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GOP ABANDONS PRINCIPLE, ENDANGERS FUTURE
boblonsberry.com ^ | 09/19/05 | Bob Lonsberry

Posted on 09/19/2005 5:53:37 AM PDT by shortstop

Hillary Clinton will win the White House because the Republicans have stopped being Republicans.

Not to diminish her significant abilities and political savvy, but she can campaign til the cows come home and never earn more than 49 percent of the vote on her own.

The margin of victory won’t come from Democrats, it will come from disaffected Republicans.

Not Republicans who are really Democrats, but Republicans who are really Republicans. There aren’t many of them anymore, but they are a swing vote, and they’ve always swung the GOP’s way.

And who knows, maybe there’s enough fear and hatred of Hillary Clinton still bumping around to make conservatives hold their noses and vote for Anybody But Clinton. It’s worked before, and it might work again.

But there’s precious little to recommend the Republican Party to conservatives. It has spurned them, adopting their rhetoric at election time but abandoning it in office.

And by conservatives I mean people who have read and understood the Constitution. People who know what the Founding Fathers were after and have seen those principles guide our nation successfully since. By conservatives I mean people who know what America is supposed to be about, who lean more toward Jefferson and Madison than Marx and Engells.

There is an ever-shrinking knot of people who remember and revere the American spirit and ethic. The freedom-loving, individualistic values which defined this country are increasingly forgotten and spurned.

Even by the Republican Party.

As evidenced by the president’s speech last week from New Orleans.

It would have been a good speech from a Democrat, but from a Republican it was a betrayal. It called for an unrestrained increase in federal spending and a massive increase of federal power while simultaneously sabotaging local control and individual responsibility.

In one fell swoop it saddled our children and grandchildren with additional hundreds of billions of dollars of suffocating debt.

We have a going-nowhere war that is hemorrhaging our federal treasury, a giant free-pills-for-gramma program that will do exactly the same, and now we have the federal government assuming every cost for cleaning up this hurricane, remedying past racial wrongs and providing big new welfare benefits to people who refused to follow an evacuation order.

It makes you wonder where all that money is supposed to come from.

The sad answer is that in the short term it will come from foreign lenders who will then hold the note on America’s future economic vitality. In the long term it will come from even higher taxes for us, our children and their children.

It will sap our liberty and vitality.

And all this came from a Republican president and a Republican Congress.

It was Tom DeLay, supposed conservative Republican leader of the House, who said that the bloated, immoral and fundamentally socialist federal budget had no more room for cuts. He said that everything that could be cut out of it had been cut out of it.

It was, of course, a preposterous statement, a sign of just how dead the Republican spirit has become. Being conservative has been reduced by manipulative party hacks to nothing more than the Pledge of Allegiance and the Ten Commandments. The principles of small government, free people, individual responsibility and balanced budgets have gone out the window, replaced by warmed over – and enslaving – European-style socialism.

There are no Democrats to blame for this one. As loathsome and wrong as they may be, this can’t be blamed on Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy or Clinton. This is our mess. This is a Republican mess.

And we’re supposed to forget that on election day? We’re supposed to drool like Pavlov’s dogs at the midterm election, to strengthen the GOP hold on Congress, and then line up to elect whoever the party puts up for president?

How dumb do they think we are?

How desperate do they think we are?

Unfortunately, the fact may remain that we will find ourselves so desperate that, like a beaten wife returning to her abuser, we will take the devil we know over the devil we don’t know.

But there will be a loss of enthusiasm, a reluctant vigor, a lack of zeal and commitment.

And that could give Hillary her two or three percent.

And she will have won the White House because the Republicans stopped being Republicans.

Mark my word.


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: election; gop; hillary; republicans
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I would have to have a gun to my head to vote for Hillary. That being said, I agree with Lonsberry that, in general, the Republicans have been a disappointment for the past few years. My specific gripes: prescription drug plan and our wide open borders. I realize this has been a hot topic on FR especially for the past few days. If anything, the President and Republican Congress' performance of late will cause Republicans to stay home from the polls, rather than cause votes for Hillary!
1 posted on 09/19/2005 5:53:37 AM PDT by shortstop
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To: shortstop

There really isn't a whole lot of difference between the Dems and GOP at this point.


2 posted on 09/19/2005 5:54:27 AM PDT by Brilliant
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To: shortstop
Unfortunately, the fact may remain that we will find ourselves so desperate that, like a beaten wife returning to her abuser, we will take the devil we know over the devil we don?t know.

Wrong cliche. It's not the devil we don't know, it's the lesser of two evils.

I'll keep voting for them, because the alternative is worse. But a savvy Republican candidate will pick up on the restlessness and disaffection of the base and play to it.

