Posted on 11/10/2012 5:19:50 AM PST by Kaslin
Tuesday night was truly a bitter, disappointing result. There is no way around it.
My thoughts for the conservative movement: now is not the time to be discouraged. Now is not the time to point fingers at candidates who gave their all or at allies within the movement. Now is not the time to lash out at our opponents on the Left. And lastly, now is not the time to wonder whether or not we can turn things around. Of course we can. Of course we will.
In the months ahead, we are going to carefully study what we did right and what we did wrong over the last year - from messaging to activist mobilization to technology, to new media. We will examine in detail what the Left did as well. Then our movement is going to become bigger, stronger, better organized, smarter, more nimble and tougher so we can advocate for our issues and promote economic freedom.
We've won major victories -- defeating cap-and-trade, stopping card check, and countless state policy wins.
And yes, we've suffered grievous defeats including the heart wrenching health care issue in 2010.
Conservatives have been knocked down before and gotten back up. This time will be no different.
Next week begins the lame duck session of Congress where they’ll be deciding your tax rate, energy policy and making final decisions on the spending cuts we fought for all year. Americans for Prosperity will be engaging our activists in this crucial policy battle. Let’s not allow one night of disappointment to erase the years-long effort to trim the bloated fed government and force them to cut spending.
In 2004, the Left failed to defeat a sitting President they thought was disastrous to their agenda and vulnerable politically. However, during the early years of the decade their movement built powerful capabilities and strengthened their effectiveness in the face of withering electoral defeats in 2000, 2002 and then 2004. They ignored talk of a "transformation" in the electorate that would doom them to long-term decline. Two years later they captured Congress and then won the presidency in 2008.
So it's ironic to hear them telling us that we are on the path to long-term decline! We control our destiny.
Recently I finished reading a book by A.J. Langguth called Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution. In the early 1770s, the fledgling Patriot cause -- really nothing more than a grassroots movement at the time -- suffered political and issue defeats time and again at the hands of a seemingly invincible British Empire and their Tory allies in the colonies.
After one such defeat a key lieutenant of Samuel Adams canvassed a number of Massachusetts towns seeking to rally support for the cause but he reported back that "They are dead, and the dead can't be raised without a miracle." Adams replied, "Nil desperandum. Never despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it."
So take it from the original community organizer Samuel Adams. There is no need to despair. The American people are still a great and wise people. They want individual freedom and a more limited government.
And, we will be triumphant in the end. Much lies ahead.
Only half are.
“carefully study what we did right and what we did wrong”
Shut down the vote fraud or it doesn’t matter how right we do things. If you poke around here, I’ve been saying that since 2000.
This guy is delusional.
I have three words for Mr. Phillips: Dole, McLame, and Mitt. Thanks GOP. No wonder I put all my trust in you, McPutzFace and Boner! What a crew!
You know that by voting Mitt Romney in all of of could then sit back a little for four years and let the big boys handle things.
What if that is not the plan?
Nonsense! Slightly less than half voted with any semblance of wisdom and determination for greatness. The rest voted in a potent combination of ignorance, rapaciousness and malice.
You better despair. We’ve entered the abyss and ready to fall head over heels to the bottom.
I agree.
Shut down the vote fraud...
We have 2 years til mid-term. Our side should be fighting everyday for voter ID and to purge the state’s voter roles. That’s the place to start. With a fair election we may or may not have won this battle. I believe we would have picked up more house/senate seats.
But don't try to encourage me it will get better. We lost it when Obamacare was passed and we buried freedom when John Roberts raised Obamacare from the dead. Show me one good thing these days...layoffs, national debt, fiscal cliff, socialized medicine (a death sentence for those over 70 like me), corrupt news media, AAA rating, Benghazi, Muslim takeover of the world, watching my years long and hard earned money being taken away from me because it isn't "fair" that others don't have what I've earned ...make your own list. And don't you dare put HOPE on it ...as Romney said, "Hope is not a strategy." So don't try to keep telling me about "silver linings" ...there aren't any. Get over it and get on with living in this DIFFERENT USA.
