A post by Pat
Spinning around going nowhere is more like it.
Michael Steele says the Republican Party has turned the corner, the honeymoon is over. If cliches were all that was needed to take on Obama, Michael Steele is our man. Republicans will speak “truth to power” and are about “winning the future”. Steele says the Republican Party has to get back to being the party of new ideas. They have to replace an 80’s philosophy and a 90’s strategy with a 21st Century vision.
What are those new ideas? Steele didn’t get into that. He says it’s going to take time to get that going. Sorry sir, but we don’t really have time. Michael Steele has been the Chairman of the RNC just a couple of weeks less than Barack Obama has been President. We have the government running auto companies, a $3.7 trillion budget, the financial sector is being held hostage, new edicts and insane legislation coming up everyday. For the loyal opposition? Today they decided to stop apologizing.
The Republican Party doesn’t know what to do. So-called moderates want conservatives to shut up and maybe just go away so the party can be more inclusive. To them that makes sense. Steele in an interview with Fox News yesterday said narrowly speaking to one segment of the population is “boneheaded”. He asked how deciding who is included and who is excluded in the party is “going to feed a starving child”. Ay yay yay!
Steele calls himself a conservative, an admirer of Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke is the guy who said the way for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. So far the Republicans have done nothing but come up with cliches and workshops about the vision thing. Obama is stronger and more audacious every day.
From today’s speech (video available at CSPAN)
We are at a crucial juncture for our party, and more importantly for our country. Simply put, America needs us now more than ever before. It’s time to rise to the occasion. It’s time to make our voices heard. It’s time to serve our country as the loyal opposition.
…today I’m going to talk to you about some very important turning points for our party.The first turning point is this: Today we are declaring an end to the era of Republicans looking backward. We have just endured two successive elections where we were soundly defeated. As a result, many of us, me included, have done some soul searching. We have looked closely at the places we went wrong, we have talked openly and publicly about our mistakes and our deficiencies. If you don’t learn from the past, you are of course destined to repeat it. This has been a difficult, yet healthy and necessary task for our party.
People are sick of politicians and political parties who never own up to their mistakes. We have done so. We lost our way on spending and we owned up to that. We came to Washington to change it and in some ways we let Washington change us, and we owned up to that. We’ve taken some important steps to recover our values and our senses, and we can say we see the world with a clearer head and a sharper vision.
The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done. The time for trying to fix or focus on the past has ended. The era of Republican navel gazing is over. We have turned the corner on regret, recrimination, self-pity and self-doubt. Now is the hour to focus all of our energies on winning the future.
The Republican Party is again going to emerge as the party of new ideas. It will take some time, for sure, but it is beginning now. Our governors are emerging with fresh answers to old problems. Some of our brightest stars in Congress are emerging with new approaches. New groups and new entities are being formed. Republicans are rising once again with the energy, the focus, and the determination to turn our timeless principles into new solutions for the future. The introspection is now over. The corner has been turned.
The second turning point for our party is this: We are going to take the president head-on. The honeymoon is over. The two-party system is making a comeback, and that comeback starts today.
The Democrats are in power. They wanted it and now we are going to make them own the results of their arrogance of power: Policies that are hurting the long-term health of our country. We are going to give voice to the growing chorus of Americans who realize that there is a difference between creating wealth and redistributing wealth. And we are not going to be shy about it. Simply put, we are going to speak truth to power.
The third turning point is this: The Republican comeback has begun. It is underway, and it is not in Washington.
That’s for sure. So where is it? If he’s talking about the grassroots then he isn’t paying attention to what they’re saying.
Those of you who live outside of Washington know what I’m talking about. Those of you who actually attend Lincoln Day dinners, and county party events, those of you who toil in the vineyards, spending time in communities, in diners, in barber shops, and in coffee shops where real, every day people can be found. You know it is real. You can see it and feel it.
This change comes in a tea bag!
Toil in the vineyards? Change in a tea bag! If the Republican Party doesn’t quickly get into the game with a solid understanding of what it takes to win, we’ll all be drinking hemlock.
IN ADDITION TO THE REPUBLICAN LETHARGY, WORSE LOOMS AHEAD. I believe you have forgotten a few things:
1) In Animal Farm, Snowball debates sharply with Napoleon on the windmill when Napoleon utters a weird sound. Suddenly, vicious dogs race straight for Snowball and nearly catch him. The dictatorship there is in full swing. The animals had forgottern about the dogs belonging to the dead mother so long ago. Napoleon had nurtured them and made them loyal only to him.
