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California GOP to Rise Again
Townhall.com ^ | January 31, 2011 | Terry Paulsen

Posted on 01/31/2011 5:11:29 AM PST by Kaslin

Once again, political pundits are saying that the California Republican Party is dead and never to rise again unless it begins to embrace more moderate candidates. And just where has trying to be Democrat-lite ever gotten the Republican Party but in trouble? You can’t out-promise or out-spend liberal Democrats!

Politics is about real choices. In these challenging times, Republicans must teach, motivate, inspire, and, ultimately, draw a stark contrast between itself and the progressive politicians. Do citizens want more freedom or big government control, Constitutional rule or activist judges, individual rights or group advocacy, low taxes or wealth redistribution?

Yes, California is the exception to the hard-fought Republican gains across the country. While others have had enough of big-government politicians, Californians seem to have no trouble hoping that the Democrats can force the Fairy God Mother to magically fund our state’s largesse. Fortunately, she’s been locked up in the basement of the House of Representatives and no early release is expected. CA dug its own hole; don’t expect other states to send any gold to bail out the “golden” state.

While pundits prematurely shovel dirt on the GOP’s grave, it’s the Democrats who face an uncertain future. The Democrats not only control CA’s legislative and executive branches, they now own the problem of how to get the state out of the red after years of approving exorbitant state employee contracts and pensions and providing unfunded program promises they no longer can afford. They’re about to be as popular as a parent taking away a spoiled teenager’s credit card.

To his credit, Governor Brown has identified the problem, called for austerity, but now hopes to sell voters on extending more “temporary taxes” in June. As Californians watch gas, energy, food and water prices soar, the chances of approving more taxes to fund over-priced salaries and pensions or an ineffective educational system seem remote.

Why will conservative Republicans rebound? Because progressive policies don’t work! You can see the results in the streets of Greece and the EU. In the US, states that are failing are run by Democrats and states that are rebounding and attracting businesses and jobs are run by Republicans. People are tired of talk; they want jobs and results.

As we come closer to celebrating what would have been Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, we should follow his advice: “I appealed to their best hopes, not their worst fears. To their confidence, not their doubts.” Republicans shouldn’t race to the center; they should stand strong for the rock-solid conservative principles that guided Ronald Reagan into political victory as governor and as president. He believed in the American people—its workers, entrepreneurs and citizens. He wanted empowered individuals, not bigger government.

Democrats keep asking what Republicans will do to fix the economy. They don’t plan on passing more programs, regulations or stimulus plans. They plan on getting out of the way to let people DO what they DO Best—innovate, work hard, spend their money where they want it spent, create businesses to provide a product or service someone will actually pay for, and re-energize the private sector that has been over-controlled and over-taxed.

Want to revitalize the Republican Party, then stop talking about Republican politicians and start promoting the real answer—real citizens, entrepreneurs and hard-working Americans who are busy making the American Dream work. Let them fund ads that catch Americans working and let their success inspire others to do the same. Politicians aren’t the stars of the GOP—the people are!

As Reagan said from the White House, “I’m not taking your time this evening to ask you to trust me. Instead, I ask you to trust yourself. That is what America is all about… It’s the power of millions of people like you who will determine what will make America great again.”

Reagan wouldn’t want us to wait for another election. We’ve had enough of eloquent politicians who think they have all the answers. We need a party that believes in us and proves it by cutting taxes, cutting spending and minimizing big government dependence. Get out of the way and give “We the People” freedom again—freedom to fail and to succeed!


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: cagop; ebaybillionaire; ebaybillionairess; meg; megwhitman; whitman
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1 posted on 01/31/2011 5:11:30 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

When the first frost hits hell.Activist judges and a rabid left state house will styme any attempts of straightening out that mess.


2 posted on 01/31/2011 5:19:33 AM PST by HANG THE EXPENSE (Life is tough.It's tougher when you're stupid.)
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To: Kaslin

If we had some folks at the helm who understood what we are fighting...the Republican party would leave California so that there would be no mistake about the democrats destroying that once great state. As it is we give democrats fodder for blaming our policies and actions to explain away their failures...


