Posted on 05/04/2012 6:31:27 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
My FRiends, we might as well face the reality that we the combined pro-life conservative movement and tea party coalition have lost this round (the presidential election) in the larger battle to reclaim our constitution and our inalienable rights. Rove, Romney and the GOP-e have successfully destroyed and driven off each and every pro-life conservative tea party candidate from the race and all have surrendered to the Romney camp. It is no secret that Romney is not one of us. There is absolutely no doubt that he has never accomplished a single conservative thing in his entire political career (one term as liberal governor of liberal Massachusetts and six years campaigning for president). In Massachusetts, he undeniably championed abortion, gay rights, global warming, gun control, big government statist mandated/socialized health care programs, liberal judges, TARP, bailouts, stimulus spending, debt limit increases, etc, and even though he's recently claimed a complete reversal in political beliefs and no longer despises pro-life conservatives or the time of Reagan-Bush, I still don't trust him. He still stubbornly holds on to some of his statist beliefs, like global warming, gays in the military, RomneyCare, stimulus spending, etc, so there is no way I can vote for him or join Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Newt or any others who are endorsing him. But I will not act on my prior promises that I would actively campaign against him if he wins the nomination. Our combined movement is already torn and splintered and is going to have to be mended if we're going to have any impact whatsoever against the liberal/progressives and statists after the election. To that end I propose a TRUCE among our conservative forces during the remainder of this election cycle.
We conservatives have already lost the presidency to either the Dems or the GOP-e, and if we tear the tea party apart, if we tear the pro-life movement apart, if we tear FR apart then we lose it all. It's far more important that we re-unite and live to fight another day. Even if we can't vote for a true conservative for the presidency, it's doubly important that we all turn out on election day or sooner and drag our friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, etc, to the polls to vote straight conservative for every slot on our ballots. The only way we can win our freedom back is to vote out the liberal progressives and vote in as many liberty loving conservatives as is humanly possible into every elected office at every level of government all across this great land. To prevent a total loss to the dems or GOP-e, we must continue the tea party rebellion into November and beyond. Whatever else you may do, you must turn out and vote straight tea party conservative down ticket!!
We must continue expanding our inroads into the state houses and into every elective office in the land. We must continue building on our majority in the house and we must retake the senate!! We must help the conservative governors and state legislatures to fully restore the ninth and tenth amendments and reclaim the real political power away from the federal usurpers and return it to the states and the people per the constitution!! This way, regardless of who wins the presidency, we can cut his unconstitutional expansionist movements off at the knees. And if any executive, civil officer or judge dares commit impeachable offenses, we must hold the majorities so we can impeach and remove them from office!!
And we must salvage and rebuild and continue strengthening our conservative pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, pro-borders, pro-constitution, pro-small government, pro-defense, pro-liberty movements and our tea party coalition. And we must stop ripping each other apart!!
Therefore I hereby propose a general truce among our conservative forces!!
The Republic we save may be our own!!
As far as FR's finances go, we're in the same boat as the rest of the economy and will have to make do with what we can raise. Fortunately, the big debts we ran up a couple years ago have been paid off. We borrowed approx $20,000 a few years ago from two FReepers to fund our national convention, plus we ran up another $20,000 in legal fees during the last couple of years fighting off Righthaven. But those are now behind us and paid off. We also did quite a bit of traveling each year for the last three years on cross country tea party tours, but I think we can now cut that back and remove it from our budget requirements. If we're fortunate enough to not incur any additional legal costs or equipment costs (other than what we've already planned), and cut the travel and a few other areas, we should be able to tighten our belts enough to weather the storm even if we fail to reach our short term fundraising goals.
Whatever the outcome of the elections, we are prepared to roar into 2013 with the tea party chewing up liberal/progressives and RINOs and raising hell in our never ending fight for liberty!!
We are the resistance!!
Let's take the enemy head-on instead of fighting each other!!
Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!!
Absolutely nothing stopping anyone from doing that. Thanks!
Thank you very much, betty boop!!
TH is restrictive and needs javascript to read correctly. Also it gets inexplicably balky about Facebook logins from time to time. (Firefox, on Windows and Linux.)