What of those volunteers? Obama will take them, make them loyal only to him and spring them upon us with the viciousness of the SA and the SS. Remember the Oprichniki. I see beatings, maiming and murder. What can we do to stop this?
2) You said that Obama is George Soros’ “fingerpuppet.” I agree. I will also say that Obama therefore is doing his bidding. If Obama wishes to destroy America, so does Soros. Why is he NOT in jail?
What is Soros’ larger agenda? And whose fingerpuppet is HE?
3)Environmentalism is not only a fraud, but worse, it is genocidal. I understand that the viros do not want Africa to develop its own resources, thus dooming the people there to mass death, and consciously dooming them to mass death.
Nor are we immune. We will be wasting hundreds of tons of steel on windmills that will produce not even a fingernail fragment of the power this nation needs. Consider industry, and more importantly, hospitals, and other places of medical care. Without a high amount of energy, many people will die. I assume Obama knows this. It’s a lot worse than paying more money in taxes for his green abomination.
We cannot wait until 2010. We might be dead by then. If we can’t take Obama down directly, we can at least attack his mad advisors and remove them.
And don’t get me started with his genocidal Health Care!
MARK WALKER
CHESAPEAKE, VIRGINIA
I suppose, thinking generously, that Michael Steele meant to say that we can ill-afford to turn away moderates.
What he should have said is we need to find a way for “moderates” to understand the full panoply of conservative truths. There is nothing to equivocate on. It’s not exactly black and white, more like dark (liberal) and light (conservative), with some independents running tangential to the right.
Get off the defensive, Michael Steele… I know you are better than this. Time to wax pre-emptive and start talking up those conservative truths, some of which are economic imperatives. George Bush was a moderate, and did nothing to set us apart. Tough to tell the liberals they spent too much when GW got the party started.
We just need to clarify and state our positions, and choose those new leaders we will be looking to in 2010 and 2012. And let me tell you, put another moderate in front of me in a primary, and I will not vote for that person. Stay true to our conservative principles, Michael Steele!
The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done. The time for trying to fix or focus on the past has ended. The era of Republican navel gazing is over. We have turned the corner on regret, recrimination, self-pity and self-doubt.
I can see it now: VOTE REPUBLICAN – WE’RE NOT AS LOUSY AS WE USED TO BE.
If you are Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann or Dave Letterman, the jokes practically write themselves.
Doh! Steele just DOESN’T get it!!!! Character counts! A person who walks the walk AND talks the talk … a principled person of character who raises “a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people.â€
Micheal Steele has fallen into the thought police trap set by the left; the trap of appeasement, demonizing people whose principles they disagree with, planting seeds of doubt into our pshyce, shaking our core principles, and telling us to “play niceâ€.
I’m so dizzy from all the spinning I think I’m gonna hurl. I will not kowtow to the thought police for a newer and less embarrassing Republican Party.
Great posts, all. I agree Steele is not the man for the job. He speaks the language of the left and is unwilling to take on their narrative. Bottom line for me, Steele supports Charlie Crist in Florida and would have supported Arlen Specter in Pa. This is not leadership but capitulation. It doesn’t take leadership to back Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist.
Kick ass Steele. It’s about time. I wish I could say the same thing for Pat, the writer of this article.
Every republican should read “The Law” by Frederic Bastiat. That should be the Republican platform, PERIOD.
Sounds like Steele has the same plan for the Republican Party as Obama has for Gitmo.
I live in Oregon, a blue state. We had a moderate Republican senator, Gordon Smith. He was able to get Democrat votes, which is the only way a Republican can win in this state.
The “Uber” conservatives would not support him in the last election, because he didn’t pass all their litmus tests. They voted for the Constitution Party instead, and Smith lost. Now we have TWO Marxist senators. Gee, didn’t that work out great.
Litmus tests are for ideologies. The Republican Party is supposed to be a political vehicle, not an ideology. The majority of Americans are not ideological. Making the Republican Party ideologically pure is the perfect way to keep it small and irrelevant.
New England, where I was born and raised, was once a Republican stronghold. It’s lost to the party now. What happened?
New England Republicans wanted fiscal conservatism. Instead they got eight years of social conservatism, ideology and “litmus” tests. So they, like much of the rest of America who aren’t ideological conservatives, dumped the party.
