Posted on 11/01/2014 6:43:31 AM PDT by massmike
It's become the mother of all political clichés: Every election, we are told, is the most important of our lifetime. If our side doesn't win, it's 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, rivers and seas boiling, human-sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria – or worse.
While it's hard to rank these biennial slug-fests, given the rot that's eating away at the soul of our nation, 2014 is right up there.
Will there be any break on Obama's increasingly despotic reign during his last two years in office, or will Harry Reid and his cohorts continue to provide cover for the presidential putsch?
Most analysts are predicting the 2014 election will give Republicans a slight majority in the Senate next year. The New York Times gives the GOP a 64% chance of taking the Senate.
But nothing is guaranteed. The outcome could depend on last-minute spending, which party has the better ground game, and how much fraud the party of illegal aliens and the graveyard vote can get away with.
Starting with 45 seats, Republicans need to pick up six more to gain a bare majority. Two open seats currently held by Democrats are considered likely pick-ups. The Democratic incumbent in Louisiana will probably lose. Of the nine toss-ups, three are currently Republican seats. If Republicans hold those and take the three they're slated to win, they'll need only one of six toss-ups.
That only sounds easy. In Colorado, Republican Cory Gardner has a one-point lead over incumbent Senator Mark Udall. In Iowa, Republican Joni Ernst leads her opponent by 2.2 points. In Arkansas, the Republican challenger leads the incumbent Democrat by 2 points – all within the margin of error.
With so much at stake this year, the toss-ups could well be squeakers. In the meantime, we're getting lectures from conservatives castigating 2012 stay-at-homes.
"Why did we lose in 2012?" asks the typical e-mail I get at least daily. "Because millions of delusional, self-defeating conservatives, who were disappointed by Romney, were AWOL on Election Day, they helped to re-elect the man who's destroying our Republic.'"
This argument relieves the Republican establishment from all responsibility for nominating a clunk like Romney, and Mitt from practically throwing away the nomination by running an abysmal campaign.
Still, this year at least, voting Republican as the default position makes sense.
Unless the GOP candidate has you running for the toilet bowl (like Charlie Baker, RINO candidate for Massachusetts governor, whose bucket list includes performing a partial-birth abortion while simultaneously presiding over a same-sex wedding), conservatives should vote Republican, even if it hurts. I did in 2008 and 2012, though the experience was excruciating, I can assure you.
Let's start with a hard case – Scott Brown, former Massachusetts Senator now running for the Senate as a Republican in New Hampshire.
During his two years in the Senate, Brown (who won a special election in 2010 with Tea Party support) was a huge disappointment. His rating from the American Conservative Union was 50% – one of the lowest for any Republican Senator.
On the other hand, according to the Congressional Quarterly, his opponent, incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, voted with the president 98% of the time. She is Obama's Topo Gigio. ("Oh, Barack, I love you!") The latest CNN poll has them in a statistical dead-heat – Shaheen 49%, Brown 47%, with a margin of error plus or minus 4.
The choice isn't between an authentic conservative and a typical Democrat, but a 50% conservative and a 98% hard-core leftist. Representing conservative New Hampshire, Brown would probably have a better voting record than he did as the junior senator from the Bay State.
More importantly, he'll be part of the Republican Senate majority. That means the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee passes from Patrick Leahy (lifetime ACU rating 6%) to Charles Grassley (lifetime ACU rating 83%).
It also means no more rubber-stamping of Obama's judicial mutants – no more Sonia ("wise Latina woman") Sotomayors. Ruth Bader Ginsberg – 81, ailing and having an unnatural relationship with the Constitution – won't wait to see who's elected president in 2016, but will likely retire next year. Only a Republican Senate will stop Obama from filling the vacancy with a Ginsberg-clone 30 years her junior.
Grassley is eager to launch investigations to compliment House inquiries – including Fast and Furious and the IRS harassment of conservatives.
Conservative hero Jeff Sessions will chair the powerful Budget Committee. Expect renewed attacks on ObamaCare and proposals for a sweeping overhaul of the federal tax system.
Bob Corker (the kindest thing he can say about Obama is that he's an "unreliable ally") gets the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and John McCain will chair Armed Services. Besides a push for new weapons systems, look for hearings on Obama's blunders which helped to foster the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
With both houses in Republican hands, Obama will get writer's cramp using his veto pen. If contested programs are riders on appropriations bills, the president will have to explain why he risked shutting down the government over the Keystone Pipeline – because it's crucial to maintain our dependence on Middle East oil?
Here's how the Deadites view the prospect of a Republican Senate.
In an opinion column in the October 21 Washington Post ("The Catastrophe that a GOP-controlled Congress would bring") Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, sputters:
"What happens when they (the Republican majority in Congress) send him a bill to prevent a default on our debt at the 11th. hour, attached to a bill that ravages (reforms) Social Security? The Republican Party will gain the power to force the president to choose between impossible options."