But... you know, I have to say I miss MurryMom who finally got zotted out of here. Without genuine liberals to argue with, this gets to be a bit of an echo chamber. Could there be a Screaming Liberals forum for this sort of exchange to take place in?
JimRobs artcile was well said. The battle royal is coming - the most leftwing President and his minions are running for another term.
They (unions and the left) are after gov Walker in Wisconsin.
We have marriage on the ballot in NC.
We have many RINO v conservative primaries.
And in 2012 we have the oppty to reverse the Democrat Senate.
In 2010, we saw a lot of good candidates win, and it made a difference. Not enough, in part because Obama was still president.
In 2012, we see a lot of up and coming conservatives - Mourdock may beat Lugar, Cruz in Texas may beat Dewhurst - these races matters (also Nebraska).
these races matter - a lot. And disunity or grumbling about the inevitable Romney v Obama choice is pointless and unhelpful.
It is what it is, the saying goes.
“I can see another scenario. A Romney win will entrench the GOP-E socialists in the party. “
Not really. Win or lose, we have the same players and the same power structure in party, with grassroots and the beltway both parts of the party. both the ‘e’ wing and the conservative wings exist and will have to co-exist. Romney may install ‘his guys’ in certain places, but in any case the grassroots will stick to their guns on issues and either Romney governs as the conservative he ran on or he becomes a rump one-termer like GHWBush became when he broke his tax pledge.
The bottom line is that the real hollow victory would be to assume ‘aha we defeated the GOP-e’ when they lose to Obama in Nov. really?!? I dont think so! Everytime we lose the ‘insiders’ want us to move more to the center, not right.
“Every conservative, IMO, needs to make a hard assessment of whether a Romney win in 2012 would be a Pyrrhic victory”
Unless Romney flat out keeps obamacare and nominates a Kagan clone, its wont be a Pyrrhic victory. The real hollow victory will be if we dont sweep in strong conservatves with him to pull him right and solve the problems we face.
Then I WILL write in Chuck Norris.
Thank you very much, jagusafr!!
Thank you very much, smokingfrog!!
Check spelling on your tag ;) AND, check your state rules on write ins... Could be that your whole ballot will be trashed with a write in :/ ... ( want to do a write in; am checking my states rules (Texas)
“I don’t remember the hand-wringing on FR over the last president who destroyed the conservative brand (TSA, No-Child-Left-Behind, Prescription Drug Benefit, Amnesty, Harriet Miers, etc.) and brought us the current statist. I admired W on a personal level but he was a disaster for conservatism. Romney I suspect, will be more consistently conservative than W.”
You have an excellent point here. Many on FR havent looked at his agenda and platform - it is indeed more conservative than GWB’s 2000 campaign.
Romney’s flip flops created distrust, but at this point, the best plan is to vote for him then hold him to his promises.
I just looked at my ballot for May 29..It has everyone but Perry on it..I supported Newt but wonder which candidate might have the most Texas delegates to hold Romney’s feet to the fire at convention time..”strstegery wise”. We dropped winner take all.
I’ve seen ballots with actual blanks for write ins. Seems to me that using one of those blanks oughtn’t to void the ballot, but again ballot counting never was represented to be logical.
LOL! Thank you very much, montanajoe!!
How do you intend on holding him to his promises?
How many typos can I make on one thread! LOL
Thank you very much, Idaho_Cowboy!!
Thank you very much, Sirius Lee!!
PALIN 2016
It starts now.
I wish Sarah would have run or some other good Conservative. Why are our guys afraid to run? I also would have loved to have seen Paul Ryan go for it. I just don’t understand how, and why, we always get the dregs of the Republican Party to choose our nominee from. I like Speaker Gingrich, but his shady past did him in. Most people I know still believe he divorced a dying wife. I wish he could have kept his zipper in tact. Same goes for Herman “the whore monger” Cain. Are there no good Conservatives left who don’t have to live down gross immorality?
Gun grabber vs. gun grabber.
I cannot vote for Milk.
I will vote Conservative.
The Tea Party should become a party and build up a sufficient profile and presence that will allow it to get a plurality in the face of two stinky mainstream candidates. If America can be brought to care. Much of it doesn’t even seem to care.