3 posted on 09/19/2005 5:57:11 AM PDT by prion (Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM the spelling police)
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To: Brilliant

I think the biggest differences are with social issues and that will get people to the polls. I doubt Hillary will be elected president.


4 posted on 09/19/2005 5:58:13 AM PDT by mlc9852
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To: shortstop
It was Tom DeLay, supposed conservative Republican leader of the House, who said that the bloated, immoral and fundamentally socialist federal budget had no more room for cuts. He said that everything that could be cut out of it had been cut out of it.

It was, of course, a preposterous statement, a sign of just how dead the Republican spirit has become.

I agree with much of this article, however, when you read the actual Delay statement, it was extremely tongue in cheek - ie - sarcasm. The author must double check his facts.

5 posted on 09/19/2005 5:58:18 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - They want to die for Islam, and we want to kill them.)
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To: shortstop
I would have to have a gun to my head to vote for Hillary

I'd have to think about it.

What caliber are we talking about here?

6 posted on 09/19/2005 6:00:22 AM PDT by Graybeard58 (Remember and pray for Sgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: Brilliant

I agree, they both use the Treasury to buy elections. The problem is now the Treasury is full of debt rather than assets.


7 posted on 09/19/2005 6:00:42 AM PDT by hubbubhubbub
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To: prion
" I'll keep voting for them, because the alternative is worse." ........
You are absolutely correct on that.
8 posted on 09/19/2005 6:00:58 AM PDT by Prophet in the wilderness (PSALM 53 : 1 The FOOL hath said in his heart , There is no GOD .)
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To: Brilliant; shortstop

Agreed. I past tired of holding my nose and voting for the lesser-of-two-evils.

If Hitlery is the Rat nominee, I'll vote against her as NOTHING could be worse for our Nation than the Clintons getting back into the White House. Otherwise, I'll stay home unless the Republicans run a real conservative.

That said, I'm starting to like Mike Pence R-IN, and would happily vote for him; or someone like him - a REAL conservative.


9 posted on 09/19/2005 6:01:47 AM PDT by clee1 (We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)
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To: shortstop

I wonder if GHWB and Barbara discussed this with Bill & Hillary over dinner last night?


10 posted on 09/19/2005 6:02:18 AM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: shortstop

::::Yawn:::: Yet another whine about how no one is truly conservative but _____ (fill in name of whiner).


11 posted on 09/19/2005 6:05:37 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: Brilliant
There really isn't a whole lot of difference between the Dems and GOP at this point.

While I understand the sentiment behind that statement, I have to respectfully disagree. The GOP has certainly moved to the left and look a lot like the Dems. But the Dems have also moved to the left and are more and more becoming socialists. So there is a difference. One is far left. The other is only left.

(BTW, This is my 1,000th post!!! Yeah, me!)

12 posted on 09/19/2005 6:08:08 AM PDT by Tatze (I voted for John Kerry before I voted against him!)
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To: shortstop

What? I thought the right was convinced that the country was mostly conservative?

We have been being told that the vaunted American public on the whole had common sense?

LOL, I hope they do vote for Hill, because in some ways, they deserve her.


13 posted on 09/19/2005 6:15:11 AM PDT by roses of sharon
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: Baynative

If Republicans stay home and let Hillary win, then your right, it puts the lie that the liberal media is on its way out, and proves that the vaunted American public is easily manipulated.


15 posted on 09/19/2005 6:46:37 AM PDT by roses of sharon
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To: 2banana

So how would you market conservitive ideas to the liberal democratic base? Sounds like the Republicans want to stay in office long enough to at least accomplish something. In order to stay in office they must convince those who normally vote for socialists to vote for Republicans.


16 posted on 09/19/2005 6:51:43 AM PDT by Khepera (Do not remove by penalty of law!)
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To: prion
I'll keep voting for them, because the alternative is worse.

Clinton spent less than Bush. "The alternative is worse" is not true anymore.

17 posted on 09/19/2005 6:57:18 AM PDT by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: shortstop
Mark my word.

Which word? "The?"

Mr. Lonsberry: if you can't even get the simplest common expressions right, why should we "mark your words" about anything else?

Just another yap-o-yawner....

18 posted on 09/19/2005 7:00:29 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: Prophet in the wilderness
" I'll keep voting for them, because the alternative is worse." ........ You are absolutely correct on that

I don't see how.................

dem in the WH, gop congress..............GRIDLOCK

19 posted on 09/19/2005 7:01:43 AM PDT by WhiteGuy (Vote for gridlock)
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To: Shalom Israel
Clinton spent less than Bush. "The alternative is worse" is not true anymore.

If spending is the only issue you care about.

20 posted on 09/19/2005 7:10:55 AM PDT by prion (Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM the spelling police)
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