Going back to certain core issues if fine, but we also can’t afford to live in the past. Many members of the Reagan coalition of 30 years ago are literally dead, like Ronald Reagan himself. The demographic that supported his exact message and platform is no longer there in sufficient numbers to win elections. The current base of the party is southern white males, a shrinking demographic.
You can’t win elections with a shrinking base of support. That’s not an opinion or ideology, it’s MATH.
Social conservatives often want to kick moderates out of the party, and vice-versa. Isn’t it time to stop fighting each other, to choose issues that most of us can agree on as the spearhead of our party, issues and ideas that we can ALL gather behind and support, and get on with it?
Rather than trying to kick anyone out of our party, we ought to be building a consensus about what most of us can agree on.
Michael Steele is trying to do that, and I don’t see how kicking him is going to help. Who needs Democrats when we have Republicans tearing down our own party?
These friggin litmus tests are killing us. The Democrats love them; it makes their job so much easier.
Hey Chas, I live in Texas and we voted in a Moderate, if not a Liberal by the name of Kay Bailey Hutchison. She is worse than her predecessor. That is hard to believe about Oregon. There are thousands upon thousands of Conservatives that live there.
New England Republicans wanted fiscal conservatism.
Poor Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter – driven to vote for socialism because of those dastardly social conservatives fouling that atmosphere of the Big Tent Party!
Of course, maybe Snowe, Specter and Collins (not to mention Smith) were a**hole leftists in the first place….
Repubs need to clean house by:
Not backing socially and financially moderate R’s. Get rid of them!
Make a stand against Bush’s lousy domestic policies and educate the American people why the were lousy and non-repub.
Present an image of stability, democracy, liberty, capitalism,Americanism! Show Pride! Be a winner and nor a defeatist like obama and his party.
Itemize obama and his party’s screwed-up legislation. You need to differentiate your vision from theirs and market why your ideas and beliefs are better for the American People.
Pound this night and day! Stand up for right and fight against what is wrong! Stand up for the timeless values that the left tries to pervert. Quit wavering at those “isms” that the left uses to keep you off balance. Don’t listen to them or the nationalized press. I’ll leave you with a joke.
What do moderate repubs and press reporters have in common? They are both RINOs (repubs in name only and reporters in name only)
“Bottom line for me, Steele supports Charlie Crist in Florida…”
This is incorrect. The RNC has not endorsed anyone in the US Senate primary here in Florida. It’s the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee that’s endorsed Crist, which I found stunning given that it’s headed by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who’s usually a pretty solid conservative. FWIW, while I support Marco Rubio, I’ll have no problem voting for Crist if he’s the nominee to keep Kendrick Meek or Dan Gelber out of the Senate. Yes, Crist is a squishy moderate, but he’s not Specter and doesn’t deserve the comparisons.
I agree with Chas. Politics is the art of the possible. That does NOT mean moving to the center, but as Margaret Thatcher said, moving the center to you. It means to stop with the navel-gazing and the circular firing squads, and get out there and fight. I was a big fan of Michael Steele’s from back during his Senate campaign in Maryland. He’s made a few missteps, but so does everyone. On balance, I still have a lot of confidence in him.
Hey RobK: Since when did Steele actually kick any ass? Are you referring to his spat with Limbaugh? Where the hell has Steele been as the country has transformed in the last 120 days or so?
Steele is a shriveled up incompetent whiner who totally threw an opportunity to pick up a congressional seat in NY (Tedisco) – but OH NO! It was more important to pick on Limbaugh instead! That’s having his priorities straight.
And Pat Ess DOES kick ass! She’s the one holding Steele to the fire. Nothing wrong with that. We’ve seen early on that Steele does indeed melt when the heat is barely on.
And CHAS: There are many of us who grew up during the Reagan years and paid attention. We know what works! And it’s not the offerings of the linguine spined (w)ussies in the moderate end of the Republican party!
Have you not paid any attention to the significant losses of the GOP in 2006 & 2008? They lost because they were spending and growing government MORE than the Democrats. Why vote for a RINO when at least you know what you’ll get with a Democrat?
It’s the moderates who have damaged the party ala George W. Contrast that with the legacy of Reagan. There is no comparison. Reaganomics gave us a long era of prosperity not seen in decades. Why not employ those principles once again?