3 posted on 01/31/2011 5:24:07 AM PST by Wpin ("I Have Sworn Upon the Altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny...")
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To: Kaslin

The California of Reagan does not exist any more.


4 posted on 01/31/2011 5:24:39 AM PST by Ladycalif ("If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." Jesus)
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To: Kaslin

California has been lost for a generation. Leftist policies and tax aggression have made the state toxic to business development. Right thinking people have been fleeing the state in droves to be replaced by illegals. There is nothing that will reverse that trend.

They’ve picked the bones of the productive class clean. The only hope they have is to leech funds from outside of the state (i.e., bailout).

The national GOP should just write that trainwreck off. There will never be another GOP presidential candidate in our lifetime to carry that state.


5 posted on 01/31/2011 5:27:56 AM PST by Buckeye Battle Cry (Conservatives want a CHOICE not an echo - No more RINOs!)
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To: Kaslin

Maybe, just maybe, after 4 or 8 years of Dem rule with unchecked spending and massive tax increases that pushes the hypocritical California rich to re-domicile and ultimately pushes the state over the brink. Then if it becomes clear they are not going to get a Federal bailout. Then maybe they will vote Republican. I doubt it though. My bet is California remains the US version of France, with riots every time someone remotely suggests spending cuts, until well after I am dead.


6 posted on 01/31/2011 5:33:06 AM PST by Opinionated Blowhard ("The time will come when Winter will ask you what you were doing all Summer" -- Henry Clay)
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

Trouble is that Dems boos the deficit by unbridaled spending.

Their solution is to raise taxes to cover the shortfall. Those of means pack up and leave. This segment is majority Republican. Balance shifts even more to the left in an increasing downward, left-handed spin!

The same is happening in my state (Maryland)!


7 posted on 01/31/2011 5:39:31 AM PST by catman67
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To: Kaslin

The CA GOP to rise again?

This depends on the masses in California to suddenly see the light that liberalism is a failed path. Rapidly growing are the numbers of the dependent class, Hispanics and others who are deeply and inherently in the dems’ camp, while what’s left of the producing class is dwindling by the day.

I see no indication the GOP even has a future in California, except for a presence in some of the relatively conservative counties. As a statewide power, it’s history.


8 posted on 01/31/2011 6:07:38 AM PST by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: Kaslin

“Do citizens want more freedom or big government control, Constitutional rule or activist judges, individual rights or group advocacy, low taxes or wealth redistribution?”

Californians answered all that when they made their choices on Nov. 2. With the nation as a whole decided to make a statement against statism, California chose to embrace it. Game over.


9 posted on 01/31/2011 6:15:16 AM PST by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: Kaslin
Why will conservative Republicans rebound? Because progressive policies don’t work!

Californians don't see it that way. If progressive policies don't work, it's viewed as the fault of evil Republicans and corporations. They reflexively double down and embrace socialism even more. It's similar to muslims in the turd world.. their corrupt islamist governments drive them to lives of poverty and oppression. Do they seek another path? No... they chain themselves even more tightly to islam. In California's case, the religion is progressivism. Its residents have been schooled that way. To think otherwise is heresy.

10 posted on 01/31/2011 6:21:13 AM PST by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: Kaslin

11 posted on 01/31/2011 6:42:16 AM PST by Hotlanta Mike (TeaNami)
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To: Ladycalif

Sadly, I agree. Pulled up stakes there 22 years ago and have not looked back.


12 posted on 01/31/2011 6:50:47 AM PST by Tomhorn (Wake up and smell the coffee)
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To: ScottinVA

First hand observations of unemployed and on welfare Californians include use of prescription mood elevators like Paxil. When the details get too difficult to assimilate, mindnumbing drugs are the ticket. Its easier for a Californian to justify a life long prescription drug habit than the economic reality that money doesn’t grow on trees or come from a permanent stream of welfare checks subsidized by the federal government.