Even though self-styled progressives think Obama hasn't moved far enough toward a Soviet America, Vanden Heuvel writes: "It is madness to suggest that little will change if Republicans take the Senate. A lot will change, and the change will be the worse for women, immigrants, workers and the environment" (feminists, illegal aliens and global-warming cultists). "A Republican Senate, working with a Republican House, will be a wrecking crew."
If only.
Still, the alternative to a GOP victory in this year's Senate elections is more judicial nominations from Hell, the continued implementation of ObamaCare (millions more losing their private insurance), a sweeping amnesty (with crime, disease, unemployment and terrorism for all), taking a civil-liberties approach to containing Ebola, and accelerating attacks on Israel by the Grand Mufti of D.C.
It will also mean that Democrats will have won three of the last four elections – sending the GOP into 2016 dispirited and disorganized.
Winston Churchill said of England's victories over the Nazis in 1942: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
I've been disappointed too often by the GOP to expect much from a Republican Congress. But the end of the beginning is better than the alternative—the unimpeded march toward the abyss of hope and change.
First, if we want to change things, we need the GOP....not as it is, but we need it as our vehicle.
Second, given that, we need to take over the GOP. That means not just running candidates in primaries, but taking over state, county and local GOP leadership positions.
Third, none of this is easy or will happen overnight.
I think some of you expect God to grant you a miracle where you wake up and everything is roses.
This is going to take a long time and will not be easy. They will not go away without a fight.
But, keeping a viable GOP while we replace the defective pieces is our only path to slowly turning this leviathan back to its constitutional order.
A broken GOP is what the DNC wants.
A losing GOP is what the RINOs want (to blame us).
But, if we take over the GOP (as we are slowly doing), we can restore this nation.
I’ve already voted. I voted against Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter - to keep the Democrats from perpetuating those two family names as second cousins to the Camelot Klan.
It doesn’t mean I won’t be out there slugging for Ted Cruz in the next two years. Nor against Johnny Isakson in his party primary when it comes due. Or Perdue for that matter.
I hope the Democrats lose the majority in the Senate because it then opens the chance up that Obama will be presented with some bills that he’ll have to veto. It will force him to do more egregious Executive Orders and he will be the blame for that - his party will, too.
I don’t like establishment GOP one bit. I think they are largely RINO featherbedding cowards interested in their own second-tier power and perks. But I hate EVERYTHING about Democrats - what they stand for, what they think, and what they do, and I don’t see how voting for a Libertarian here in Georgia with 6% of the vote sates my hatred for that evil.
Politics is a team sport.
Your favorite player may be cut or not be a starter, but that does not mean that letting the other side win is acceptable.
I voted a straight R ticket (manually) just to metaphorically punch the democrat machine in the nose.
Let them know that liberalism/communism/Alinskyism is dying.
That’s not the point. Then again, you never ever get the point of anything.
Who are "we" and by what measure are you winning?
What are you trying to accomplish?
What is it you would have me "help?"
When, in your opinion, did conservatives control the GOP to the point where we could now "take it back?
The Tea Party is winning.
You might have a defeatist attitude, but I do not.
The GOP is unleashing its big guns on the Tea Party because it threatens the club.
I will concede that we never had full control, but we had much better Republicans in the past, not this cabal of self-enriching, power-hungry, DC insiders. So, in that way, you are right.
However, I KNOW we can take it over from the inside.
I still think we're better off with Republicans than with Democrats.
I say elect Republicans and then scare hell out of them.
As for getting Conservatives elected, that won't happen on a national scale until we win the left swaying electorate over to Conservative values.
In the mean time, what can we do now to help our cause, rather than attack each other? How about avoid patronizing, to the best of our ability, the companies that push the leftist agenda? Or buying products made in red states, again to the best of our ability? Or donating to charities you agree with that are tax deductible, thus starving the left of tax dollars to buy votes with? Or buying mutual bonds from red states?
We are the producers, and we can make a difference with our $$$, if we're willing to try.
“- “Purists” suffer because they demand perfection or they stay home -”
It’s not about “purity.” It’s about “minimum acceptable standards.”
These jack-asses are OUR EMPLOYEES! THEY WORK FOR US!
If you caught a contractor stealing materials from you how would you respond? If you owned a company that produced intellectual property and a tech copied and sold it to your competitor would you keep him?
The ones we want out have proved again and again they are not loyal to us!
I voted nearly straight Republican ticket but I did NOT vote for Cornyn. He is a traitor!
You act like a lowlife with your name-calling.
I responded to insults and name calling with insults and name calling. I don’t recall forcing you to read it so I’m not responsible for your case of the vapors.
You wouldn’t have coped on any of my deployments. The language I used here is like a Church picnic by comparison. Someone would have ran back to the base and bought you a tube of vagisil and told you to get over it sugar-drawers.
I have no tolerance for half-wits who go off on a screeching rant because I won’t vote for their favorite back-stabbing traitors. Run along and chastise them for awhile.
Don’t try to make sense to those going over the cliff with flags flying. They think they can win by losing.
It's not defeatist to recognize that the GOP (and in a greater way, the RAT party) are not political parties so much as they are business organizations. They provide employment for political professionals, be they elected office holders or "consultants."
