Posted on 02/07/2008 4:18:27 PM PST by wagglebee
To all of you FRiberals out there, and that means all of you Rooty Rooters and Romneyites, it's your fault that the GOP is almost for certain stuck with McCain as the nominee. Now, I don't mean those of you who voted for Romney on Super Tuesday in an effort to split the vote, but the rest of you are culpable.
Conservative FReepers have spent the past year listening to the likes of you tell us that conservatives have "had their foot on the neck" of the GOP for too long. We were told that all that mattered was someone who was strong on terror. We were told that we needed someone with strong name recognition. We were told that generally the GOP decides whose "turn it is" and then nominates that person. We were told that we needed someone who can get independent votes. We were told that ANY Republican would nominate strict constructionists to the Federal bench. We were told that winning was all that mattered.
Now, some of you who said this were supporting Rooty, some of you were supporting Romney. But you were all pretty much saying the same thing: you preferred your candidates to a conservative. Some of you even got so upset with conservative FReepers that you ran away to start a RINO forum
Well, guess what? You were successful, though not in the way you thought you would be. It looks like it's McCain's "turn." But don't worry, McCain is a war hero and strong on terrorism (as long as we don't actually take terrorists into custody or try to keep them from crossing into the United States through open borders), he says he can get independents to vote for him, he says he will appoint constructionists, and most important, he has name recognition.
So, if your real agenda was to destroy the GOP, you very well may have succeeded. If your agenda was to create a "Democrat Light" party, you have almost certainly succeeded. If your agenda was to keep the Democrats out of the White House, you have probably failed.
But regardless of what your agenda was, you have harmed the United States of America -- I just hope it's not permanent.
- McCain mostly won the blue states, but either Hillary or Obama is destined to win those blue states in November. If red state voters don’t come out in full force for McCain, the Dems will have the White House.
- The number of Dem voters on Tuesday FAR EXCEEDED the number of GOP voters in every state. Republicans are not as enthusiastic about their candidates as the Dems are.
***When you can put it in 2 simple bullet points as succinctly as that, the candidate is doomed. It’s like Bob Dole Deja Vu all over again.
I'm not as strongly pro-life as Mr. Hunter is, and that issue was a concern for me in supporting Mr. Hunter. However, I don't believe that the situation would have changed enough over the next four or eight for our differences to matter. Otherwise, Mr. Hunter was a great match on the issues.
My concern with Mr. Hunter was always executive ability. He's never run an organization anything like the administrative branch of the federal government. I'm not certain whether he would be effective. That concern didn't stop me from supporting him when I realized that he was right on so many issues.
Bill
Not a terrible idea, but what’s to keep moderate republicans and liberal trolls from simply fudging the answers to the questions to give themselves a solid score?
***Their record on FR. When you find you’re arguing against some idiot who sounds disingenuous, you look at their profile and it doesn’t fit what they’re saying, the profile has done its job. We see it every once in awhile when someone posts something that doesn’t fit their tagline. Think of it as a list of taglines on issues that we can hold up as a mirror to pretenders.
You’d get people throwing their ‘scores’ in each other’s faces.
***If I’m going back & forth with someone on an issue where their self-score is that it’s 5/5 on the scale and they expended 20% of their magnification on that issue, but mine is 4/5 and I expended 5%, then that tells both of us how important the issue is relative to each other, and roughly where we’re at.
Moreover, I think that FR’s strength lies in the fact that it is a (relatively) open and welcoming community. If it is to truly be a “Free” republic then you have to be prepared to accept that people who don’t think the same way you do will come here and post.
***Yes, the few times that FReepers have commented on my idea, many of them have overlooked exactly what you overlooked, this sentence at the end: “It’s okay for FR to be inundated with RINOs or have a bunch of liberals posting here, as long as they’re up front about it.”
Sometimes, some of these people have really, really good ideas. Most often, of course it’s moonbattery, but the source of an idea does not change the validity of it.
***Please go back & read my last sentence in the suggestion.
We did what William Buckley suggested we do -— choose the most viable and electable conservative.
***He was viable, he was electable, so the weak point in your argument seems to be what many FReepers have been saying all along.
Sadly, about sums it up. And even more sadly, too many real conservatives cannot see he is not one of them on the issues they use to define themselves as conservatives. Perhaps there are not as many actual conservatives who are calling themselves Republicans today?
I’m upset at both. But it’s okay for RINOs and liberals to come onto this forum — they just need to be up front about it.
Once we drilled down with tootyfruitybots, what we found were FRiberals. It took a lot of time and effort. Then, using the same techniques we started to scratch the surface of other candidates and look what we found.
I was using “you” losely, and obviously was not refering to the few freepers who never abandoned Hunter. I would think you understand the freepers I am talking about, those who attacked everybody else for supporting “liberals” but who went looking for another conservative when Hunter needed their support, all the while saying Hunter WAS conservative but unelectable.
Dang, he looks vengeful. I’ll bet you wouldn’t want him to know your license plate number.
***I’m afraid I simply don’t understand what a person can do with your license plate number.
My concern with Mr. Hunter was always executive ability.
