Conservatives are at it again: shooting our own. Posted on 04/12/2012 8:09:43 AM PDT by hocndoc
Conservatives are at it again: shooting our own.
When Conservatives decide not to vote for Republican candidates, Republicans lose. Conservatives lose. The Democrats, socialists, and atheists win. Obama wins.
Where Republicans voted in 2008, we won new offices. Where they voted in 2010, we won majorities. Conservatives made the difference in the winning races and in the lost races. Not only did we have fewer Republican victories in those races where Conservatives didn't vote, the races were decided by the least knowledgeable among us or by the Dems.
More than before, in conservative blogs and forums, I'm reading good men and women declare that they will never vote for Romney if he's nominated. They remind me that they were the ones who refused to vote for John McCain in 2008, or who (like me) voted for Sarah Palin and McCain just benefited as a side effect.
I certainly wish that Conservatives had found themselves working hard to force McCain to keep his promises for that last three years instead of watching Obama keep his.
And here come the third party rallies!
The problem is certainly the "GOP elite," and their support for Romney -- that's why Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum couldn't get a foothold, right? And why Newt Gingrich is still so far behind?
How many votes do you suppose the "elite" have, anyway?
Talk about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, yesterday, Rush Limbaugh warned Conservatives what may happen if the Republican nominee doesn't win. Yes, he titled the post of the segment "A Warning to the Republican Establishment," ending with a prediction that the Republican Party might never recover if "they screw this up."
The warning to the rest of us is ignored:
If this doesn't pan out to big-time electoral victory the way the establishment has it figured, then what will their excuse be? And I think I know. I think that if this campaign goes on and if it results in Obama winning, I think what the establishment is going to do is blame us. They're gonna blame us conservatives for once again being too rigid and too demanding and too narrow and unrealistic and all this, and telling us that we're the reason that Obama won.
Why not? That's exactly what happened in '06 and '08. (And don't forget Rush's own Chaos.) The media and the Left ate it up! The lesson learned was that no one can count on Conservatives. That's why we repeatedly watch people who should be our champions "pander" (Rush's word) to the "middle," the "undecideds," the independents.
Why not learn instead from successes, like the 2000 election, a victory that the Dems never saw coming? A good friend recommended that I re-read David Horowitz' "How to Beat the Democrats." One of the lessons is,
Lesson 3: There Is No Natural Conservative Majority (But You Can Create One through Political Action). The critical role Republican unity played in the election leads to a third lesson: There is no “natural” conservative majority.
. . . Such facts are no cause for conservatives to despair. What they are is a reality-check. If the conservative mission is to restore basic American values, the way conservatives fight the political battle will determine its outcome. There may be no current conservative majority in America, but there is a potential majority, if Republicans have the will and intelligence to create one.
David Horowitz (2002-10-06). How to Beat the Democrats and Other Subversive Ideas (Kindle Locations 842-843, 861-863). Spence. Kindle Edition.
Do we have the will? The intelligence? Can we forget the animosity we have had for each other the last year? Are we willing to say, "Let him who never had a change of heart cast the first stone?"
An estimated 56% - give or take - of the Republican National delegates have been decided, but 44% have not. The numbers aren't set in stone, yet, depending on what happens to the delegates who went to candidates that dropped out or in States like Iowa, where the actual choice will be made at caucus in June. "It ain't over till it's over."
I'm sure that I won't see Conservative blogs pulling their anti-Romney posts, but I hope to see a few willing to be positive and work together to ensure Primary victories for the remaining Conservative in the Republican Primary, in order to deny Romney an easy nomination. Is their motto, "Anybody but Romney," or is it, "Anybody but Obama?"
Like I said before, Obama is a hardcore Marxist and NOT a socialist. There is a huge difference between the two.
Well, you certainly beat me in the ‘number of words in a ‘stupid post’..
But I will repeat that only about 40 more conservative/Tea Party members would give us control of the House- leadership positions.
Sorry that infuriates -or frightens- you so much you can’t see straight.
Yeah, one throws you into a skillet of hot oil while the other puts you in a pan of lukewarm water and turns on the heat.
The end result is the same.
Thanks, MAF, for making me laugh.
IF the GOP wishes to shrink their “big tent” to exclude conservatives, and that is what it feels like they have done, then it has become obvious to me that the GOP no longer wishes to represent me.
I will therefore work to elect conservatives, where ever I find them, regardless of their party. Generally that will be Republicans. I still hope that the GOP will come to it’s senses and realize that you cant win an election without the base and will have a brokered convention and eventually put up another candidate.
