Posted on 11/09/2005 4:50:09 PM PST by zbigreddogz
Let's just be honest about it: 2005 was a disaster for Republicans and conservatives.
No, we never really had a chance in Jersey, even though it looked like it, but we got beaten even worse then we should have.
Kilgore blew the Virginia race. Yes, Warner's popularity was big, and yes, it's an off year election, and no, Bush isn't at the height of his popularity, but this race was mainly Kilgore's fault. Why did this happen though? What made him think he could run Hitler ads and piss off the NRA and get away with it?
California was almost a complete disaster. We lost every initiative. Sure, we made the Unions blow their wad to beat it, but they got what they paied for.
Washington State was a disaster too. I-912, repealing the outrageously expensive gas tax hike to fund undefined, unaccountable transportation projects appears to have lost, and King County Executive Ron Sims, who essentially fixed the last Governor's race for Christine Gregoire (D), was re-elected as well.
Sure, there were bright spots. Bloomberg coasted to re-election (yes, I know he's a RINO on a lot of issues, but he's still FAR better then NY D's.), we won the Mayor's race in San Diego, which isn't a small matter, and the Manchester, NH mayor's race is very interesting too, seeming as how Kerry, Biden and such campaigned for the D.
But all said and done, it seems to me that this was a much worse year for us then 2001. This is like 2003 was for the Dems. Sure, they got a few neat things (Lousiana Governor's mansion, although I think they regret that now, and Philadelphia Mayor's race), but overall, it was a good year for us going into a very important year. It seems to me, we need to think of the implications of this year, and figure out what do to from here.
I don't think I'm being overly pessimistic, I'm not. I don't think the Dems are going to get either house back next year, but to make sure they don't, I think we need to reflect a little. These aren't simple 'Drive the RINO's out!' questions, or 'Run more moderates' or any such BS. Top down, what do we need to do differently?
"In some states, RINOs are the best that can be elected." That's what they tried to say in New Jersey, but the percentages weren't statistically different. And while you may be satisfied with half a loaf, I'm not. So, I guess we'll respectfully have to agree to disagree.
Yes we will. I much prefer a seat at the table.
OK, so what will eventually happen in California?
Will Arnie just say the heck with it? Will he veto everything in site?
I really don't care what happens in California except to the extent it harms fellow Freepers, and puts a drag on the US economy.
If I were Arnold, I think I'd get creative, aggresive, and just see what happens. I would think the Unions are feeling emboldened, and will be after him big time.
I wouldn't present it in quite the way you did, but this is how I look at it.
Dems offered the people nothing other than what they've served in past. In return they received no more than they've received in past.
For the Dems, this is nothing to crow about in that respect. For them this was a status quo election dependent on external factors (i.e. Republicans/Conservatives).
For the Republicans/Conservatives this is worrisome. Does it foretell loss in '06? No.
However, group this with the OH congressional race and we can piece together a scenario that the base is unhappy. In the Ohio district it was so heavily Republican, they were able to squeak out a win thanks in part to Rush's urging that day. In Virginia, it trends conservative but it is not lopsidedly in favor of Republicans. This means any apathy or discouragement of Republicans/Conservatives will harm election chances.
The results suggest to me that while the Republicans are not yet doomed in '06, they are in trouble because their base is not enthused to get active, recruit and vote. By rights after being in control of the W.H. Congress and the House Republicans/conservatives, while not entirely satisfied, should be inclined to build on the Majority. They are not.
Fixes are in the GOP's power. This is the good news. Champion conservative policies, enact them. Fight back against unjust critisism. Clean up communications & abandon the idea appealing to moderates is the winning strategy and the GOP comes back strong. It's their hands. After all, they still control the levers of Government, ability to set agenda, enact policies, appoints Supremes, tax reform, ANWR, WOT. As well, Republicans fighting back against their enemies verbally would slowly erase this depression many of the base currently have. A better mood, a better result in intiatives and pickups.
True for California not true over all.
In NOVEMBER of 2001 George Bush's approval rating was 85% and virtually EVERYONE in the United States [save San Francisco and Santa Cruz residents] wanted ONLY TWO THINGS from their President...........
Kill as many of the Bastards that brought down those buildings and PREVENT another attack on this nation..........
In NOVEMBER 2005,four years later, George Bush's approval rating is 38%. Both 'wishes' of the people post 911 have been 100% effective. Al Qaeda is systematically being destroyed and we have NOT LOST ONE PERSON to an attack ON OUR SOIL.........not ONE ATTACK ON OUR NATION not even ONE suicide bomber on a SOFT TARGET!!
[If there is anyone who does NOT know HOW EASY a soft target can be hit anywhere in this nation they surely live in a padded cell.]
So much for POLLS. EFEM and the rest of the naysaying namby pamby chicken little pukes that occupy the Dim Party, their allies and the MSM.
I'm concerned that no-brainer propositions in California went bad and the other instances you mention. So I'm concerned about a trend. Like something from the Twilight Zone. We have a year to get our act together.