It won’t happen. Almost half the country lives on the government teat. The Progressives have a lock on any three party election. The Tea Party does not outnumber the welfare crowd, big city liberals, academics, kids who don’t know any better, hippies, staunchly democrat minorities, and union workers.
We either take back the GOP or lose our constitution and country.
No FReeper would probably admit to getting bennies, but some surely do. That said, they probably also are still hoping to prosper again well enough to be independent of that stuff. They have not forgotten what it was like to be free.
I guess you could look at it that way...
I plan on not giving to the RNC, showing at all my congresscritter events to ping him, going to candidates forums to ping and stay in constant touch with staffs to let them know how I feel...
and if I win the lottery, stand back - the you-know-what will hit the fan!
Amen
Herman Cain left no love children. The allegations towards Cain about untoward sexual behavior were brought up by disturbed women whom he had been a kind benefactor to in the past, and were probably untrue. It seemed mighty convenient when they came forward. Surely if it were mere money they wanted, the time would have come years earlier when he was riding high at Godfather’s. Ultimately the gossip upset Cain’s wife, and he called off his campaign for her sake.
There are any number of things we can channel our energy on to be positive - a lot of people are choosing to be sour grapes / scorched earth because of Romney instead of doing something positive. Those people are our own worst enemies. We have a special election coming up in Arizona for a Congressional seat with very conservative Jesse Kelly needing our support - what if the people wasting all of this time whining and attacking Romney out of spite both here at FR and elsewhere instead worked hard to raise money, GOTV for Mr. Kelly instead? We have a primary coming up in Indiana for Senate where a strong conservative may defeat an entrenched GOP incumbent - once that happens he must get elected in November - why not focus on something like that? It would not be a shoo-in for him in the fall - Indiana can go Democrat. It does no good to win primaries if they don’t elected in the fall. Again...if all of this energy I see here on FR and elsewhere toward lashing out at Romney out of frustration would instead be focused on something positive like that an actual real difference could be made - not to mention you would have a lot more fun doing something actually constructive and positive.
Did I just read that on one hand you agreed to stop bashing others here who feel that they have been forced to Vote for the Republican Candidate to avoid four more years of Obama while at the same time claiming that you somehow own the mantle of “Conservative” while they don't?
Nice little swipe at the half of your fellow FReepers that disagree with you on this issue.
Who would have thought that half the people Posting here are closeted Daily Kos Members. Will wonders never cease.
If the contest were between Romney and Obama today, I'd certainly vote for Romney.
Not based so much on political ideology, but on identity. I know who Romney is. I know the pedigree and the political track record. I know little about Obama. What little I do know frightens me.
BHO simply can't be allowed to continue in his present office, or for that matter, any position of trust within the US government. He must be separated from our national governance and erased from our conscienceness other than an example of the inherent weakness of democracy.
I am resigned to Romney. I would not call it consent, but I do adamantly believe that he is not Barack Obama. With a GOP Congress, we can hope for a much better result if Obama is not in office. Obama does not care about the constitution or congress and he has demonstrated it over and over.
I completely understand your feelings and I am not asking for an endorsement. However, I fervently believe that I know what I am going to get with a 2nd Obama administration. Most importantly, that will be 1-3 SCOTUS nominations that the GOP will roll over for like another Kagan or Sotomayor. I don’t believe Romney would pick a extremely radical Justice and even another Kennedy would be preferable to another Harvard radical.
That was the thrust of my question. Every time one of us points out this extremely important fact, we are told what Romney did in Massachusetts. I did the research and learned (like another poster from Massachusetts said earlier) that the state house controls the nomination process and there was no way he would ever get a conservative through. When we point that out, a fair and valid point, we are called out for it and threatened with being banned.
I am not asking for your endorsement of him. I can’t endorse him either and my vote probably won’t count in the People’s Republic of Washington (albeit the marginalized east side). My focus is forward and we absolutely will not be able to move our country to the right if Obama cements the 5th, 6th, or even the 7th vote on the court. That will be an unmitigated disaster for our nation and conservatism.
