Republicans Against George Bush

Personal Creation | 1/21/04 | Manny Paulet

[MannyP]

REPUBLICANS AGAINST GEORGE BUSH

1. Who are we? We are Americans. We believe in small government, America first, the Constitution, the rule of law, secure borders and competitive capitalism that favor the needs of the average American over the rest of the world.

2. Why are we against President Bush? Chairman of the GOP Gillespie has stated that the GOP does not stand for limited or smaller government and President Bush is acting accordingly. Cutting taxes is a good thing, but not when cutting a single program or entitlement hasn't even been proposed. The opposite is true. New or expanded programs are constantly being proposed by the Bush administration. Since the advent of the Bush administration, government has become a larger and even more intrusive force in our lives. In addition, continued free trade overtures threaten to destroy the economic viability of the average citizen of the United States.

3. What do we want? We want likeminded Americans to vote for the Reform Party candidate for President of the United States and for Republicans in the congressional races? We think that enough people voting for the Reform Party in the presidential election, and doing so publicly AS REPUBLICANS, should cause President Bush to lose. This in turn should create a demand within our party for a President more in line with our principles. If we do this, we must make sure that OUR Republican party hears our message. This makes it twice as important to get every Republican voter that we can get publicly behind this. They must not stay at home for the election. I hope to be able to point to the numbers of people who vote for the Reform Party candidate and tell our Republican leadership that we are the party of small limited government, strong national defense, individual rights, a rule of law and sound economic policies.

4. Do we mean for the Reform Party candidate to win? This is not a goal of this group. We want to create a public demand for a small government GOP without leaving the party.

5. Does this mean that we approve of Dean or any of the other Democratic nominees? No! We explicitly reject the Socialist /Democrat party and think that their actions are causing the decline of this great nation. It is because our beloved GOP is becoming indistinguishable from the Democrats in other than foreign relations arenas that we are undertaking this action.

6. Are there any up-sides to this action in the 2004 election? It is likely that there are many Republicans that are disillusioned with the current administration and Jim Gillespie’s leadership. The likely result is that many will stay home. This could cost us seats and/or control of the House or Senate. If enough people turn out to register this protest vote, we could increase our majority.

7. Do we have any specific long term goals? If President Bush loses due to our efforts, it is our hope that our party leadership will enact a platform more in line with our traditional Republican principles. The next candidate should also be more concerned with sound domestic policies.

8. How many people would it take to accomplish our objective? According to recent election results, a few thousand in just a few states could change the result of a presidential election.

9. What happens if we do not succeed? If Bush wins in 2004, after eight years of growing government and spending, the average Republican will be dispirited and stay away from the polls just like what happened to his father. Also, the people will be tired of a war on terrorism that can’t end and the strength of foreign policy will not sustain the next candidate either. (Remember; “Its the economy stupid” ?) Facing increasing debt, a lack of meaningful employment, and a dispirited/divided Republican Party, Hillary/Bayh will likely be elected. Strengthened by eight years in opposition, the Democrats will be united and will show up to the polls for Hillary/Bayh. To those who claim that it can't happen, I would refer you to those of us who said Bill would never get elected or reelected and those who said that New York would never elect Hillary. Does it still seem so far fetched? How many Republicans have you met who are really excited about the direction of Bush's domestic policy?

10. What’s in it for R.A.G. BUSH? When we pledge allegiance to the “Republic”, we do so not to any politician or party, but rather to the republican system of limited government set up in the Constitution. We consider socialism and tyranny in all of its forms an enemy to be conquered and not one to compromise with. We get to do something to try to keep freedoms lamp lit in America. We want our children to know the greatness of the United States, not experience its decline. Enough people talk about all the things that are wrong, let’s do something. In 2008, we want to help elect a strong Republican president who stands for the things that we value and who will face the ineptitude of one of the eight candidates that are currently contesting the Democratic nomination. We have faith in our fellow Americans. If our purpose is righteous and Americans united, who can stand in our way?

"This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path." Reagan (1964)

[jstolarczyk]

"What will I lose? To fight and lose i.e. not achieve your goals is not dishonorable. To not have fought at all is."

