Posted on 08/31/2008 4:27:57 PM PDT by Man50D
I spoke with my mother, just before I left for Minneapolis to cover the Republican National Convention for American Thinker. My mother has been to a bunch of RNC conventions. She told me that they were all the same. "It was always the same old song," she said. Speaker after speaker promised to lower taxes, to cut back government red tape, to rein in federal spending.
The crowds were almost hysterical, she told me. They were told exactly what they wanted to hear -- and they believed it. Mom said that she believed it too, at least for the first couple of conventions.
Then, she told me, it started to wear thin. The same empty promises, convention after convention, from the same ever aging speakers. Republican congressmen and senators talked about conservatism at the Republican National Convention. But, as soon as they had returned to their offices in D.C., their press releases were all about the million dollar bike paths, sewer systems, or tourism grants that they had managed to snag for their constituents.
"It's lies. All lies," she told me. Mom has stopped attending the RNC. She has also stopped sending the Republican Party her money. Maybe my mom has become a bit jaded.
The Republican Party has a long and growing list of broken promises. I keep a copy of Contract with America in my office. (This is the book that outlined what a Republican congress would do for America if it was elected. It was written prior to the 1994 congressional elections.) Every time I start to believe the Republican Party's hype, I pull it out and read it. Like my mother said, "It's lies. All lies."
It is true that in 1994 then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was able to force the new Republican majority to keep its promises to balance the budget, cut the growth of government, etc. He held them in line for almost two years.
But Gingrich was crucified by the media and President Bill Clinton was given credit for trimming down the ship of state (even though, constitutionally speaking, all revenue measures originate in the House of Representatives -- so it was a Republican budget.) The Republicans, in the House and the Senate, tossed in the conservative towel in 1996, and Washington, D.C. went back to business as usual.
Americans are an insightful people. They know a liar when they hear one. So, after 1996, Republicans promised smaller government but delivered pork barrel politics to their constituents. It didn't take long (less than a decade) for Americans to grow weary of the hypocrisy. After all, Democrats are honest on this point: they say that they want to raise our taxes and increase government spending. So if pork is a priority, then it just makes sense to vote Democrat.
That is how a lot of Americans have read the political situation in the last few elections. It has given the Democrats majorities in the house and the senate.
I will be landing in Minneapolis in a few hours. At my last layover, I spoke with a young woman who had just come from another kind of conference. She works for one of those "pyramid" based businesses. She sells vitamins. She was high as a kite from listening to the speakers at the conference. They promised her that, if she kept at it, she could be a millionaire in a matter of a few months.
I wanted to tell her if she kept at it that those who had made the speeches would make a lot of money off of her hard work. But nothing I could have said to her would have dampened her enthusiasm -- that's why the vitamin company wanted her to attend the conference. She is, at least for awhile, a true believer.
She is like my mom -- who used to come home from the RNC thinking that the Republican Party was (finally) going to keep its promises.
There is some indication that some politicians in the Republican Party might be getting serious about conservatism. Sarah Palin has certainly taken on the "good old boy" Republicans in Alaska. She seems to have made every effort to keep her word to the people of the state she governs. (And the people of Alaska love her for it.)
Maybe there will be other conservative reformers like her at the convention. Or maybe the Republicans are singing the same old song. In the next week, I will do my best to let American Thinkers know what song the Republicans are singing.
Fool me once....
Smart woman!!!!
At least there are only two major political parties. Those nutritional pyramid schemes seems to be multiplying like rabbits.
I think those $2500.00 checks have much more to do with it, I don't see that as cutting government, that is making someone else pay for your government.
Give it up Obama/Biden supporter.
The conventions on both sides are a waste. Lots of big talk and promises.
I’d rather see debates or sit downs like at Saddleback.
Me too. I am not voting any of congress critters back into office.
You whine and cry every time you post, the pubbies lie and cheat, they break promises, they screw everyone.
Go back to the du where you can curse and scream.
**** off, if this were du, I'd spell the word.
Oh goody, another self appointed “enforcer”.
Yawn
In Alaska the people own the natural resources.
When the oil revenues payable to the government from the oil companies spiked due to world prices, Palin passed the profits in excess of the Government's projected needs onto the the people. Just like a dividend is distributed to shareholders.
That's not getting "someone else to pay for your government", that's doing what's right and not stealing from the people.
Nary a drop of Kool-aid has nor will touch this Freepers lips.....
some will pull back from the abyss. first a few, then more and more. we just have to be patient until reality sinks in over there in those brains.
Deja vu all over again... again... sommore even, yet.
That is a fact, and it is an alarming thing to hear coming from Palin- who seems so conservative otherwise, or is peddled as such.
I danced to that tune for the last time because of Cheney. I have come to regret that choice entirely.
The changes both sides are promising are the same changes both sides have been promising to change every election cycle for years.
My favorite fantasy is the one people seem to be buying is the fantasy that McCain will only serve 4 years and will either step down or die.
Personally I think it’s pathetic that people are voting for a man they hope will die. As disgusted as I am by McCain, even I don’t want him to die.
Then there’s the “belief” that McCain will step aside after 4 years. They can’t really believe that but they say it anyway in hopes others will vote for their guy. There’s a word for saying something we know to be untrue.
I really do miss the days when it was just the politicians who were unethical.
There is one thing that concerns me. I caught a comment on the news that she had vetoed legislation opposing benifits (insurance etc) for same sex partners.
If anybody knows anything be sure to let us know because we sure won’t be getting it from the McMinions.
Aw, me neither! I wish him long life, and a double-wide with a front porch where he can sit in his rocker and fart in his diapers to his hearts content! And I wish it for him right NOW!
Then there’s the “belief” that McCain will step aside after 4 years.[...]
It doesn't matter if he does. Amnesty will come in the first blush, while he is at his peak power. Thereafter, there will be no win for the Right ever again. Our partisan besotted fellows dig our graves.
They can’t really believe that but they say it anyway in hopes others will vote for their guy. There’s a word for saying something we know to be untrue.
It has been both a freedom and enlightening to renounce my Republican association. With no obligation to the Big Rhinestone "R", the accompanying detachment has allowed me to truly see how shamelessly the right is being played, and at every level.
It was so bloody obvious this year, as the RNC was sooo out of touch with reality- The whole right wing establishment came out pimping Giuliani like some kind of savior, and so many just sucked it right up.
It is truly astonishing to me how so many consider themselves to value their independence and ability to think for themselves, yet they are herded about exactly like the liberals they laugh at, their fears as their masters.
I really do miss the days when it was just the politicians who were unethical.
Quite. Now the whole of the internet Right is infested with astroturfers, Faux News and Talk Radio have shown themselves to be tools of the RNC, nearly to the man, and those that defend are ridiculed and dishonored in order to lift up the very thieves that we are to defend against.
Go figger...
“There are none so blind as those that will no see!” [1852 E. Fitzgerald Polonius 58]
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