If not, I will then protest to the party. I will resign my Pricinct chair postion and I will change my party registration. I will also send an open letter to explain why the GOP has left me and why I will no longer be a “republican”.
One is Canada while the other is North Korea. Not at all comparable.
I would rather fight the RINOs, too. But I’d rather fight with the Dems and atheists out of power.
Talk about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, yesterday, Rush Limbaugh warned Conservatives what may happen if the Republican nominee doesn’t win. Yes, he titled the post of the segment “A Warning to the Republican Establishment,” ending with a prediction that the Republican Party might never recover if “they screw this up.”
The warning to the rest of us is ignored:
If this doesn’t pan out to big-time electoral victory the way the establishment has it figured, then what will their excuse be? And I think I know. I think that if this campaign goes on and if it results in Obama winning, I think what the establishment is going to do is blame us. They’re gonna blame us conservatives for once again being too rigid and too demanding and too narrow and unrealistic and all this, and telling us that we’re the reason that Obama won.
I read the same tea leaves (pardon the pun) way back before 2006...In 2004, I saw the trend of a lack of consaervative voting strength in the number of delegates from the last gubernatorial election in Texas...I believed if we didn’t get our stuff together, 2006 was the beginning of the end...
I warned, I made my case back then and it still didn’t really register with many people...Much less the Republican party which was rapidly moderating itself into oblivion...We made up some ground in 2010, but at what cost???
I believe the same apathetic approach by the conservative voting block will deliver another setback in the race for the WH, and the above quote, from your post, spells what I’ve been touting for years...Am I dissapointed it hasn’t corrected itself, no, I am devistated that the party elites keep plodding along like they think this is going to work out for them...
And the day after the election in November, the question will be...
“What political credibility will the Republican party have by allowing Obama to rule for another 4 years???”
If we survive (as a nation) that long after the election this year...
Sorry that infuriates -or frightens- you so much you can’t see straight.
***
I see damn straight. And I see that your math is way off. There's roughly just 65 reliable conservative Republicans in the House (those who have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to vote against GOP leadership on matters of principle).
That leaves about 175 GOP House members who reliably vote with the current leadership. Sure, 15-20 conservatives who presently vote with Boehner could switch allegiance if the number of conservatives increases, but that means conservatives will likely need to gain at least 60 seats in November to be in a position to defeat the current leadership team.
Any honest electoral analysis of November 2012 view a potential GOP gain of 30 House seats, and most of those will come in swing districts unfriendly to Tea Partiers. And there are simply not enough House GOP retirements or potential GOP primary defeats to come close to your "magic" number of 40 new conservatives, much less the 60 that are actually needed.
But - for argument's sake - let's say that enough conservatives get elected to flip the House GOP conference and oust Boehner and Cantor. Then what?
Let's say Rep. West of Florida becomes House Speaker. Is Speaker West going to break out in opposition to President Romney? is President Romney really going to change his agenda rightward to get in line with a conservative House?
Why would he? Not when he can use Majority Leader McConnell and the crutch of cloture rules to subtly thwart the House and the Conservative base in flyover country.
By all means, do everything you can to gain a more conservative House delegation. But please know that the House cannot control the party agenda unless they are in the opposite party as the President.
For all practical purposes, advancing a conservative agenda is dead until Romney no longer sets the party policy. That's not the kind of compromise I would ever want to endure.
While the rest of us try to cover your a$$!
Boehner was in San Antonio yesterday, to support Quico Conseco in his House race. I don’t put Boehner up there with the RINO’s. He’s just not as aggressive as I’d like.
And yes, I see West or Goehmert as Speaker - and you bet I believe they’d be tough on any President.
What would it take?
1. Romney on his knees, nattily attired in sackcloth and ashes, doing profound and painful physical penance, credibly pleading that he has renounced each and every execrable crime against social conservatism from his support of mass baby-killing, and perversion posing as "marriage" and gun grabbing, and hiking taxes on Americans of modest means to shift the taxes of the elites onto their backs, believably renouncing any respect for or connection to the similar execrable evils of his late father, cashing in his corporate raider bloated estate and dividing the proceeds among the following groups in the following proportions: 1/4 each to Free Republic, Gun Owners of America, American Life League and to Eagle Forum's efforts to defend marriage as only exemplified by a committed relationship of one man and one woman (no others and no household pets, wild non-human animals or space aliens as "parties" to the "marriage.").
