Posted on 09/08/2014 5:52:16 AM PDT by cotton1706
Several Republican candidates in the year's most competitive Senate races have begun their fall sprint to Election Day, not by embracing Tea Party-fueled conservatism but by defensively tacking leftward.
Let’s start in Colorado, site of a strategic GOP retreat in the “War on Women.” The Republican backtracking there is being done by Rep. Cory Gardner, following withering attacks by Democrats on his past support for “personhood amendments” that bestow rights to fertilized human eggs and effectively ban some forms of birth control. Gardner released an ad claiming he would make access to “the pill … cheaper and easier” than would his opponent, Sen. Mark Udall, by ending the need for prescriptions. This tactic quickly spread. In his first debate with Sen. Kay Hagan, North Carolina Republican nominee Thom Tillis embraced the same plan.
In Arkansas, meanwhile, Republican Rep. Tom Cotton is wilting under Democratic pressure on the minimum wage. Cotton is challenging Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor. Like nearly all GOP politicians, but not like most voters, Cotton is opposed to raising the federal minimum from its current level of $7.25. But on Election Day, Arkansans will vote on a ballot initiative to raise the state minimum to $8.50, squeezing Cotton to the breaking point. Put on the spot in a radio interview Friday, he said he would vote for the state measure, though he avoided answering a follow-up question about whether that means he would support raising the federal minimum to the same level.
Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan this week aired a new ad that practically makes him seem like a Democrat: embracing teachers and excoriating Wall Street.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Occupy the GOP. use the leftist method.
the 2016 RN Convention in Cleveland needs a 1968 style Chicago Tea Party sit in....(Lord, I hate the sound of that)
but we need to do some serious convincing of this Dhimmicrat light party
They are willing to sacrifice their principles to get reelected, that’s why. It’s up to us to show them the error of their ways...at the ballot box.
If conservatives decide to sit out this election, defeating the GOPe candidates, it will be the end of their dream of capturing the Senate. The GOPe cannot make up a deficit of conservative support because they can’t out-promise the Democrats for the votes of the Fee Stuff Class.
Republicans are completely stupid if they allow the democrats to withdraw their fire from Obama and his democrat helpers. They have a whole host of issues they could use to pound their opponents into the ground, and they are dumb enough to allow the democrats to draw them off target.
Nothing new here folks. Both parties lean toward the extreme in the primaries, and lean back toward the middle for the election.
Let’s win the Senate. When we do, we can talk about strategy from there.
I hate to say it, but Obama actually stated it rather elegantly to his detractors when they complained.
“Win an election.” he said. And he’s right.
Let’s win the Senate. Hold your nose, and vote Republican. Any alternative is much, much worse. Then we can begin to move the ball in the right direction.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Because they are only worried about job security, not principle.
And with the taker class sure to surpass 47%....start adding on massive waves of illegals, and Republicans may have lost their last election unless they start becoming libs.
That’s what the media and their consultants are telling them anyway.
If they get conservative, they have a chance, otherwise, forget it.
John Cornyn can whistle for his supper, but I won't be voting for the liberal in the general election.
/johnny
And looky where that got him.
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Good Lord! That tired old cliché. Bob Michael would be proud!
How many election cycles are we going to fall for this same failed approach?
If the GOPe wins the senate in 2014, you think they'll become more conservative for the election cycle in 2016?
I understand what's at stake -- having the Democrats hold the Senate. That's an awful prospect, especially in terms of the Supreme Court vacancies.
But we don't have time to wait for the GOP establishment to become conservative -- especially if conservatives continue to prove that the GOPe strategy of actively opposing the base works.
Personally, I now believe that the only way to save this nation now (assuming such a thing is still possible) is to put conservatives in political offices and enact an agenda based on free markets, limited government and the rule of law. As long as we have a Republican party that actively opposes those ends (and we do, obviously), then I believe our only (slim) hope is drastic action.
As long as the Republican Party establishment believes that it can continue to survive by being Democrat-lite, and that it can continue to maintain power while actively fighting against the core principles of liberty, free markets and Constitutional law, it will never make the necessary change of direction.
Only when the Republican party understands that it must change or die can we hope to turn this country around. Our too-long-serving entrenched establishment politicians can still enjoy their comfy lifestyles, their wealth, power and prestige as members of a minority party. So why should they bother to change direction?
Surely a John Boehner (or an Eric Cantor -- had he not been defeated -- or a Mitch McConnell) would be just as happy to be minority leaders if the election cycle didn't go their way. Yes, they would prefer to be majority leaders, but what good would it be to them if a conservative Republican Party won the majority and then threw them out of their cushy positions and all those perks, replacing them with real conservatives?
Ask yourself -- which do you think Mitch McConnell would prefer -- a majority Republican party in which he was stripped of his position by a conservative majority, or a minority Republican party in which he could remain Senate minority leader because the majority of Republican senators were RINOs?
You may argue that we have no time to wait for the Republicans to realize that their only choice is to change or die as a viable party. But if we don't have time for that, then what makes you think we have time to wait for the RINOs and the GOP-e to pursue a "moderately marginal" course of action designed only to maintain their personal fiefdoms at the expense of a free America operating under the rule of Constitutional law?
The GOP had majority power in the House and Senate, and occupied the White House, 10 years ago. What did all that power do to move the agenda of liberty forward? Answer: nothing.
A GOP that cannot even sell liberty, limited governments and free markets to the American people is worse than useless. It is a party of tyranny enablers, and I will have none of it.
Unbelievably, today we are facing once again the stark choice between liberty and death.
Once again, these are the times that try men's souls. Conservatives need to be waging aggressive war against the totalitarian leftist tyrants on all fronts -- in the branches of government at the federal and state level, in academia, in the media, through public demonstrations, and in the voting booth.
Many argue that we must continued to vote for "the most electable conservative," which means "vote for the RINO if no conservative is running." But I respectfully disagree with that choice. I am done enabling.
If we really are to lose the greatest country in the history of the world, then let's at least be fighting for it when it goes down.
And who knows, maybe -- just maybe, if we show sufficient resolve and conviction -- divine Providence will once again provide the support that gave our founders their unlikely victory in 1776, and grant us once again the "new birth of freedom" that Lincoln called for a century later.
Do they even have any principles?
They are not ‘suddenly’ leaning left.
/johnny
Teddy Roosevelt loved government in his image. Herbert Hoover as well. Nixon, a pragmatic big government guy. The Bush tag-team and finally even the first, Lincoln (Who had his moments). Republicans have always been synonymous with Big Government. Some worse than others, but power and control are not just democrats “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.”
The Senate Pubs that decided they and their staffs should be exempt from obamacare, but imposed it on me and mine?
No thanks.
If they aren't conservative I won't support them. I've been a loyal party guy in the past and every time an issue came up that I needed them to fight for me they sold me out.
And just what exactly do you want to convince them of?
It’s best to assume, no. None whatsoever.
That actually is brilliant, and should be adopted by all GOPers. Most female voters are idiots, and will be taken in by such nonsense, as they were by the "War on women" garbage. Manipulate the dumb broads, as the RATs do, and therefore neutralize them, and the male vote will win the Senate with ease.
When I worked in a pharmacy, there were “over the counter” products that were behind the prescription counter. You didn’t need a prescription for them but you had to ask, show an id, etc. This is how it should work for OTC birth control, which I really don’t have a problem with.
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