And your characterization of conservatives (southern white males) is absolutely false and displays your complete ignorance. As a gay prolife feminist, I am proud to have more in common with Sarah Palin, Michael Pence, Mitch Daniels and even Reagan himself than the Bushes, McCain, Spector, Snowe, etc. BTW: it’s not the conservatives running anyone out of the party; it’s the moderates who have long wanted to get rid of the conservative base – that’s not a secret.
I see the moderates as being the ideologues as they want everything THEIR way while dismissing what the party succeeded on. And hey, hasn’t being an ideologue served the left well, also? Why is it always just conservatives who are accused of such?
Just so you can see some facts for yourself: look what happened in California’s May 19 elections. Every single tax increase was voted down! That’s significant! It says that when people are faced with the reality of ‘hope and change’, they will resist no matter what their political affiliation.
And Arizona had a few local elections, too, on May 19. Two of the new town council members are young women with families who got involved because they were tired of seeing what was happening to their communities. They are sharp, committed and conservative. Both were also first time candidates and won handily because their message resonated with people of all stripes in their respective cities: a message that had more in common with the pesky old Reagan than the uber-hip unaccomplished moderates. So don’t tell me their wins & the CA ballot measure do not signal something happening among ‘we the people’. We are also serving up real competition for McCain in the primaries next year. I don’t want to hear ‘my friends’ for six more years especially when he’s referring to his friends south of the state he is supposed to represent.
If you think something that worked 30 years ago should just be discarded because it’s old, then perhaps you also believe The Declaration of Independence should no longer be celebrated or acknowledged and that The Constitution is pointless, too.
Hey, why not just dismiss history itself because it’s so much easier to just repeat it rather than learn from it.
Tammy,
And he had to read those insipid remarks. Looking down at papers the whole speech. Not even a teleprompter . Made #totusunion cry. Made me take a Prilosec.
But it also makes me buy more DRAFT SARAH bumper stickers at $5 a pop.
So, the conservative base is nothing more than a bunch of old white southern males, eh?
Check this out, Chas & anyone interested:
http://www.gilacourier.com/?cat=35
and…
http://smartgirlpolitics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/two-smart-girls-win-elections
I think we need to pick the battles we can win. If we can get an economic conservative/social moderate or liberal elected in a liberal state, we should not crash and burn by nominating someone who agrees with us 100% and instead getting a socialist elected. I’d rather have someone who agrees with me 75% of the time than a 100% leftist. I’d take John McCain over Bernie Sanders any day of the week.
(sigh)
John McCain lost to a socialist, STAROFRADIANCE. We already had the Republican who we didn’t agree with most of the time and it gave us exactly what we have now. That’s why we cannot continue allowing the GOP establishment to choose the candidates for us – which is what they did in 2008. For whatever reason, they were determined to shove McCain down our throats. Hey, maybe they secretly wanted Obama to win, too.
I totally believe had Guiliani not turned out to be a freak obsessed with Florida, he would have been a far better candidate than McCain and would have won in November. Though he has some issues I totally disagree with him on, I consider him more of a conservative than McCain was/is.
We got into the mess we’re in because we simply voted for the guy with the R by his name – that has to stop. The ONLY way to get the moderates out is for people to get off the effing Lazy Boy, turn off American Idol Idiot and get serious about what’s happening in your cities, states & nation!
Don’t expect politicians to change – YOU need to change the politicians!
Ronald Reagan was great in his time. What he did then, worked then. But he’s not here now, nor is a “new” Reagan visible on the horizon. This isn’t the 1980’s, and this isn’t the same electorate that existed 30 years ago.
If the electorate was the same as it was in 1992, John McCain would have easily won the 2008 election:
“Demography And Destiny”
http://tinyurl.com/87zf4k
But the demographics of the electorate have changed, and continue to change:
“THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING REPUBLICAN BASE”
http://tinyurl.com/5622t4
Reagan’s ideas are as valid as ever, but the coalition he formed no longer exists. A new one has to be formed, one that appeals to the current electorate, and that won’t happen as long as factions in our own party are working to kick each other out.
Ronald Reagan said “An 80 percent friend is not a 20 percent enemy”. He didn’t drum all moderates out of the party. Sure, he didn’t let some of them drag it as far left as they might have wanted to. But he didn’t force them all out either. He build a coalition, and even reached out to conservative Democrats. Talk about “bringing the center to you” (Note Dave’s comment above. No wonder Reagan and Thatcher were such good friends).