That is a losing philosophy! In politics, the superbowl or even a fist fight, fight and lose you are just a loser! Fighting to lose? Never read that in Sun Tzu, Clausewitz or the Book of Five Rings. Fighting to lose does not bring any honor! Political committees, win or lose, begin working for the next elections the day after the last, your so called honorable defeat will not be blip on their radar!

[MannyP]

Oh, but I do not think that I will lose. I think that I can succeed and so I probably will. However, fear of losing will not keep me from fighting for it. It does seem that it would keep you from fighting. Of course if you never fight, you never have to lose a fight. If you fight often enough you will lose and if you have heart this will not discourage you.

[jstolarczyk]

I have been in far more battles both physical and political then you may imagine. I have been fighting, teaching fighting and even competitively fighting for years, never fought to lose, nor did I fight not to lose. I always fought to win. You will not succeed if your intention is to change the GOP by making them losers and then remolding them into your imagine. Again any strategy that involves losing on purpose, when winning is possible, is a losing strategy for losers.

[MannyP]

Ever played chess? Sometimes you sacrifice even a queen in exchange for a tactical advantage. I think that we are having a conceptual problem. In my view the end game is not in 2004, while apparently it is for you. I guarantee that we will be worse off if Bush gets reelected precisely because he will continue his spending and big government policies further demoralizing conservatives. As a result, Clinton will be perfectly positioned to win the White House in 2008. The Clinton's are counting on Bush winning because unlike you, they do see several steps ahead.

[xzins]

I will vote for George Bush and send him my money.

I will oppose 3rd party voting as a "throw-away" vote.

I will vote locally for conservative republicans who will take my conservative concerns to the higher echelons of government.

[jstolarczyk]

I see much further ahead than you, I see what will happen after 2004 and beyond. Sacrificing your Queen is not losing the game, bad analogy. You are more like Mike Tyson, you'll bite off an ear (Bush) in anger and lose the fight, and then boast the Hollifield (Kerry) only won by default. Tyson was still the loser, as you will be with a Kerry Presidency! You fail to realize that as President, Kerry runs the RAT party, not McAuliffe or Clinton. He will appoint his man to the DNC and contributors will come to the current President, the Clinton's will be out of Power! Unless Hillary takes the VP! Then we would get 12 years of this, or more. Two liberals will be appointed to the Supreme Court and hundreds of Federal Judgeships. At that point the Ninth district court will appear conservative. You of course are not worried about 10 or more years of liberal rulings that affect this country for decades regardless of who the President is. Schools will have a free hand to pump out more liberal claptrap, Christianity will find itself under greater attack because of an indifferent court system and Administration. The war will end, but terrorism will increase. Taxes will go up because that mean SOB Bush spent too much, of course with the tax increase, Medicare will increase anyway. We will move closer to a single payer insurance system, the military reforms will end in order to gut the expenditures to the DOD. Like in the last liberal administration hundreds of millions will leave the defense department for AIDS research, Breast Cancer Research and Medicare payments (circa 1993). Service Unions will grow in power and even more private business's will out source. That is your grand vision for our future? Your vision is scary!

[MannyP]

I too will vote for Republicans locally. You can send your vote and money to Bush if you want as I did last time. I think that he is no longer worthy. Third party or "throw away" voting can have a worthwhile effect. For instance, there is little doubt that the Green Party votes have pulled the Democrats towards even more liberal stances.

[MannyP]

I am trying to follow your argument, but even with the help of critical thinking courses that I took while getting my Bachelors at Purdue following your logic is tough.
"You fail to realize that as President, Kerry runs the RAT party, not McAuliffe or Clinton. He will appoint his man to the DNC and contributors will come to the current President, the Clinton's will be out of Power! "
Right! If Kerry is elected Clinton is out of luck. This is one of the goals that I am pushing. So, we agree on this.

Hillary will not take VP. Hillary, because it is better to be a NY Senator and VPs rarely become presidents. After four years in opposition, the GOP will be stronger and will be able to elect a better president. It is unlikely that Kerry proves to be a good president the people will see this.

As for all your doomsday predictions, none of them can come true if the GOP controls Congress. Just in case you have missed it, Congress and not the president is responsible for passing legislation appropriating funds.

