What else is new? This type of discourse is found right here.
When I was in L.A. last week, I was surprised to see a number of vehicles with W stickers remaining. I didn't expect that.
Posted on 06/26/2005 11:57:37 AM PDT by goldstategop
Think of 1958, so distant in the past that the Los Angeles Times ran front page stories about Alaska finally being voted the 49th state and Russia launching a rocket that nearly reached the moon — "farther than any object man has sent from the Earth." Something that didn't make headlines — because the reality of it wouldn't become clear for years — was the fact that 1958 was the last time Republicans controlled the state Legislature, aside from an occasional oddball year or two.
It was the year California went Democrat, and never went back.
I mention 1958 because of the hectoring underway by California GOP hardliners, who pundits call the "circular firing squad" because of their corrosive effect on their own party.
We'll remain a one-party state as long as the GOP fails to quell its far-right, which insures the party's failure in California.
As a fiscally conservative Democrat, I want California to return to a two-party system, and thus engage in a true debate over the big ideas. Yet as Republicans gear up for the 2006 statewide elections, they are once again taking actions that guarantee they get nowhere in their uphill battle to regain California.
Exhibit A: Steve Frank, who e-mails his California Political Views and News to journalists and party activists, recently declared that Republican state Sen. "Abel Maldonaro (sic) was a Hillary Clinton wannabe," for running for state controller soon after becoming a senator. Another missive reported that Keith Richman, a moderate Republican Assemblyman running for state treasurer, deserved the "Republican In Name Only" (RINO) award given him by the Club for Growth because Richman supported taxes in opposition to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004.
GOP leadership in California is so lily-white it might as well be 1958. Instead of whining about Maldonado's ambition, the GOP should fast-track this rising Latino star from Santa Maria. Yet they prefer the high-tech approach of crossing their fingers to bring new faces into the ossified party hierarchy.
As to Richman's RINO award, Schwarzenegger probably works more closely with Richman than all but two or three Republican leaders. But it wouldn't be a circular firing squad if the Club for Growth actually cared who the governor respects.
Exhibit B: At a recent annual gathering of Republicans in Los Olivos, Gary Mendoza, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles running for state insurance commissioner, announced that if liberal Silicon Valley Republican Steve Poizner gets the GOP nomination instead of him, Mendoza won't support Poizner against the Democrat who runs.
Mendoza got applause from moderates and conservatives alike by calling Poizner's supporters the "Gore-Lieberman wing" of the GOP. Mendoza, a moderate and a decent guy, tells me, "Less than one one-hundredth of Republican primary voters supported the 2000 Gore-Lieberman recount, as did Steve Poizner, who is really a Democrat."
His sharp critique is mild compared to vilification of Poizner from the right. (You can imagine what hardliners say about Abel Maldo-whatever and that socialist Keith Richman.)
Poizner's crime is his mixed ideology. Yet his issue-by-issue approach is not unusual among Silicon Valley's unorthodox Republicans. Moreover, the majority of California Republicans and independents who might lean Republican are mixed-issue voters.
As long as the far-right is the tail wagging the party's dog, the GOP will drive these voters away.
Some hardliners are whispering that Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, might be a terrific replacement for U.S. Congressman Christopher Cox of Orange County, who was tapped by President George W. Bush to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. I'm not going to smear the Minuteman Project, like hysterical Democrats who thought crazed gunmen were on the loose. It's clear that somebody with a voice, besides just talk radio, needed to call attention to the porous border.
However, promoting a lightning rod like Gilchrist is typical GOP hardliner mentality: cluelessly put forth an easily demonized Newt Gingrich type, then act mystified when voters and the California media recoil against the entire party.
We're left with a virtually permanent Democratic Legislature, a study in myopia and dysfunction typified by blustering over super-high gas prices.
Was anybody besides me amused when the Legislature in recent months held inept public hearings to "learn the cause?" News flash: the Legislature wrote the environmental laws that severely slashed gas production in California, leading to the highest gas pump prices in the nation.
If Republicans had controlled the Legislature for nearly five decades, things would be no better. Instead of the most crippling gas prices in America, we'd have oil drilling all along the coast. Permanent one-party rule never works.
The California Republican Party should grasp this better than anyone. Yet instead of drafting non-ideologues capable of winning statewide races and rebuilding the party, GOP activists are doing what they do best: taking position in the circular firing squad.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
What else is new? This type of discourse is found right here.
When I was in L.A. last week, I was surprised to see a number of vehicles with W stickers remaining. I didn't expect that.
Help from Democrats we don't need!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I'm glad you have Jill Stewart.
We have Babs Mikulski (Ick!)
This is the key statement of the article. Criticism of Republicans, given such an attitude, is irrelevant. The author seems to be suggesting that Arnold is the solution. There is no evidence that he is.
This is a long-standing debate in several states. The ones who typically whine about vilification while doing it themselves are the liberals, who behave like their soulmates the Dhimmicrats.