Everything is on the table for an Obama court - immigration, 2nd amendment, states rights, expanded abortion, the fairness doctrine, nationalized everything, civil liberties, seizure of private investments, motor (illegals) voting fraud, crushing free speech in the church, and the list of horrors goes on and on.
That court would the arch enemy of conservatism and the constitution far beyond an Obama or Romney administration. Unlike many on this forum, I firmly believe that the main impediment to the progressive agenda is SCOTUS. It’s definitely not Boehner and Co. in the house and it will never be the pitiful GOPe crew in the Senate.
I think many of us believe we are headed for even harder economic times in the near future. Law enforcement (going on 18 years) and military (many years both active/reserve) will listen to the court because they are sworn to the constitution. In a worst case scenario, martial law could be held in check by a moderate or conservative court. SCOTUS will continue to prevent the full implementation of the progressive agenda if we keep the 5th vote. Yes, the progressives (including the GOPe) have been chipping away very effectively for years, but an insurmountable obstacle for the progressive agenda is SCOTUS. If we keep the court it will give us the opportunity to regain control of the GOP moving forward. That opportunity is lost for a generation if Obama gets two votes. Ginsburg won’t count on his ledger but we are 4 heartbeats away from ironclad socialism. Replacing Ginsburg with even a moderate is an absolute win! I believe the next President will replace both Ginsburg and Kennedy. It’s always possible we lose another Justice too.
We can’t lose SCOTUS. If we do, Romney will be the least of our problems. Damn the GOP for putting us in this position, but that is how I feel. I know alot of other FReepers feel the same way. We kept the 2nd amendment by one vote!
Obama and his ilk are miles beyond the worst of the RINO’s. Removing him and this American hating administration has to be our #1 focus. We can pressure the GOP. We have no influence on the progressives. We definitely have no influence on SCOTUS beyond aiming for good nominations.
Case in point - Obamacare. Did you ever think we would be relying on SCOTUS to stop nationalized health care???? I think just a few years ago that all of us believed something like that would never make it past the GOP in Congress!
Obama is the wolf. Romney is a toy poodle that we will have a leash on. If we can’t make that distinction we won’t have free speech on this forum. That is not an endorsement of Romney. I don’t trust him either, but we can possibly push him to do the right thing. Obama does not care about us and it will be much much worse in a second administration when he has nothing to lose.
God help us if Obama gains control of the court. Our disgust with the GOPe will fade to a distant memory when this website is zotted after the fairness doctrine is passed. If anyone thinks I am being hysterical, they have not paid attention to the stated objectives of the power players in this administration.
Why am I called out for pointing this out? Why are FReepers who are reasonable and passionate about this country and conservatism called names for saying this? How can we be the forum for conservatives if we can’t oppose Obama?
Obama is the problem. We seem to have only one realistic option at this point to remove him. That is not a campaign ad for Romney. It’s reality!
I have had plenty of fights in my life. You win the fight with what you have at that moment. You worry about getting a better rifle, pistol, stick, or takedown move after you win the fight in front of you.
If we can’t say these things on this forum it will continue to decline in membership. That is my .02.
Incidentally: if your goal is to minimize the damage a President Romney would do to the Republic, you're going about it the right way.
Ronmey is appeasing the Tea Party. Leaving aside what this implies about Romney as President, the way to "deal" with an appeaser is to stick to your guns and never give an inch. That way, you'll be appeased even more.
That's the only way to rein in a flip-flopper: make sure he keeps flopping your way. Appeasers can't figure out people of principle. So, if they need the support of principled people, they keep appeasing more. One thing's for sure: Romney takes the "reasonable" for granted.
Thank you, Jim. God bless.
diplomacy is saying nice doggie while you look for a stick
I do share some of your arguments.....
“The fact that Ron Paul is the ONLY Nationally Recognized Spokesperson for the US Constitution is a crying shame in my view.)”
True. I wish there were more REAL conservatives who held fast to the Constution. As Reagan did.
“He is a deeply flawed candidate...”
So VERY true.
Let's take the enemy head-on instead of fighting each other!!
Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!
Bravo Jim, well said!
Maybe we can also work for closed primaries.
Okay, I'll bite.
What has he done to appease the Tea Party?