13 posted on 01/31/2011 6:51:48 AM PST by x_plus_one (Who sews the wind reaps the storm...)
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To: Kaslin

WE need to just let California hit bottom, take a dead cat bounce and then go bankrupt. Maybe at some point they will figure out its time to change. No Federal money for CA. or any other state.


14 posted on 01/31/2011 6:53:37 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: Kaslin

As long as the urban coastal areas keep growing, the number of illegal immigrants keeps increasing, and the unions maintain their stranglehold on the economy and statehouse, California is a lost cause. And when the Dems crazy policies don’t work it is because of (1)evil Republicans, (2) evil corporations and (3)they just didn’t spend enough money. It is never because the policy is wrong.


15 posted on 01/31/2011 6:57:35 AM PST by CarWashMan
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To: CarWashMan
and the unions maintain their stranglehold....

And there is your key to success. (R) national victories in 2012 sweep in more Tea Party, and the new Tea Party empowered president, like Reagan.

But unlike Reagan and the PATCO decert of 1981 this time it happens bigger and across more than one public entitiy -- and with the full-throttled backing of Congress -- the president with a stroke of a pen decertifies and disbands the existence of public employee service unions from garbage collectors to teachers. Congress then seals it as a matter of law.

The SEIU overplayed their hand with Obama. Everything the (D)'s promised will collapse. The now-taxpyer un-funded Public service pensions go belly up, and we who have long given up the hope of and even the need for a pension can welcome our formerly larded bretheren into the real world.

Wouldn't it be sweet -- starting with CA -- and the governor who did so much to promote the notion of public employee unions in the 1970's to have to eat crow and explain to all the pensioners why he won't pay?

Can even do it without the States declaring bankruptcy at that rate.

Let them eat cake, Jerry!

FReegards!


16 posted on 01/31/2011 7:26:07 AM PST by Agamemnon (Darwinism is the glue that holds liberalism together)
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To: Kaslin

The California GOP may not be dead, but that’s no thanks to Schwarzenegger and Gerald Parsky, the two primary reasons for voters’ dismissive regard of the GOP as possessing not-a-dime’s-worth-of-difference.


17 posted on 01/31/2011 8:13:48 AM PST by RightOnTheLeftCoast (Obama: running for re-election in '12 or running for Mahdi now? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi])
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To: Kaslin

By the time Republicans have control of California again, they will end up being elected pallbearers.

The coffins are being built on a daily basis.

Individuals & companies are moving east at an alarming rate.


18 posted on 01/31/2011 8:19:52 AM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: Georgia Girl 2

WE need to just let California hit bottom, take a dead cat bounce “

This AM, the San Fran FOX station I watch said that a Calif lawmaker is bringing a bill forward that requires employers to not fire or discipline employees or future employees for the use of Marijuana- with or without a ‘Medical Card”.

As a person who was a bookkeeper for over 40 years in that state- can anyone give me some kind of idea what kind of impact that could have on employers & workmen’s comp insurance & liability insurance in general?

Hire a driver for your florist van- he/she has a bad accident while high & what does that do to your business? Do you lose everything you have- even your personal assets—over a lawsuit from those who were damaged???

This will be very disruptive or expensive for California business.

Lots of other states will welcome serious Conservative business owners to their borders. Time for more calls to U-Haul or Bekins.


19 posted on 01/31/2011 8:26:58 AM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: Kaslin

In these challenging times, Republicans must teach, motivate, inspire, and, ultimately, draw a stark contrast between itself and the progressive politicians.

a stark contrast? LOL

Dump the New Majorityites and tell the Country Club elite to hit the road.. or just Get rid of the CA GoP alltogether and build up a TEA Party based movement and leave the progressives in the Left and the Right behind.


20 posted on 01/31/2011 9:29:25 AM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed .. Monthly Donor Onboard .. Obama: Epic Fail or Bust!!!)
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