Posted on 12/09/2009 10:57:23 PM PST by neverdem
Let me direct your attention to the solid democrat state of New Jersey and its recent election for governor.
The third party conservative was showing 14% in the polls right up to election day, and the race was tied between the incumbent democrat Corrozine and his GOP challenger Christie.
I’m certain you know that Christie managed to win, because the third party conservative only received 7% or 8% instead of the 14% the polling showed.
Once people are in the voting booth, pragmatism has its way of trumping emotion.
You may think this is the time and place and that the somebodies are already in place, but I’ve heard that before. Whom, might I ask, are the somebodies?
The point is that some republicans are conservative, but the party is not. More and more are ready to try something else after the failures of the republicans. I am an example of that as are a few million others, IMO. It’s a miracle anyone but a democrat got elected in NJ. ACORN must have been puit in check.
The oldest con in the books is the Good Cop-Bad Cop routine. Since before Ronald Reagan, who used the populist lever to subdue it, Congress has been the pre-eminent practitioner of this con.
Anybody who thinks that 2/3 of the Pubbies would’nt cram this “healthcare” bill down our throats in a New York minute, just fell off the turnip truck.
They might be votin’ “against” it ..but they’re laughing in their sleeves with ecstasy over the power and loot they’ll get to ‘play with” next when its their turn.
The Two Parties in this country, for decades, have been Washington DC and Flyover, America. Aided and abetted by the MSM.
Flyover’s finally figurin’ it out
Anybody who thinks that 2/3 of the Pubbies would’nt cram this “healthcare” bill down our throats in a New York minute, just fell off the turnip truck.
They might be votin’ “against” it ..but they’re laughing in their sleeves with ecstasy over the power and loot they’ll get to ‘play with” next when its their turn.
The Two Parties in this country, for decades, have been Washington DC and Flyover, America. Aided and abetted by the MSM.
Flyover’s finally figurin’ it out
I don't know how...anymore to think about it differently.
What is the party if not the people? You see, not all Republican voters are conservative, just like not all democrat voters are blue dogs or radical Leftists.
As I see it, conservatives fall into more than one group. Some call themselves fiscally conservative: small government, low taxes, etc. Others call themselves socail conservatives: pro-life, one man, one woman marriage, etc. Still others like Ron Paul, are more isolationist, or strictly Constitutionalist and still others demand a strong national defense.
One conservative’s idea of a RINO, might not be another’s idea of a RINO. It all depends on that particular conservative’s litmus test or set of principles and issues.
It will be interesting to see the various conservatives who elect to challenge incumbents or who elect ro run in seats vacated. I personally like Sarah Palin’s self-description: “Common Sense Conservative.” I hope everyone runs on that.
With more and more conservatiuves realizing the GOP has failed them and willing to join a different party, the GOP will BE the third party and eventually become insignificant. You have to start sometime and place with somebody, and this is the time and place. The somebodies are already in place.
No leaderless group of conservatives can win an election. It will be much easier to "take over" the GOP than to "take over" the entire country with a non-GOP party.
If recent polling data is to be believed, the Tea Party movement IS the Republican party for all intents and purposes.
Viguerie claims "the Republican establishment disdains this populist uprising." Maybe.
I don't know of any Republicans in office who "disdains" the tea parties. I do know Republicans who are happy to be associated with the tea parties, and fight to get on the podiums! In my experience the "disdain" is directed at the party and comes from dissaffected Republican voters.
However, as the year has stretched on, a failed Republican presidential bid is fading, and this discontent is waning while the current administration and congress hands the public one onerous outrage after another.
What's happening in the tea parties is that people are actually using the Constitution to ground and form policy choices, and as a constructive means to hold the political establishment accountable.
Our constitutional system of checks and balances is currently in shambles. Congress refuses to hold the President accountable constitutionally, and the courts refuse to hold the other two branches accountable.
This is why the 10th Amendment is becoming so popular within the Tea Party Movement, and why that Amendment is becoming the bane of statists in the political establishment.
I agree with Viguerie's comments here -- to a point. It's too bad Viguerie doesn't name names when he writes about these "statists" in the political establishment.
The tea party movement is young and emotional and sometimes reckless. I don't know, ultimately, where it will lead, and neither does anyone else.
Viguerie, Ron Paul, etc. are not Conservatives but Libertarians.
They are anti war, for Legalizing marajuana, and other areas
that are not Conservative. Many are also 9/11 Truthers.
The Libertarians are more closley related to liberals
on the domestic and international views.
Paul’s son Rand who is running for the Senate has stated he is Libertarian.
They piggyback on the Republican Party name because they know they could never win using their real title along with many of their true beliefs.
I have been to more than a few Tea Party rallies and the Paulites are there handing out their 9/11 Truther material.
I have heard the same thing from FReepers in other states.
Bottom line, the Paulite - Vigueri bunch need to stop their concern for the Republican Party which they are member in name only.
That would make Ron Paul a RINO as I have stated many times before.
Actually, Third Parties have occasionally succeeded. First with Andrew Jackson in 1824, with the death of the Federalist Party, and the birth of the Democrat party. Second with Lincoln, with the birth of the Republican party.
The next Presidential election appears to me to most resemble the Jackson-1824, with Palin in the role of Jackson. This can go one of two ways--Palin stays Republican, and the RINO wing of the party dies (and turns Democrat), or a true conservative party is established, and the Republican party dies.
There's a lot of argument about that. If you come along with a new party when one of the two parties is breaking up, do you have a third-party or a new second party?
Jackson came along when the Federalists had disappeared and everybody was some kind of (Jeffersonian) Republican. Lincoln's Republican party sprung up at the same time the Whig party was falling apart.
