Posted on 11/05/2009 2:53:53 AM PST by Scanian
Here's one of the loudest messages of the 2009 offoff-year elections: Conservatives will no longer let their opponents define them as outside of the mainstream.
They won’t submit to Democrats, the media or Beltway GOP capitulationists. They won’t “rebrand.” They won’t sit down. They won’t shut up.
Just last weekend, Democratic Rep. Jim Moran attacked the GOP candidates for governor and attorney general in Virginia as the “Taliban ticket.”
New York Times columnist Frank Rich decried the right’s “Jacobins” and “Stalinists” who he said joined a “putsch” by supporting Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman instead of ACORN-embracing, Big Laborpromoting, pro-abortion, progay marriage, tax-and-spend Republican Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd congressional special election.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The day I take anything Frank Rich writes seriously is the day you can pull the plug on me, because I’ll be brain dead.
In the words of another American Patriot "I have not yet begun to fight!"
--Ronald Reagan, 1975
Based on some threads I saw yesterday, there are some folks on Free Republic who need to carefully consider this most profound statement.
Until somebody drops a dirty bomb on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Rich is going to have a following and he, Mo Dowd, Bob Herbert and the rest will keep on whining.
The main thing that crowd needs to consider is that is is a CONSERVATIVE, not a Republican forum.
There are other sites for people who want to promote the GOP and that’s where the folks in question ought to spend their time. They are seriously out of step here.
There aren't enough plaudits in the world to give Michelle Malkin for her stalwart work. It seems to me she was one of the first to point out the train wreck the leadership of the NY23 Republicans tried to foist onto the nation by doing the same to its own constituents.
On the other hand, Michelle Malkin has been a stalwart on so many issues for a long time. She is a treasure, and I'm pleased she is one of us.
Based on some subversive threads you have participated in, as a rabscuttle toady, you need to repent and prayerfully consider begging for absolution from the most profound Cedric.
I disagree. This is a conservative forum. If you start requiring everyone start at a point where the people you label as conservatives, you will never expand, get a forum of others and convert those to your ways if you can.
But you have to be able to tolerate and embrace true discusssion. Not preaching to the choir in an echo chamber.
This is not a cult of true believers in one set of ideas. ANd if you want that, I suggest you have it in your life. THe internet is too big a place for any reasonable interesting site to have only those who absolutely share your views.
Plus I assume you care who is electd to run the country. So you best start trying to convert folks not run them off.
Michelle gets it. And, she’s an easy read for the most part.
The conservatives are starting to find their voice. If they can now tailor the message and stay on point, they will do well; whether it’s reclaiming the GOP or establishing a viable third party to stand against the progressives in both the DhimmiRat and Pubbie parties.
It’s a good sign.
But a political party nominated Reagan and he won the election. And those voters were not all conservatives in all beliefs. He had a bigger electorate than that.
The political party of Reagan attracted voters that did not share soom what are the “fundamental beliefs” of conservatives.
I don’t think a political party can win an election expecting not to “swell” its voters, maybe not its “believers
A political party to win has to have independents to vote with them and those include people with strong beliefs in some areas defined as conservative and a sense of not sharing all beliefs but going for the best thing for their most important beliefs.
You know the hot button issues,,if you make every issue a requirement, you will never win an election on the national level. This is not an homogeneous electorate by any means.
Did you read comment #4? The poster quoted Ronald Reagan, who believed in a big tent but believed more in having a firm ideological foundation.
The GOP/conservatism issue has been a bone of contention since this forum’s founding and I don’t think it’s ever going to change. My concern is with obvious RINO site pests who just want to put GOP butts in congressional seats and could barely care about what they believe. I’ve had enough Specter’s, Miss Lindsey’s, McCain’s, Snowe’s, etc. I can’t stand the thought of bringing on more.
{Cue the unprovable claims of what Reagan would do with Specter today.}
BTW, as you already know, I'm not a Rabbs toady but a Palin toady. And of course you have a problem with that, but you can't help yourself.
Those people are opportunists and are elected in states that are looking for something in the Big Tent that satisfied one requirement they have. They are unreliable on some basic issues and for that reason they need to go.
My concern is that whatever is reflected in those states will result in an even more leftist person winning because a Reagan conservative won’t win.
I guess they are the accommodation part of politics, the part that makes it iffy when you don’t have a big majority. Sort of like the blue dog dems.
The center is the faction that is running the show now, they can frustrate the dems. And keep the pubs from hanging tight togeter.
But in that center is the key to winning. Figuring out what is their most vital issue.
I am worried it is ‘getting reelected’ and that is hard without strong local politics changing and becoming more in line with conservative ideas. Conversion is the route and not excluding people on this forum by “demanding” ideological purity from the gitgo.
Kicking people out never won an election. ANd to see conservative values change this country wil come about by winning elections.
Go Sarah!
RR was a unique personality with unique political gifts. I’m not going to speculate about that and speculation is entirely unnecessary, since Specter succeeded in banishing himself with his second craven party switch.
Realignments have always taken place in politics. A number of conservative Dems like Shelby joined the GOP when they saw the writing on the wall. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the blue dogs did the same if trends continue in their present direction.
Since I’m a registered Independent, I am less enamored with the whole party politics scene. I come here because I want to see conservatism promoted in BOTH parties, if such a thing is possible, and among independents.
I can’t get into the “conservatism is Republicanism” canard at all because to me party politics and ideology are not the same thing by any means. Olympia Snowe and her ilk remind us of that with great frequency!
Yup, they're turncoats, but they're our turncoats!
The Dem party left the conservative Dems, not unlike the leftward drift of the GOP.
Shelby had some place to go. If the conservatives don't restore the GOP, there is no place to go except third party.
It's better that way.
If they’ll vote the conservative line 60%-70% of the time, I’ll be happy to call them “ours.” But no Lieberman’s, please!
Agreed.
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