What is the point of trying to be Democrats lite? What core values differentiate Republicans from Democrats? For as long as I can remember, there has been a division within Republican ranks between the social conservatives who make up the rank and file and the RINO/Country Club wing who control the party organization, and basically side with Democrats at every opportunity in Clintonesque triangulation. I think a lot of conservatives are getting fed up with the endless betrayal of principles - even fiscal ones like lower taxas and smaller government.
Thanks to the RINO betrayal of Prop 187, and their refusal to do anything whatsoever about illegal immigration, California is a solidly Democrat state because of a demographic shift. The immigrants (legal and illegal) and new citizens voting in elections aren't going to be voting Republican because the Dems have the racial spoils system down to an art form. The hard truth may very well be that conservatives have been reduced to a small minority in California, which will basically render it a one-party state that maintains the fig-leaf of a two party system much like Mexico - controlled by a small, extremely wealthy elite who are served by a tiny middle-class and a huge, dependent underclass that votes as they are told. As long as there are enough votes in the US Congress to keep the Federal pork dollars rolling in, the Ponzi scheme can be maintained indefinitely, and wealth further concentrated in the hands of the elite.
Perhaps conservatives can survive politically by embracing a non-leftist form of environmentalism that might have some appeal to the well-to-do surburbanite voters. The issue of property rights might have some broader appeal in light of last week's horrific decision by SCOTUS.
We need all the help we can get. She's right.
Prop 187 wasn't going to stop that immigration, it was just a gesture. And the whole business was screwed up long before anyone even thought of prop 187. 1958, remember ?
Nope, unless we Republicans just want to be a bitter remnant, we have to have a new base. And that means stealing from the Democrats. And if we have to hold our noses to do it, then so be it.
If Jill Stewart is a fiscally conservative Democrat, why doesn't she talk to Demorcats about electing fiscally conservative Democrats instead of the tax and spend Democrats they keep putting into office?
Because the Democrats have gerrymandered the state so that the only candidates available are those acceptable to the Democratic machine as these are almost all safe seats. Both the California Democrats and the California Republicans are more extreme than the population.
So you advocate multiculturalism and the entire stinking, corrupt agenda of liberalism to curry votes from people who will never vote for you anyway? Those Asians, Mexicans, etc. (now the majority population in CA) who actually understand and believe in ideas like individual liberty and responsibility, moral values, and so on will be attracted to those who stand up for such ideals and values. The opportunists, race-hustlers, conquistadors, etc. will go to the party who gives the handouts - the party of treason and corruption - Democrats.
What's the point? Why not just join the one-party system already largely in place if getting elected is all that matters? Why is the charade of a two-party system even necessary when there is no substantive difference between them? If the state is 90% liberal, why try to be liberal-lite? The instant you do something the race-hustlers, crooks, and opportunists don't approve of, you'll be replaced by someone who will tow the line.
Prop 187 would have ended welfare and other handouts to illegals, thus making the place less attractive for both illegals and the lawless employers who hire them - who are also welfare recipients since it foists their labor costs upon the taxpayer. It's the perfect scam. Vincente Fox and the Mexican oligarchs get to export their underclass, and a cabal of slimy businessmen and Marxists get taxpayer-subsidized labor, votes and clients for the ever-expanding state, respectively. At some point, the ponzi scheme will collapse due to lack of suckers (taxpayers). Then the real fun will start.
Assimilation is dead. Multiculturalism, dual citizenship, racial preferences, and welfare benefits make any such idea impossible, except for a very small minority - those who actually have some understanding of the nature of liberty and tyranny, who have in fact embraced our traditional culture in favor of their own.
"So you advocate multiculturalism and the entire stinking, corrupt agenda of liberalism to curry votes from people who will never vote for you anyway? "
Is that what I said ?
There are more than two positions here. There is also the matter of not shooting ourselves in the feet. Prop 187 was of absolutely no help in getting our party in power nor of co-opting part of the other guys base. And it would have had a marginal impact anyway, besides being unenforceable.
Rage is not a good substitute for strategy.
Exactly.
When I hear liberal 'Republicans' and other Democrats tell the GOP not to be conservative, that's all the proof that I need that we should be.
The conservative message resonates with thinking people. The GOP will win more races, more often when its message is constant and its performance in office is consistent with that message.
You may be interested in this.
It's my view of why the GOP MUST return to our Founding values if the GOP and the nation are to survive.
The uberconservatives in California must be having so much fun losing elections that they think that's what politics is all about.
It would be easy for the rest of us Republicans in America to just dismiss the California Republicans as irrelevant except for the fact that their ineptitude could put Hillary in the White House in 2008; and their two Democrat Senators might make the difference between us getting three pro-life Supreme Court Justices.
Couldn't agree more. Liberalism is merely a step on the way to total nihilism.
By all means, let's continue electing pro abortion Republicans. That'll sure help get pro life justices.
Perhaps if the GOP was consistent, many people who have withdrawn from voting would find that Republicans are worth voting for again. Right now, the GOP is a party that tries to find room for every contradictory opinion. Sure it attracts voters, but how often do pro life voters skip over pro abortion candidates an pro gun people ignore gun grabbing candidates and vice versa, thus defeating the purported purpose of the big tent idea in the first place?
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