes that made her a “polarizing” effect for some people increased her appeal to me. Now, I must hope for a Rick Perry or Herman Cain success….. someone who recognizes that the Tea Party ideals are very popular with everyone except the lefties.
why don’t repub’s nominate a real right wing nut?
law of odds is my guess. after all, i always heard most of the nuts,
and flakes come from california. all hail ronnie baby.