B U M P
This is pretty much where I am, Jim.
This is going to be a tough election season. I still can’t believe it’s come to this after all the hard work and successes of 2010.
We still have a LOT of work to do, don’t we?
Maybe Jim could set something up like the religious Square where pretty much you have to have a thick skin to tread there..... It gets hot and heavy but you sure learn and see the difference between truth and falsehood when all is said and done. It's moderated... basically you can't make it personal attacks...but it gets feisty and lively none the less. I rather think Paul and some of the disciples had some heavy debates along the way and a passions rose.....so too with politics as religion....passions run high.... there is much at stake to win or loose.
We won't have the presidency, but we can have the president's ear. We should focus our energies on the Senate and maintaining the gains we've made in the house.
I, for one, will be taking heed of Newt Gingrich's recommendations and strategies over the next few years. I strongly feel that he has the right agenda. And in this balancing act of Tea Party activism, conservative philosophy, and national politics, Newt Gingrich can forge a path of reform and flush out those with treacherous intentions, if we empower him.
Our country is badly damaged. We're not going to turn it around overnight. We're not going to turn it around with the election of one president.
The standard for manners in a Screaming Liberals forum would need to be far more tolerant. There are going to be F words and worse slung around. These are the dwellers of DU caves. Look at Townhall. It has a lame and weird bowdlerization system (one of the things you can’t say is jackass) but it’s trivial to get around by embedding punctuation or spaces in your naughty word.
In order to have good stuff at the top to work with, it has to be grown from the bottom.
Pretending to be a conservative.
“A vote for Romney as the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil.”
I genuinely respect your opinion. But from my vantage point, I am ALWAYS voting for the lesser of two evils. There has never been a candidate that has perfectly mirrored my opinions/values.
JR - So glad you have a central and logical plan for this call to action. I am glad to hear YOU say these things in order that many other FREEPERS might unite to defeat Obama, and continue the TEA Party fight will the eye on the presidency in the future. We must only look back to the radical of the Dem party and 1960s to see the ilk or Hillary, the anti-war movement, the black panthers, el at., have taken the reins of the Dem party so it is essential that the TEA Party’s goals remain firm and long term!
Lots of FReepers get government bennies. Our nation is hopelessly divided right now and even liberals and conservatives are divided among themselves.
The handout crowd is not divided at all. They will vote for whomever promises them the biggest handout. Realistically, because of this fact, our nation is probably on the decline as predicted by our founding fathers.
We could elect the next coming of Ronaldus Magnus and he would probably be voted out on his bum in four years. The GOP would get massacred in the mid-terms. That is our new reality. That is why it is even more important now to keep SCOTUS as the defender of the constitution.
Replace Ginsburg with an identical Justice and we won’t notice. Replace Kennedy with another Harvard radical and we notice immediately. God forbid that something happens to Scalia or Thomas and the replacement is another Harvard radical and we will regret it for decades.
This is a perfectly logical question.
For the never-Romneys, the issue seems to be that does the supposedly friendly candidate ever become so horribly bad that boycotting him makes sense. Romney is hovering near that drain.
“Christie’s first decision was to select a pro-choice running mate as Lt Gov. She would take over if he leaves.”
Indeed, and I disapprove. Christie is however outspokenly pro-life. I don’t know his justification for choosing his Lt. Gov. Obviously his concern over the issue is not as paramount as I would like it to be.
Added a tag....
Thank you DJ.. simplest it can get ;)
Someone else brought up a good point much earlier in the thread.. If you leave it blank.. it is an opportunity for someone else to do a write in for you.. :/
“n. Maybe the focus for the next four years should be on increasing the conservative presence is the House and Senate. Just because, for one thing and also to encourage Pres. Romney to steer to the right whenever he is inclined to waver. “
I agree.
So, let’s find and get behind the ONE best candidate for 2020. And not have the circular firing squad. If a FReeper prefers a candidate who is not the “official” choice of FR, in my opinion (I know I don’t run things!) that could be fine, but, no ugly name calling assassination accusation type stuff.
I’d have rather had Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, Perry, or Newt than Romney. I was careful not to get seriously negative about ANYONE except Paul. It is very counter-productive.
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