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Nasty Parties Don't Win Elections
slate ^ | 3/24/10 | Anne Applebaum

Posted on 03/24/2010 3:13:22 PM PDT by Nachum

My fellow disappointed conservatives, former conservatives, and disgusted conservatives, it is time for all good Republicans to come to the defense of David Frum and to endorse his critique of radical right-wing talk-show rhetoric. If you've left the party in disgust, call up your friends who are still members and get them to do it for you.

I am not writing this because David Frum is my friend, although he is. I am writing this because I have just come back from London, where I got a close-up look at the state of the British Conservative Party, once the intellectual motor of free-market economics in Europe and the rest of the world. After almost two decades in power, the British Conservatives lost in 1997 to Tony Blair's slicker, smoother, Labor Party—a party that had accepted the basic premises of Thatcherism and moved on.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dont; liberalidiots; nasty; parties; win
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I am not writing this because David Frum is my friend

Riiiiiight.

1 posted on 03/24/2010 3:13:22 PM PDT by Nachum
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To: Nachum

It worked for the Democrats.


2 posted on 03/24/2010 3:14:40 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: Nachum
David Frum has a friend.

Who knew?

3 posted on 03/24/2010 3:15:00 PM PDT by FredZarguna ("Congress Shall Make No Law..." ah, if only Madison had stopped right there.)
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To: Nachum

If that were true, the Democrats would never win anything.


4 posted on 03/24/2010 3:15:03 PM PDT by Tax-chick (It's a jungle out there, kiddies. Have a very fruitful day.)
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To: Nachum

Whaddaya expect from Slate. Just another liberal media mouthpiece (which Frum has turned into). Frum needs to drag his ass back to Canada and stay there.


5 posted on 03/24/2010 3:15:55 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog
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To: Nachum

Shut up, Ann. Geez. The Democrats are as nasty as they come and they won. Ditz.


6 posted on 03/24/2010 3:16:02 PM PDT by ReneeLynn (Socialism is SO yesterday. Fascism, it*s the new black. Mmm Mmm Mmm.)
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To: Nachum
Nasty Parties Don't Win Elections

Explain the Dem wins in '06 and '08 then.

7 posted on 03/24/2010 3:16:40 PM PDT by TigersEye (Down a lazy river ...)
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To: Nachum

The bitch is a child rapist defender...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/the_outrageous_arrest_of_roman.html


8 posted on 03/24/2010 3:17:51 PM PDT by Crim
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To: Nachum
Nasty Parties don't win Elections...But committed soldiers win wars. It is not politics as usual, nice campaigning time is over. Either commit to principles of liberty or get out of the way.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” -- Sound a little nasty to you RINO turncoats?

9 posted on 03/24/2010 3:19:09 PM PDT by DaveyB (Alcohol ,Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store not a bureaucracy!)
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To: Nachum
Why oh why can't Republicans be the classy party?


10 posted on 03/24/2010 3:19:09 PM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: Nachum
Seems that the Dems rode BDS into a majority last election.
11 posted on 03/24/2010 3:19:38 PM PDT by 5thGenTexan
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To: Tax-chick
If that were true, the Democrats would never win anything.

As long as you are passing out free money, you can be as nasty as you want. Parties that call for personal responsibility have to be ultra nice, since only about 25% of the electorate already believes in that concept. :)

12 posted on 03/24/2010 3:19:57 PM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ( "The right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended." - Rowan Atkinson)
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To: Nachum

Pound sand, rino.


13 posted on 03/24/2010 3:22:32 PM PDT by Scotsman will be Free (11C - Indirect fire, infantry - High angle hell - We will bring you, FIRE)
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To: Nachum

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/anne+applebaum/

Please tell her nasty we can be....


14 posted on 03/24/2010 3:22:41 PM PDT by Walkingfeather
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To: Nachum

Sorry, but the Country Club Conservatives have had a couple decades to get it right. Time’s up.


15 posted on 03/24/2010 3:22:45 PM PDT by caseinpoint (Don't get thickly involved in thin things)
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To: Nachum
All of us mothers and grandmothers are sooooo nasty ...actually, now that I think about it, it's nice to know that the other side thinks we are nasty...like ms. jackson.
16 posted on 03/24/2010 3:23:07 PM PDT by madinmadtown
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To: Nachum
DON'T LET THE ANGER DIE!!

(Only 7-1/2 months to Take-Back-The-Country Day!)

17 posted on 03/24/2010 3:25:31 PM PDT by clintonh8r (I love my country. I hate...HATE!!...my government.)
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To: Nachum

Once you’ve given way to socialist governance, once you’ve bought into it, a conservative party has no purpose. All you can do is promise to administer the welfare state better than the other guys, maybe you can promise to nanny your fellow subjects on a tighter budget.

Thats not really much of a winning program there. Thats the fatal problem of Britain’s conservatives. It is possible to compromise on the application of your principles, we do that every day and with good reason. But once you compromise your principles away, you’ve got nothing left to stand on except pose and fashion. Once you’re just debating on your opponent’s ground, you can win arguments all day long and change nothing, because the underlying argument has been ceded. Are the Brit conservatives going to repeal the nanny state? No? Then they’re finished as an intellectual movement. All they’ve got left is posturing.

Annie thinks its great that the post-principle conservatism is winning elections again. But its not just about winning elections, its about persuading people and selling ideas. If you’ve given up your core principles in order to be electable, what is the point of electing you? If you can’t explain your philosophy to the average voter, thats a big problem, but a bigger problem yet is if you stop trying to explain them.


18 posted on 03/24/2010 3:26:03 PM PDT by marron
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To: Nachum

Ann, What does a nice girl like you know about nasty?


19 posted on 03/24/2010 3:28:15 PM PDT by Highway55
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To: Nachum

Pride goeth before the fall.


20 posted on 03/24/2010 3:28:53 PM PDT by dforest
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