Yes, I understand wanting to “hold their feet to the fire”. Everyone wants to do that, to get what they want. I get it. It’s part of the process. Yet in a genuine coalition, at some point, we have to compromise and unite and work together, and rally behind core issues that have wider appeal than to just the “conservative base”.
The Republicans are strongest in the Southern states. Does only the South count?
“For GOP, A Southern Exposure”
http://tinyurl.com/ppbgwb
If it does, then we would have won in 2008. Why bother arguing about kicking people out of our party? Plenty have simply left it. In droves.
The Democrats on the whole don’t like their own conservatives, but did they kick them out? No, they pushed to get their “Blue Dogs” elected, so they could get the majority they now enjoy.
They didn’t get there by kicking people out of their party. They won the House, the Senate and the White House too, despite big divisions in their own ranks. They didn’t have to be perfect; they only had to be less divided, and seemingly more optimistic, than we were.
We have mid-term elections coming up, our last chance at damage-control. If Republicans continue attacking each other like a bunch of Screeching Harpies, we will blow that too. We don’t need to all agree with each other. We just need to agree on our core issues (the spearhead of the party), GROW our party instead of shrinking it, rally behind the spear head and move forward.
Chas –
The Dems campaigned as conservatives in many areas. Once elected, they do what they want.
Apparently, you weren’t watching closely in the mid-1990’s when the Dems didn’t need to kick their more conservative contingent out: those Dems switched to become Republicans (Ben Knighthorse Campbell, JC Watts come to mind). Frankly, I don’t recall the Dems being too nice and tolerant of Zell Miller – a guy they scolded & told to just get out. Even Joe Lieberman was treated horribly by the Dems.
I will NOT compromise my conservatism just to gain seats for the liberal idiots in the party. And I will NEVER abandon my prolife principles. The moderates can jump ship & become Dems just like their pal Spector – and the fact Spector did leave is an indication we conservatives ARE gaining ground & momentum. Again: THE MODERATES ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE BEEN PUSHING THE CONSERVATIVES OUT – NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!!
The Reagan conservative message resonates with people all across the board. The longer we lay silent, the less chance of that message being heard. I do believe there are some Reagan conservative voices out there – we know of one already. Why not encourage and help her instead of falling for whatever the GOP establishment spoon feeds us? Why not rip that effing spoon from the GOP and stick it up their backsides?
I’m a fighter – and chicks are mean fighers! 😉 If you want a Reaganesque message, it’s up to YOU to get out there and start moving things within your community, not merely waiting until the general elections occur, and making sure you put conservatives into the town councils, state legislature and various local positions. It’s also important to go into communities the GOP has long written off and start educating the public. They have been brainwashed into believing they cannot achieve due to their skin color & economic circumstances. Who’s telling them? Community organizers. Public school teachers. Pastors in their communities. You can change that message, but it requires doing something more than simply electing people. It requires you being strong enough to speak out.
You want Reagan conservatism? It never died! It’s still out there just waiting for US to be the new torch-bearers. I gave you two strong examples of what can happen when ordinary people (in this case, ordinary women) get involved. Read my first post.
Artgal,
The Dems did indeed campaign as conservatives in many areas, and once elected, they did and do what conservative DEMOCRATS want to do. I was in no way implying that conservative Democrats are the same as conservative Republicans. I live in a county that is 87 percent Democrat. Many of them are conservative Democrats. We Republicans who are greatly outnumbered here, make alliances with them when we can, but we understand that they are NOT conservative Republicans; they are entirely different creatures.
You seem to have missed my point entirely. The Democrat leadership hates THEIR conservative Blue Dog Democrats. But in order to keep them from crossing over and voting Republican, they let the Blue Dog’s have a voice in the Democrat party, and helped them get elected, which in turn helped the party as a whole to gain House and Senate majorities, and win the White House. That’s what happens when you encourage people to join your party and make it bigger, instead of drumming them out. You win.
The Democrats did pay a price for this; the Blue Dogs will vote with Republicans on some issues, like Gun Control. Yet it gave them a majority so they could trounce the Republicans. No doubt worth the price to them. It was a shrewd and brilliant strategy.
Republican’s could do the same thing by encouraging ALL the factions of our party. Trying to force any of the factions out is political suicide.
I wasn’t a child when Reagan was elected, I was in college. I remember him quite well. Conservatives hated him at first; they saw him as a divorced Hollywood actor who as Governor of California, passed some of the most liberal abortion legislation ever seen, and who opposed the anti-gay Brigg’s Initiative.