2. Naming Sarah Palin for VP nominee at the convention and seeing to her nomination.
3. Once she is nominated and would succeed to the POTUS nomination on the occurrence of any vacancy, frankly recognize that Romney has no intention of doing anything after the word "credibly" in numbered paragraph 1 and make an honest man of himself for the first time in his adult life, resign the POTUS nomination, turn over the remaining mountain of special interest money to Palin's campaign or to any reliable campaign committee(s) consistent with law as Palin may designate, prove his executive capability by raising for her campaign more money than Obama raises (but with no strings attached, no promises made to the contributors whatsoever).
4. After the 50-state sweep, including the election of governors like Mike Pence of Indiana and others like him, enhanced majorities in the House (determined to dump to the back benches Boehner/Cantor/McCarthy and their ilk with principled conservative replacements), control of 60+ seats in the US Senate, appointment of a cabinet including a first rate prosecutor as Attorney General to indict, convict and incarcerate for as long as possible the perpetrators and enablers of the Obozo/Biden regime, the Pelosi Reid axis in the Congress and Senate, Eric Holder, the other perps of Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the GM takeover, Obozocare, the death panels, Sebelius and the rest, enjoy the post election party.
5. Then, with dignity, withdraw from public life announcing an intention to spend at least four years in a cloistered monastery (even as a non-Catholic) strictly obeying a rule of personal silence with or without his wife as they mutually see fit, to ponder and meditate upon the shamefulness and sinfulness of the sort of campaign of slander and libel and vicious twisting of records and facts that characterized his entire campaign against each and every actual Republican patriot in the race.
6. Obtain the commitment of his sons to guarantee his (and Anne's if she joins him) expenses of cloistered living and the similar expenses of each of his campaign managers, advertising (propaganda) meisters, state chairs, campaign employees, "inevitability babblers," Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, Congressional and other endorsers, and particularly John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Adam Kinzinger, Aaron Schock, Nancyboy Kirk, Dennis Hastert, Mitch McConnell, Lamar Alexander, Robert Corker, Charles Crist, Chris "Krispy Kreme" Christy, Lindsay Graham, Obozo (if not incarcerated, Moochelle, the Maine Spineless sisters, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam (separate monasteries and convents for each and every one).
7. It is not that much to ask after Romney's behavior of the last year alone and would begin, in a small way, to establish what he might of a positive reputation before the inevitable demise facing each of us of a certain age.
Imaginary numbers do wonderful things for your position...
The height of Boehners’ power:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll943.xml
Yes, a terrible loss for us. But it took weeks of some of the greatest political pressures I’ve seen to accomplish it.
Typical of his power:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll941.xml
And:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll857.xml
Where were his 175 ‘reliable votes’?
In all these votes- each an occasion when the Senate had shown it was ready to shut down part of the government-
he could never reach that high LOL!
No, the actual vote history show that a mere 40 members would give us a conservative Leadership in the House.
***
“the House cannot control the party agenda unless they are in the opposite party as the President.”
A bully pulpit is nice, but the purse is better.
Were Tip O’neil and Jimmy Carter before your time?
Even if so you must have noticed Pelosi and Reid trading Obama back and forth for cartons of cigarettes...
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll784.xml
An intriguing vote.
You are not Sideshow Bob. You are Main Event Bob. Specifics to follow.
LOL!!!!!!!!
Were Tip O’neil and Jimmy Carter before your time? Even if so you must have noticed Pelosi and Reid trading Obama back and forth for cartons of cigarettes.
***
An empty purse is NOT better than the ability to direct & control national policy.
And I think your example of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi relationship actually proves my point that the House and Senate leadership are subservient to the wishes of the President.
Pelosi and Reid knew that the Democrat Congress needed to do more than just Health Care and Stimulus and could lose (and should have lost) control of both Houses, but followed (to their own detriment) Obama's directive of "I don't care about anything else and don't care what's actually in them, but pass my top 2 priorities."
I was 11 in 1976, but vividly remember Jimmy Carter as President. I remember watching the "mailaise" speech (families used to watch Presidential speeches together back then), Billy Beer, the BCCI and Abscam scandals, the Camp David accord, the Soviets in Afghanistan, boycotting the Moscow Olympics, the Iran hostage crisis, the failed rescue attempt.
My earliest memories of Tip O'Neill, however, are of the Reagan era O'Neill. If your assertion is that O'Neill pushed Carter around on policy, you may be correct. BUT, I think there are 2 reasons for that:
1) Carter was a wimp, and
2) In the immediate post-Watergate era it would be logical for the legislative branch to assert supremacy over the executive branch. Upon his election, Reagan took it back.
Legislative branch dominance from 1974-1980 was a post-Depression aberration.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.