The next Presidential election appears to me to most resemble the Jackson-1824, with Palin in the role of Jackson. This can go one of two ways--Palin stays Republican, and the RINO wing of the party dies (and turns Democrat), or a true conservative party is established, and the Republican party dies.
The reason why Lincoln's Republicans (and to some extent Jackson's Democrats) did so well is because they could take votes away from the party in power. In the 1850s, a lot of Democrats (as well as Whigs) flocked to the Republicans, so they became a stronger and bigger party than the Whigs had been.
A new party now wouldn't get all the Republican votes and would get hardly any Democrat votes. Unless it got massive support at the polls from new voters and long time non-voters, it wouldn't do any better at the polls than the Republicans. It would simply split the non-Democrat vote with the Republicans.
There was a chance 30 or 40 years ago for a new party. You had liberals in both parties and conservatives in both parties. If one of the parties was too rigid, a third party could have drawn off voters from both parties and replaced the weaker of the two main parties.
But that's unlikely to happen now. For better or worse, we already have a conservative party and a liberal party and a new party isn't going to find much of an opening.
I am not a "Republican". Meaning I am not a member of the Grand Old Party (Political Party).
Therefore I will not vote for or support the candidate that the members of "his/her" political party fielded as their choice.
I could care less how that person was fielded. He/She could have bought their way on to the ballot, they could have been drug, kicking and screaming, to the decision to run. If the GOP fields a candidate who is not conservative I will "forget that political party" in my decision upon who to vote for.
I mean it is a pretty straight forward sentence.
And before you want to engage in an on going debate about the subject, please simply keep in mind that it was you who initiated this exchange. I simply agreed with RegulatorCountry. I, after years of debate here on FR, have adopted the policy of not taking issue with those with whom I disagree. It is usually pointless and takes up more bandwidth that it is worth.
Thanks neverdem.
I think I made that point earlier (maybe on another 3-party thread). Need leadership. BTW another problem with the republican party since 1988. When you take over the rep party, let me know, maybe we’ll merge.
And I thank you for your agreement. Common sense and the party bandwagon appear to have parted ways.
It’s going to be quite the donnybrook between now and the Republican nomination. They can save themselves some grief and embarrassment, by embracing their own platform and sticking to it, as well as to the Constitution. Or, they can create a schism. Their choice.
I sense the 2012 cliques forming on FR already. Some things never change.
One can understand the mindset of the "party faithful", however. Lord knows I was one for a long, long time in my life. It is only little solace that I find myself not as isolated as I once felt when I made the decision to severe the cord.
And in being totally and brutally honest, even though I severed the cord, on election day I still found myself, like a moth to the flame, being drawn back to pulling the lever "against" one candidate rather than voting "for" one.
This too will change, for me, in the voting booth where "my vote" is my only real political capital.
“But make no mistake here” sounds just like the BO. I just had to laugh at this. Carry on, Ronin.
To tell the truth, I have never listened to his speeches and have no intention of starting. His actions and policies tell me everything I need to know about him.
That would be Palin.
When you take over the rep party, let me know, maybe we’ll merge.
That would be my preference. However, if Palin is shut out and goes all the way rogue with a third party, I would still support her.
I speak the truth.
Republicans are down to 22% now. Yet Conservatism soars. Some polls put Conservatives at 60%. Everyone I know used to be Republicans. I don't know a single one now, and that isn't just here - I mean across the nation.
Do you really think it's the liberals and moderates leaving the Republican party? When they are the ones in control of it, and have been since Reagan left the White House?
Polling puts 40% of Conservatives inside the Republican party. Where are the rest of them? Do you think they crossed the aisle to vote for B.O?
The Republicans haven't been bleeding RINOs and liberals... They've been losing Conservatives. And they have been since Bush I. The critical tipping point has already happened.
Your claim that “Conservatism is at stake” is folly. Where have you been? Conservatism has never been more energetic and popular since the days of Ronald Reagan.
Not due to the Republicans, nor within the Republicans. The party is wholly owned by the Baker Moderates, and has been since Poppa Bush. They masquerade as Conservatives (kinder, gentler, "compassionate" conservatives), and ruin the name of Conservatism. That is why it is at stake.
I will lend *no* credence to them *at all*. When they have been forced to step down, and Reaganites ascend, then come talk to me about your silly Republicans.
Conseratives are currently found in both Houses of Congress and they’re all Republicans. Imagine *that*!
NO, they are *not* all Republicans, and not all Republicans are Conservatives, by a loooong shot. Those Conservatives who are in the Republican party are kept far away from the levers of power.
Conservatives have a grand chance to nominate and replace lifelong incumbents in Republican primaries. JD Hayworth is mulling a campaign to challenge McCain in Arizona and McCain already has one or two challengers.
So what? It won't be the Republicans replacing McCain, or any of the rest. It will be pressure from the TEA Parties working from the outside (if it can be done at all). Don't break your arm patting your back.
Your dream of a viable conservative national third party with respect to the presidential election is as silly today as it’s always been, even with a back-channeled financing by George Soros.
HA! At least it is "back-channeled", if it is there at all (as you have no proof of it). Soros donates to Republicans OPENLY. And they do his bidding. As to whether a third party can rise, the Whigs must have sounded alot like you.
Please don’t try to lecture me about fulfilling “the threats of ‘04 and ‘08” -— conservatives voted in both elections. Conservatives NEVER help democrats win.
No, Republicans NEVER help Democrats win. Conservatives, on the other hand, are noted for staying home if their principles are not represented. It has ALWAYS been the Republicans' game to lose. Democrats win when Republicans act like liberals, and their base stays home.
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