But don't try to encourage me it will get better. We lost it when Obamacare was passed and we buried freedom when John Roberts raised Obamacare from the dead. Show me one good thing these days...layoffs, national debt, fiscal cliff, socialized medicine (a death sentence for those over 70 like me), corrupt news media, AAA rating, Benghazi, Muslim takeover of the world, watching my years long and hard earned money being taken away from me because it isn't "fair" that others don't have what I've earned ...make your own list. And don't you dare put HOPE on it ...as Romney said, "Hope is not a strategy." So don't try to keep telling me about "silver linings" ...there aren't any. Get over it and get on with living in this DIFFERENT USA.
But don't try to encourage me it will get better. We lost it when Obamacare was passed and we buried freedom when John Roberts raised Obamacare from the dead. Show me one good thing these days...layoffs, national debt, fiscal cliff, socialized medicine (a death sentence for those over 70 like me), corrupt news media, AAA rating, Benghazi, Muslim takeover of the world, watching my years long and hard earned money being taken away from me because it isn't "fair" that others don't have what I've earned ...make your own list. And don't you dare put HOPE on it ...as Romney said, "Hope is not a strategy." So don't try to keep telling me about "silver linings" ...there aren't any. Get over it and get on with living in this DIFFERENT USA.
But don't try to encourage me it will get better. We lost it when Obamacare was passed and we buried freedom when John Roberts raised Obamacare from the dead. Show me one good thing these days...layoffs, national debt, fiscal cliff, socialized medicine (a death sentence for those over 70 like me), corrupt news media, AAA rating, Benghazi, Muslim takeover of the world, watching my years long and hard earned money being taken away from me because it isn't "fair" that others don't have what I've earned ...make your own list. And don't you dare put HOPE on it ...as Romney said, "Hope is not a strategy." So don't try to keep telling me about "silver linings" ...there aren't any. Get over it and get on with living in this DIFFERENT USA.
But don't try to encourage me it will get better. We lost it when Obamacare was passed and we buried freedom when John Roberts raised Obamacare from the dead. Show me one good thing these days...layoffs, national debt, fiscal cliff, socialized medicine (a death sentence for those over 70 like me), corrupt news media, AAA rating, Benghazi, Muslim takeover of the world, watching my years long and hard earned money being taken away from me because it isn't "fair" that others don't have what I've earned ...make your own list. And don't you dare put HOPE on it ...as Romney said, "Hope is not a strategy." So don't try to keep telling me about "silver linings" ...there aren't any. Get over it and get on with living in this DIFFERENT USA.
Do you remember their wails of despair in November-December 2004? Weren't they DELICIOUS?
They sounded like we do now. And they were just as wrong about their prospects for 2008 and beyond.
What came out of their "I can't BELIEVE we lost to HIM" process? They got definition, they embraced the radicalism at the core of their vision, and they have now kicked the ass of our mushy, stupid, low-definition, all-things-to-all-people jiveass party twice in a row.
WE, TOO HAVE A CORE OF RADICAL CONVICTION. And ours are better than theirs, and if that's not true numerically, then there's going to be a war.
So, what to do? GO RIGHT. Go as Right as Obama is Left. Obama voters turned up at the polls, and a lot of them are conventionally "unreachable".
The GOP in New Hampshire lost a Congressional seat by 6000 votes (the liberdopian got 12 000 votes in that race). How many guys living in shacks with a woman, a dog, and six kids flying Gadsden flags voted in that race? Damn few, that's how many.
How many of them are on the NH GOP GOTV map? None, that's how many.
The core Obama voter wants to burn that mother***** down. Axelrod found them all.
We need to find ours.
[ We’ve won major victories — defeating cap-and-trade, stopping card check, and countless state policy wins. ]
Both of which are about to be executed through regulatory fiat.
There are a lot of us who have been paying attention. There are a lot of us hoping for that flash point that will bring about some real change. Not to mention the windrows of dead bodies piled in the streets.