So, four years of a liberal who proposes judicial candidates. Their appointments to the court have to be approved by Congress. Any crazy libs would be opposed as the dems have done with Estrada and others.

Are you getting a clue yet?

[xzins]

And those votes would have made a difference in that results of the national election.

That is not a new statement, though. People like me repeat it all the time. And people like you have to hear it all the time.

There were some principled people who did not vote for Schwarzie in Calif. last year. That was such an odd election that it didn't cost the election.

The principle for me is easy: Even if I don't get the whole pie, a large piece of pie is better than no pie at all.

[jstolarczyk]

Purdue, thats in Indiana isn't it. That explains allot. But if you feel your bachelors trumps mine, what ever floats your boat. Lots of critical facts you missed, things like age, popularity, opponents. Recent NY polls put Hillary behind both Pataki,and Gulliani. So your logic so finely honed in Indiana is as follows: I will put Kerry in the White House so I can liberalize the Supreme Court and the Federal Judiciary, lose more jobs, raise taxes, gut the military, and create more entitlement programs, in doing so I save the country from Hillary and George. Great another critically thought out scorched earth strategy. Bush has an MBA from Harvard and a Bachelors from Yale, but somehow your Prude Bachelors makes you smarter. Even in Indiana you can find that listed under Hubris!

[jstolarczyk]

Also please note, the House may be Conservative, the Senate is a hugh question mark. Congress is as culpable as the President regarding excessive spending and the war etc... I take little comfort in a Liberal President and a Weak in the knees Republican Senate.

[pepsionice]

For alot of us who voted for Bush in the last election...it hasn't been all of the great results we had hoped for...and some of us (like myself) just intend to sit home and not vot this round. If GW wins, fine...if he loses, well....we can sit around with him for four years. I see lots of fine Republican candidates in 2008....and it will be a great election period then.

[MannyP]

I too think that there will be many great candidates in 2008 that will be an improvement on Bush. Please consider voting for the Reform party for president as a form of protest. They are not going to win anyway. Also, PLEASE vote for Republicans in Congress. It is very important that we don't lose congress. Also, while you are at it visit www.ragbush.com

[MannyP]

Yes they would have made a difference. That is why the Democratic Party changed as those third party voters would want it. That is the entire point.
Also, I have to ask you at what cost will your sliver of pie come:
* amnesty for illegal immigrants
* highest DOMESTIC deficit spending since LBJ
* fiscally irresponsible missions to mars
* socialized medicine for the elderly
* lies about halfing the deficit
* A continued support of semi-conservatives therefore fueling the idea that they are doing ok.

This is how this will play out as it goes like some of you want:
2004 Bush gets relected and we potentially lose congress due to stay at home base.
2008 Hillary/Bayh gets elected and we lose congress if we have not lost them up to that time. They waste no time socializing everything.
2016 GOP lines up behind another semi-conservative who people, even me, will vote for in order to end the period of shame preceding this.
2020 Manny pleads with his fellow Republicans not to repeat the same mistake as in 2004 by reelecting the semi-conservative.


On the other hand, if things turn out as I want:

2004 Bush loses reelection bid because of ignoring his base. Congressional control remains GOP. Congress limits most damage attempted by President Kerry.

2008 A conservative candidate for the GOP is elected with a united base and middle behind them. Congressional control remains GOP. We start regaining some of the freedoms and fiscal responsibility that we have given away.

Take your pick

[MannyP]

Fortunately, the House controls the purse strings.

[MannyP]

Interestingly, most of the time when I meet people with advanced degrees from northeastern universities they are intelligent, yet remarkably unwise. None of those things you threaten will happen because congress will remain in GOP control. What will GW do if congress is in Democrat control? So far, he has shown us how well he either folds or one ups them. Great! We can look forward to much more liberalism and irresponsibility than ever before.

BTW: Degrees don't make people smarter. You are born as smart as you are ever going to get. Degrees supposedly certify that you have obtained knowledge and therefore are presumably wiser. Unfortunately, even this is not guaranteed.