Voters, be they Tea Party or RINO, are not the clients; they do not pay the bills and are paid only lip service.
They do not need your support because, in the ultimate sense, they do not need it to " win.". On a local basis, they just need votes; they do not need your vote.
They want and need dollars, and getting it from the masses is too much work. That's why the 'money men' have disproportionate influence.
I'm old enough to remember the Establishment response to Ronald Reagan. I've spent many years fully understanding it.
The eGOP does not want or need the support of the Tea Party. They would like to have their vote, and if the threads I see are any indication, they will have it. But they don't want to do anything for it that would scare the 'money men.'
Expecting to take over the party with the vote is like expecting to take over another business, say Lowe's, by occupying a store.
What you propose to do will not get you to where you want to go.
To put it another way: when politicians talk about resolving a controversial issue they talk about getting all the 'stakeholders' together to solve the issue.
In the eyes of the eGOP, on all things party related, the Tea Party would not qualify as a stakeholder.
The GOP is a political party in the sense that Islam is a religion.
If that was true, would the Congress have rolled over on everything from IRS-issues, to NSA issues, to ObamaCare?
Or are you telling me that the majority of these candidates running against Democrat incumbents are, in fact, Tea Party candidates?
(If they were I expect I'd hear a lot of whining, moaning and WTF!?
from the MSM news-sources.)
That may very well be true; my take on the situation is that the Republican party has essentially become the Democrat party.
I still think we're better off with Republicans than with Democrats.
Given what I said above I think this is a mistake.
I say elect Republicans and then scare hell out of them.
You see, this is what I don't understand — given the Republican Party's constantly rolling over for (or even active assistance in) the Democrat's agenda why should the Democrat Party be scared at all?
As for getting Conservatives elected, that won’t happen on a national scale until we win the left swaying electorate over to Conservative values.
We’ve seen plenty of situations where the Conservative was winning and the GOPe did everything possible, including throwing the election, to keep the Conservative out of office.
Yes, we need to promote Conservative values. We also need to eliminate the traitors. You don’t do that by reelecting them. If you choose to reelect them you are rewarding the behavior and you WILL NOT “pressure them” or “scare them.”
Very insightful!
I don't believe that, not one bit.
Why? Because that is predicated on the people needing the party, as if the party is the greater entity.
Second, given that, we need to take over the GOP. That means not just running candidates in primaries, but taking over state, county and local GOP leadership positions.
This seems to me to be dream-like wishful thinking — Remember how Romney was pushed in `12? How there were retroactive rule-changes for primaries? How the RNC was rigged to prevent delegates from arriving/participating due to a lost
bus driver who circled the convention multiple times?
Third, none of this is easy or will happen overnight.
Oh, I agree that any change is unlikely to happen overnight.
I think some of you expect God to grant you a miracle where you wake up and everything is roses.
I don't.
This is going to take a long time and will not be easy. They will not go away without a fight.
It will take less time if the GOP is treated like this by constitutants who are unsatisfied with continually being betrayed by unfaithful servants (The Republican Party).
But, keeping a viable GOP while we replace the defective pieces is our only path to slowly turning this leviathan back to its constitutional order.
I disagree, theis is all predicated on the GOP being maintained as viable when it is clear that there is no viability because the party refuses to stand for anything, unless you count things which the base is vehemently opposed (like amnesty).
A broken GOP is what the DNC wants.
A losing GOP is what the RINOs want (to blame us).
If the GOP is determined to lose, why should we make them win? If the GOP is determined to break itself by becoming ever more big tent
and abandoning standing for anything how can it be prevented from breaking? — It seems to me that you are trying to prop up a wall that is falling an, indeed, has already fallen.
But, if we take over the GOP (as we are slowly doing), we can restore this nation.
I don't see how we're taking over the GOP
, even slowly.
And I don't see how voting for Republicans, who have become Democrats in all but name, states your hatred either.
I’ve already voted. I voted against Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter - to keep the Democrats from perpetuating those two family names as second cousins to the Camelot Klan.
You see, by voting against
these people you're voting for their replacements, no matter how bad they are — given your phrasing (voting against) I take it to mean you in no wise like the challengers but you have proven to the GOP that such people are good enough
to get your vote and they therefore have no incentive to offer a better candidate insofar as your vote is concerned. So, in the future, they will offer a candidate that is just as bad, or worse, and expect your vote.
The eGOP does not want or need the support of the Tea Party. They would like to have their vote, and if the threads I see are any indication, they will have it. But they don’t want to do anything for it that would scare the ‘money men.’
Expecting to take over the party with the vote is like expecting to take over another business, say Lowe’s, by occupying a store.
You CAN influence a business by telling the manager why they’ve lost your business. You should also tell them which competitor you’ve chosen to patronize instead and leave. You should also go to the manager in the new store and tell them why you’ve left the comptitor’s shop.
This how you raise standards of performance.
Of course if you keep paying for crappy service (or voting for GOPe RINO Back Stabbers) you won’t change anything at all.
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