Man. I grew up in a strong union household and I had real communists for university instructors. My first Presidential vote was for Jerry Brown. Then, I went out into the real world and found out that socialism doesn’t work. People can change. This election wasn’t a knockout. It was a split decision. I have been around real communists. They would be scary as hell if there were more of them. The leaders of the Democrat party aren’t communists. They’re just grifters. They don’t want to enslave us all. They just think they can squeak out a little more money for themselves with their policies. We see what those policies could cause and it worries us. They may destroy us, but it will be because the Democrats are stupid, not because they want the country to fail. Do you honestly think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and Obama want to put on brown jumpsuits and go pull weeds in the collective’s cabbage patch? They want to live in America, not Mozambique. They just think they can squeeze another golden egg out of our country. They are running a balancing act and they think they can enrich themselves and their buddies even more and the country won’t tip over and fall into a pit.
We need to despair - anything else will only keep the sheeple moving along as they herd us to our final lot in life as livestock who exist at the whim of and for the pleasure of the government.
I am despondent and will continue to be so until...I’m not anymore.
Voted for the Mass. Moderate against my better judgment and where did it get us?
I am very angry too and not nearly ready to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again!
And if one self identified proud Obama voting lib tries to talk to me, they are gonna get an earful. I wish I could punch them but for that, there may be consequences.
Catholic church: We couldn’t pray for our candidates at choir practice because a number of pro abort members sitting behind me might be offended.
Screw them!
They are stupid, dangerous people.
I agree with him in part...don’t despair. Instead, replace it with a steely resolve to not let those you care about end up as serfs in a socialist hellhole. To echo Brother Bluto’s words: was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? It’s not over until we SAY it’s over!
That said, it IS time to think about what we really want and how to get there. I do not agree the author that “now is not the time to wonder whether or not we can turn things around.” I think it’s perfectly valid and sane to ask ourselves what victory looks like. Tuesday was indeed a slap in the face. I don’t think that future “victory” for conservatives is going to involve continuing to try to drag along the denizens of Sodom who have made it abundantly clear that they’re not interested in what we’re selling.
The choices were stark, the majority of the electorate made it’s choice.
Awesome post
Good post and I respectfully disagree. As my site handle would indicate, I have a healthy amount of experience with the left as well. The left isn’t so much interested in money as they are power. Raw, unadulterated power. The 20th century is replete with examples of what happens when the left obtains it. As well as what fate is in store for the minority that chooses to not go along quietly.
I guess its just human nature to deny reality when that reality is horrible to contemplate. But I ask you: what is it about the underlying character of of our popular leftists like holder, reid, pelolsi, et al that you think is more honorable or moral that that of say robert mugabe?
Good post and I respectfully disagree. As my site handle would indicate, I have a healthy amount of experience with the left as well. The left isn’t so much interested in money as they are power. Raw, unadulterated power. The 20th century is replete with examples of what happens when the left obtains it. As well as what fate is in store for the minority that chooses to not go along quietly.
I guess its just human nature to deny reality when that reality is horrible to contemplate. But I ask you: what is it about the underlying character of of our popular leftists like holder, reid, pelolsi, et al that you think is more honorable or moral that that of say robert mugabe?
Do you think Nancy Pelosi wants power so she can make us all wear red shirts? Nope. They want power because it leads to money. I don’t think they are as honorable as Mugabe. They are as honorable as John Dillinger or Bernie Madoff. Everybody goes weak in the knees about the Democrat leadership because they might be communists. They’re as communist as Bernie Madoff. Look at their big hero Ayers. He lies about his age. Why would a good communist do that? He wants the coeds to think he’s still virile. There are some communists in the Democrat leadership, but the vast majority are just grifters. And never forget that every communist revolution was about people gaining power and wealth who felt they couldn’t obtain power and wealth through the system that was in place. Communism and socialism are just hoaxes.
The GOP is the Whig Party, it is over-RIP.
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