[olde north church]

Galvanizing

[MannyP]

February 3, 2004

Gigantic Outlay Party


Republicans stuff record pork down federal piehole


Ralph R. Reiland



"The pledge not to waste our tax dollars rings hollow," says Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, "given that in a matter of days [President Bush] will sign into law a budget-buster that provides money for Alaska skating rinks, Michigan swimming pools and Iowa indoor rain forests."

Moore is referring to the president's pronouncement in his State of the Union address that "we must spend tax dollars wisely" and the complete lack of opposition from the White House to the mile-high pile of pork in the recently passed fiscal 2004 Omnibus spending bill.

In addition to the tropical forest, the new Michigan pools and the Alaska skating rinks, the Omnibus bill gouges taxpayers to the tune of $725,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, $2 million for the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory, $1 million for the Alaska SeaLife Center, $300,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation, $500,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute, and $2 million for a golf awareness program in St. Augustine.

The indoor rain forest gets a whopping $50 million. This faux paradise for parrots will be built in Coralville, Iowa, a town with a population of 17,246 according to the latest Census Bureau survey, or about 5,000 households. The $50 million, in other words, averages out to $10,000 per household, not bad for a place that doesn't even have an airport.

For taxpayers wanting to visit their money, Coralville boasts a low crime rate (there was one murder back in 2001) and a "Nightlife" section in the town's Convention & Visitors Bureau guide that lists 12 restaurants. None stays open past 9 p.m.

The "star attraction" in Coralville is fossil watching, according to the Visitors Bureau, thanks to the flood of 1993. "For the first time in the history of the dam, water overtopped the emergency spillway," the guide tells us. "The overflow lasted a month, washing away tons of soil, huge trees, and part of our new road. When the waters receded, the 375-million-year-old fossilized Devonian ocean floor was revealed."

On top of all that, with things still up in the air in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush says he wants to have a U.S. base on the moon, by 2015 or so, for "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." This interplanetary escapade comes with a price tag of $50 billion per year in spending that will supposedly be pulled from other federal programs over the next decade, plus an extra $200 million per year in new spending.

Add to that, on the more evangelical side of things, the President's proposal to have the federal government spend $1.5 billion to promote "healthy marriage." Between the lines, that means we'd better stop thinking it might be okay to have a wedding cake with two little plastic grooms sticking in the icing. But on the spending side, it means federal abstinence instructions for anyone in need of what the President is calling "character education"—plus some communication courses for the poor, so they quit fighting so much and getting divorced and driving up the deficit.

The bottom line? The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the federal government will build up $2.4 trillion in red ink spending over the next decade, a number $1 trillion higher than the CBO's estimate in August.

"The big story is Republicans have become a big spending party," says Moore. "And I think the White House is really the ring leader of the spending spree."

With the federal budget costing more than $20,000 on average per year for every family in America and this year's deficit projected to hit a record $477 billion, Moore points to a philosophy in George W. Bush's State of the Union address that only promises to hike the level of unnecessary and wasteful spending.

"The State of Bush's Union has become in some ways a State of Dependency and a State of Entitlement," says Moore. "He has this unattractive tendency to believe that there's a government grant program for every problem that afflicts America. He wants to spend millions to promote holy matrimony. He wants to spend $200 million to fight obesity. Why can't we just tell fat people to stop overeating?"

The numbers tell the story. The average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending were 2.0 percent under Jimmy Carter, minus 1.3 percent in the Reagan years, 4.0 percent with George H.W. Bush, 2.5 percent in the Clinton years, and 8.2 percent with George W. Bush.



Ralph R. Reiland is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University.

[jstolarczyk]

Really, the House still has to negotiate with the Senate and the President has to sign the bill. Remember Partial Birth Abortion, the House and Senate put that before Clinton yearly, he vetoed it. Separation of powers my friend. House control is limited.

[MannyP]

Yeah, I didn't say that legislation we wanted wouldn't get vetoed. I said that liberal legislation would not make it through a GOP controlled congress, especially one who has been made aware that the last president was kicked out of office for not being fiscally conservative. On the other hand, what will Bush do when he wins by another slim majority, but we lose control of congress? OMG, spending will really be out of control and the Dems will pile on and later blame the whole thing on Bush. Better get used to saying Madame President Clinton.