***The $1/2 Trillion defense budget always struck me as an executive force de triumph. But at any rate, it was never one of my concerns. I suppose that makes me more of an idealogical voter. I tracked with Hunter on Pro-Life, WOT, Immigration, Jobs, Education, Military, almost everything except for a few simple compromises on spending that were obvious team efforts. And they didn’t strike me as needless compromises, either. For instance, on the Medicare Prescription thing, it was credited with tipping the balance in Florida for Bush because there’s so many retired folks down there. So even when I found areas I didn’t agree with him, when I drilled down I found deep thought going into his positions.
Free Republic FAILED Duncan Hunter. I’m disappointed in FR.
conservative but unelectable.
***I’ll take that over “electable but unconservative” any day. But that’s a false dilemma, it’s just for show.
It does seem like “electability” became a core issue for people who call themselves conservative, but that is just name recognition. There’s a whole new branch of republicans on the rise: Name Recognition Republicans. They vote for guys like aRINOld. If Hillary were to quit the demo race and run as a republican tomorrow, they’d back her in a second. Fred was a “name recognition” conservative and look what that got us: Nuthin’.
My position was anti Rudy McRomney from the start. Not because of their stated goals and ideals they campaigned upon, but because of their histories. Yes, people can and do change, but usually not so drastically in a matter of a couple of years.
FOr example, Rudy was EXTREMELY hostile to the 2nd amendment. Had been for 20 years. Yet here is Hannity giving him cover/talking points to assuage the conservatives....and even then he screwed it up....because he does NOT understand the importance of the 2A, and never has.
Mitt had similar positions on issues in which he turned upon a dime. He bragged of an ability to push the homosexual agenda in ways that democrats couldn’t when he ran for office in the 1990s. As Guv, he colluded with gay rights orgs to put filth/propaganda in front of gradeschoolers in MA. But listen to him now, he’s the picture of Norman Rockwell wholesomeness.
Those are but two examples. I do not believe in Road to Des Moines conversions. One issue or two, maybe. 3, 4, and 5, forget it.
It’s the same reason I argued so hard for Hunter over Fred. Not because I could not vote for Fred, but because of flip flops, but in that case, a reluctance to even acknowledge a change of position.
I’m not bitter. I understand the way politics work. Name ID is beyond huge. But after hearing Rush bellow for days about no longer carrying the GOP’s water and freepers dead set on electing conservatives only “from now on” after the 2006 elections, I thought Hunter’s timing on the scene was just what the Dr. ordered. How wrong I was. LOL
Despite what some folks have accused you of round here, I’ve enjoyed your commentary on the candidates, even when I wholeheartedly disagreed.
Good. I think I'll call it a night.
Good post. Well written.
My position was anti Rudy McRomney from the start.
***Mine also. One of my taglines was from Antoninus — The first task of Huntercles: Defeat the 3 headed RINO Cerebrus or something like that.
I hope we haven’t seen the last of Duncan Hunter. I feel we will probably lose this election to the Dems, if not, the Dem-lites (McPainiacs). Hopefully 4 years of Hitlery will turn this country back toward conservativism. As of now, I see us going the way of semi socialist Europe.
I hope we haven’t seen the last of Duncan Hunter.
***Same here. I wonder what he’ll do. I know his name is being floated for guvner here in Kahleefornyea, but I think that may be task of Sysiphus that’s undoable. The CAGOP threw Simon under the bus and there’s no reason to think it has changed & would support someone as conservative as Hunter. If I were in his shoes, I’d carpet bag it over to one of the smaller nearby states like Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, etc. and run for guvner there. 4 years as guvner in a small state (especially one where he could clean up the southern border) and he would be a very viable candidate.
they just need to be up front about it. ... Agreed. But those who are - generally don’t survive long.
***I’ve seen a few liberals openly posting here on FR and they seem to be very comfortable. I don’t have a problem with anyone HAVING a bias, I have a problem with someone HIDING their bias.
It was educational AND entertaining to watch them coming out of the woodwaok on Jim’s thread several months back.
***Actually, the bulk of the work was all that we had done prior to the bugzapper thread, getting them to come to grips with their own inner liberals. I think JimRob started to see a lot of regular FReepers logging off due to the ridiculous atmosphere FR had become; in my mind that was what probably triggered the bugzapper thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1821435/posts
as far as the religion aspect I have/had serious reservations about Rudy, Mitt, and Huckabee (I am a Catholic Apologist and have had to deal with some very anti-Catholic bigotry from CINO's like Rudy, LDS's and Baptist Fundamentalists)
Right now every Conservative has drank the Kool-aid to one degree or another, heck even Newt has gotten on the "global warming" band wagon.
If you are going to blame anyone, then blame the candidates for not giving us someone that we can all get behind.
I am not asking for Reagan, but we sure need someone strong enough to unite the party and remind people that they are the only ones that can make a difference in their lives.
I don’t think you can blame one certain group. I think you can blame the FREDHEADS who supported a weak candidate. I really think everyone is to blame truthfully.
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