Conservatives warmed up to Reagan when they realized he’d changed his abortion stance, and that they could get many of the things they wanted by supporting him. Reagan shunned some of the moderates in the party who wanted to go too far left; but he didn’t try to force ALL moderates out. He build a balanced coalition, because he knew the party needed allies, and that it had to have wide support to win. He stole the Democrat’s thunder, by getting many Democrats to vote for him. He remained inspiring and optimistic, while the Democrats whined and were negative.
I also remember the ’90’s quite well. I voted for GHW Bush in his first term, even contributed money to his campaign. Then, in his second term, he decided to pander to the religious right, at the expense of other factions in the party. I remember his going on national TV, saying that homosexuality in all of it’s forms was morally wrong.
How could I forget, being singled out by the leader of my party as “immoral”, even as he sent me letters asking me to contribute more money to his campaign? I’ll never forget it.
Bush senior lost that election, because:
1) He promised not to raise taxes, but then he did anyway.
2) He pandered too much to one segment of the GOP. The GOP didn’t need gay votes, but moderates, secular people and swing voters began to perceive the party as the party of white Christian Fundamentalists; and if you didn’t like it, you could lump it. The GOP lost it’s broad appeal.
3.) He came across as cynical, making fun of the “Vision Thing”. The Other Party only needed to come across as more optimistic and inclusive, which it did.
Now in 2000 GW Bush tried the same narrow strategy as his father, but he “softened” his rhetoric with his “compassionate conservatism” BS. It didn’t work so well. He only won by a court order. Many still argue to this day that he never really “won”. It will always remain a point of contention for many people.
In 2004, voters rallied around Bush because we were at war, and because John Kerry was such a poor choice. But the next four years showed little improvement. The voters expressed their dissatisfaction in the mid term elections of 2006.
For years, McCain had argued for the “surge” in Iraq, to end the war. But Bush only did that near the end, at great cost to our party and the country.
Then there was the recession, and the economic crisis and Bush’s unpopular bailout. I doubt that ANY Republican candidate could have won that presidential election. When the economy seriously tanks, the incumbent party is usually thrown out of power, and this was no exception.
For eight years, we had a Republican president who disregarded fiscal conservatism entirely, and who emphasized social conservatism. It shouldn’t be surprising that many moderates now want to throw social conservatives out of the party; it’s perceived that Bush was their leader, and that THEY lead us to where we are now.
I know it’s not that simple. There are many different kinds of social conservatives, and many of them were not happy with the Bush years either. And I am most definitely NOT calling for social conservatives to be thrown out of the party. When a party loses, it’s not unusual for various factions in the party to blame each other, but this talk of throwing any of the other factions out of the party is suicidal nonsense. We need to get past it as quickly as possible.
When I moved to Oregon five years ago, the state’s Republican Party had a platform that said homosexuality, in all of it’s forms, is immoral and wrong.
In order to vote in the Republican primaries, I had to join a political party with a platform that condemned me as “immoral and wrong”. I joined up.
Why? Do I believe I’m immoral and wrong? Of course not. Did I compromise myself? No; NOBODY gets to define me, but me.
I joined the party, because it’s not a church, it’s not an ideology, it’s a POLITICAL VEHICLE.
In fact, think of it as a carpool. The GOP is the car. The various factions of the party, religious/social conservatives, secular moderates, libertarians, etc., are the car poolers. They all want to get to the same city, but each one has a different destination in that city. And all of them want to be dropped of at their destination first.
Now if they are adults, they will negotiate. They have X amount of gas, and X amount of time. They make a plan that uses their resources in the best possible way. Compromises are made, not everyone gets dropped of exactly where they want, when the want. But great efforts are made to get everyone as close to what they want as possible, given the limited time and gas. They finally agree, and move forward with their plan, and reach their destination.
OR, if they’re stupid, they all fight over the steering wheel, and try to kick each other out of the car. The car goes around and around in circles, until it eventually goes sideways off the road and crashes. Meanwhile, the OTHER carpool, which has been swerving all over the road, but managed to stay within the lines and keep moving forward, reaches it’s destination… Victory.
It’s all well and good to say “I will NOT compromise”… during the primaries, when you are trying to get your favored candidate in. That is the time to be uncompromising. But the rest of the time, you need allies. Ronald Reagan understood that well, so it galls me to hear people quoting Reagan at me, as if I have no understanding of what he did or said. Excuse me, I was THERE. And it’s not a childhood memory.
The only time you don’t need allies, is when you already have the numbers to push your agenda through. But the base of the GOP doesn’t have those numbers. That was the point of the links about demographics that I published above. The GOP is shrinking, and it needs to expand, NOT kick people out. We’ve had two Bush Presidents who have demonstrated where narrowing the party with “litmus tests” will lead us. We need a wide appeal, and we need allies. Reagan had both, and THAT works, in any day and age.
Moderate Republicans and Conservative Democrats will always be a mixed bag. Sometimes they will side with you, sometimes they won’t. Call them “unreliable” if you must, but they are part of the political landscape. Learn to deal with them. Bend with the wind when you have too; otherwise you’ll break in two. Kicking them out of your party only makes them enemies and forces them over to the other side.
I don’t always like the candidates we have either, but you can’t force people to run. Republican candidates are treated so shabby by the MSM, the Democrats and lately even our own party, it’s a wonder anyone even chooses to run. If you don’t like the candidates, run yourself. Blaming the party leadership for the candidates is easy, but changes nothing.
McCain won the primaries, because he did much better among evangelicals than anyone expected he could:
The Myth of McCain’s Weakness Among Evangelicals
http://tinyurl.com/r4z838
Even the horrible Anita Bryant Contingent of the GOP “held their noses” and voted for McCain:
Anita Bryant was right
http://tinyurl.com/q86efv
But it was not enough. We need more than the South to win elections.
As much as I would like to believe that a return to Reagan’s values would revive the Republican party, I have to ask, “Is that true?” A full quarter of the Republican’s wanted Mike Huckabee:
Gallup Daily: Tracking Election 2008
http://tinyurl.com/2gro3j
You couldn’t get much further away from Reagan’s small government ideals than that. It seems that the conversion of many Southerners to Reaganism was only skin deep. They seem fine with big government, as long as it’s doing what THEY want it to do.
I’ve seen polls that say a majority of Republicans want some form of Universal Health Care. How Reganesque is that? This is not the same electorate that Reagan formed into a coalition. It’s not 30 years ago, it’s now, and we need to understand and respond to our current electorate.
Is Sarah Palin a new Reagan? I don’t see it. She sure doesn’t have Reagan’s Teflon coating. The MSM threw a bunch of crap at her, and it’s sticking. If she can somehow overcome that, she has a chance, but she has a long way to go. She will have to prove to a national electorate that she is more than a beauty queen from Alaska who’s had half a term as Governor of a state with a population the same size as the city of Eugene, OR. I’m watching her with interest, but I wouldn’t put all our eggs in that basket yet.
We need a new coalition. We need a new spearhead for the party that we can all support, and move forward with. I don’t know how much Reagan values will be in that spearhead; lots, I hope. But it will require negotiation and compromise, and patience to build the coalition and the spearhead. Having any one faction say “It all has to be my way or I’ll slash the tires and NONE of us will go” is just suicidal. Yet that’s what some of the Uber Conservatives seem to be doing; they are tearing down our party as if they were Democrats. We need to do better than that, but we don’t have a lot of time.
The Democrats are already re-drawing congressional districts to favor their party. They will soon push for a general amnesty for 18 million or more illegal aliens. If the Democrats succeed in doing this before mid-term elections, the political landscape will change so drastically that we will be lucky if a Republican is ever elected again.
There is a fine line between criticizing your own party, and helping to destroy it. Now is the time to pull our party together, and use it… or lose it.
Artgal,
I need to add this. I didn’t mean to ignore your links about the two ladies in Arizona. That’s all well and good. But you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not overly impressed. You are talking about TWO ladies on a TOWN council.
I suspect the point you are making is, that there is a growing grass roots movement to take back the Republican Party with Reagan values. I’m all for it. But is it possible for you to get the numbers to defeat the Democrats? That was the point of the links I posted, about the changing demographics. If you haven’t got the numbers, none of the rest will matter, unless you enjoy posturing from the sidelines and crying from the wilderness.
Even Sarah Palin had to reach out to Democrats to win. I don’t want to try to dampen your enthusiasm or even try to get you to agree with me 100%. I suspect you and I would probably agree on most things anyway.
I don’t need 100% agreement. I have Republican neighbors, who are Christian fundamentalists. They believe the world is 10,000 years old, and that dinosaurs lived in biblical times. They teach their home-schooled daughter that dinosaurs still live in Africa.
My point is, these neighbors are my political allies. They would not be my ideal choice for allies, but there they are. It’s not possible for me to agree with them on everything; it just isn’t. I have to agree to disagree with them on some things.
Those two ladies on the town council, if they want to advance in politics to higher levels, will need allies.
You will find plenty of Democrat women, probably in greater numbers, also getting elected and advancing their agendas. The Dems also have their “grass roots”.
It’s all well and good to talk about “educating” people, but some people would rather send YOU to a re-education camp, rather than listen to you.
I lived in San Francisco for 24 years. Too often I heard people, returning from their vacation in Cuba, talking about how wonderful a one-party state is, and lamenting that it wasn’t possible to round up all the Republicans here and send them to re-education camps. They sincerely believed that would solve all problems.
Most of the Democrats I’ve known are not particularly ideological. That would require too much THINKING. Most of them seem to be “emotional thinkers”, which is to say, they don’t think much at all; they FEEL.
They vote for Obama because they FEEL he “cares more”. They feel Republicans should be sent to re-education camps. They feel that trials by jury are unnecessary, as long as the prosecuting attorney is Politically Correct. They feel I’m a Nazi for carefully and respectfully questioning their Political Correctness. I wish I was making this up, but I’ve heard it too many times.
The people most receptive to Reagan’s message are the shrinking group of people who actually pay taxes; they don’t need a lot of convincing, they already know. Voters who don’t pay taxes too often don’t care about those who do, and too many politicians only care about the non-paying voters. It’s one of the biggest problems we face.
The Democrats want to establish government health care, because they know that once they do, they will have established a permanent socialist institution that will destroy conservatism as we know it, as it has done elsewhere:
How Tom Daschle Might Kill Conservatism
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/11/21/how-tom-daschle-might-kill-conservatism.html
You seem to think there is a Reaganesque tax rebellion happening in California. I wouldn’t be so sure that Reaganism is behind it. California’s problem is, the electorate keeps voting for additional entitlements and benefits without providing the money to pay for them:
Accounting for California’s Suicide: A weird sort of utopian mindset
http://tinyurl.com/b9f6l4
Like so many liberals, they just want something for nothing. They feel entitled. Many California Republicans gave up on the state and moved out, because we were tired of being the Cash Cow. That’s reduced California’s tax base considerably, and now they’re feeling it. And the inflexible Unions are of course, are strangling everything.
Your ambition to clean up the Republican Party and fight for what you want is commendable. Argue with moderates all you like; perhaps even force the worst ones out, if you must. It’s all part of the political process. But it’s essential to understand contemporary demographics, and always be mindful of the larger picture. You WILL need allies to make real progress.
Remember what Reagan said, about an 80% friend not being a 20% enemy? Well I’m probably a 90% friend. What prompted me to even post in this thread was, that I’m tired of being told that it’s me, ME, who’s given money to the party and who actually votes Republican, that is the PROBLEM with the party and needs to be drummed out! I can only say that some of the people who keep quoting Reagan so often would do well to consider everything he said.
Chas –
Yada, yada, yada…
Oh, how you underestimate me! Tis a pity!
No matter how enthusiastic or determined you are, you can’t impose social conservatism on an electorate if the majority of them don’t want it. You either have the numbers, or you don’t. If you don’t, you won’t make much difference.
Tammy pointed out in her books, that the Left has gained so much ground over the years, because they compromise. They make small gains here and there, but they also continue pushing for more, they are relentless. They take whatever they can get, and keep pushing.
The Right tends to draw a line in the sand and say, “ALL our way, or nothing.” Too often, they end up with nothing. Without allies to give them numbers, they keep losing ground.
For years in San Francisco, I heard Leftist elites repeatedly say that the best way to destroy the Republican Party was to encourage the most vocal and shrill elements of the social conservatives to be as loud and visable as possible. The theory was, that if you gave them enough rope to hang themselves, they would, AND they would take the GOP with them.
I used to think that theory was just wishful thinking and hubris on the part of the Left. But now it seems to be happening just as they wanted.
If things continue like this, we may be in the position where we can’t win without social conservatives, but we also can’t win with them. Just as the Left wants.
Good luck appealing the electorate of 30 years ago. Half of them are dead.