It would be nice if he started to play hardball with the RAT-scum in the legislature. Threaten to veto everything until they compromise with spending cuts. I think his tough guy image is as phoney as a three dollar bill.
He has vetoed a few things, but he has signed a few other rotten laws (like the .50 cal ban) which has further P.O.'ed the conservative base, such as it is in California. The California Repubo Party cannot get its crap together; more than half of it wants to try and outdo the RATs with so-called left-centrist positions. A small cadre of real conservatives (like McClintock) haven't got the clout to sway it in the right direction.
The majority of California voters are small "c" communists. They really think it will work if "its done right". Hollywood elites, welfare bums, illegals by the tens of millions, dopers, gays, guilty white liberals, racial "minorities", corrupt unions, Indian gambling interests, and a legislature that is made up of a majority of sixties flashbackers and ex-hippies; that's the state of political affairs in the Golden State.
Here's some thoughts. Despite what the Bushbots are saying, yeah we got smacked around some. The reason is President Bush and his damned foppish, above the fray new tone wussy attitude. For five god damned years the crats and their allies in the media and academia have daily pounded on the President, his policies, the war in Iraq, the Republican party and it's members.
Every stinking day it's "quagmire in Iraq, more American soldiers killed in a country that never can support a democracy, war for oil, gas prices too high, Bush too slow on hurricane help, Bush's people are incompetent, Bush's people are corrupt, Bush is stupid, Bush and Cheney want to torture prisoners, Delay is corrupt, Harry Reid had to close the senate to force the Republicans to release the report on Iraq". On and on and on.
I know I'll hear that we know that these charges are baseless and just a bunch of bull. And thats the problem. We here on Free Republic know because we spend the time to research the facts. Most of the American voting public gets a steady diet of biased sound bites from crat politicians and talking heads with the reporter never contradicting.The average American gets this driven into them every day and pretty soon they get the feeling that things are falling apart, the country is foundering and change is needed.It is time for the President to stop trying to buy the approval of people that never will concede him any good will (education bill, prescription drugs, billions for Louisiana) and scuff up some knuckles on crat chins.
It is possible to communicate, debate and discuss without namecalling, dismissal, demeaning character and whatever else has taken place in this thread.
The poster that began the thread has been respectful and polite. There is no call for some of the responses returned, unless the intention is to once again silence or bully people into submission with a certain position. That tactic was tried recently on another issue, and it failed to silence the differing position.
Disgree with the substance of the original posting, fine, make your case substantively.
Dems don't regret the Louisiana win.
If Jindal had won the response would have been much better and you would have never heard the name Michael Brown. The governor is the one making the calls during the hurricane and she was horrible. Bush now has a 2 percent approval among blacks because of Blanco. Blanco is the best thing to happen to the dems ever. They have turned a whole race against a party for a generation. Moore will bring back Katrina in his next movie.
I'd trade ten governors for the 03 election loss giving us Blanco.
Don't forget Issue 1 passing in Ohio which will give a billion to Bob Taft's New Frontier project for stem cell research.
Also bad night for the few real americans in san francisco who lost their gun rights.
Last week Colorodo passed measures to raise taxes.
I hope voters aren't staying home because of the party on initives. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
re 1.) No, NJ is not a blue, blue state. Bush cut into the D's % there big time in 2004. Gore won by 16%, Kerry won by 6%. It is a blue state, no doubt, and the fact that we lost alone might not have bothered me.
However, the fact that we lost bigger then we were suppose to, that does concern me.
re 2.) You are right about Virginia, Kilgore ran the worst campaign I could think of. That said, again, in and of it's self it might not bother me, but the trend, again losing more then we were suppose to lose by, concerns me.
re 3.) If they don't lose pretty soon, California will fall into the atlantic, economically speaking. The current situation is completely unsustainable. You would think that those same folks who voted to recall Davis would have figured that out by now.
re 4.) You are right about that, I did probably underestimate the significance of that one.
re 5.) To an extent, yes. But again, the trend is not good. In 2001, we lost VA by less then we were suppose to, and won NY when we weren't suppose to.
It seems to me that the trend against us is not a Democratic phantom that it might have been. I'm not saying doom and gloom, but I'm saying give it some careful, thoughtful decision. We need to get back on offense, and we arn't right now.
New Jersey is a very blue state.
After Torch, McGreevy and Corzine they are still united to defeat the republicans.
The suburban soccer moms of Northeastern New Jersey have only cemented its blue state status.
Corzine had so much baggage and still won easy. Codey would have won by 30 points. Kean Jr will lose if he runs for the senate seat next year too.
The only republican with a chance in New Jersey state wide would be Kean's dad and he really isn't a republican.
Bush still had the 9/11 effect and still lost by over 200,000 votes. That 9/11 effect is gone now so Bush's loss was more like double digits to a horrible candidate in Kerry.
it WAS a thwacking in the VA gov race and in the CA referenda. IF we don't recognize that, we are facing a very nasty '06. But, I don't think the '06 elections are a lost cause.
There's an underlying unhappiness among the voters, tied into relentless media bashing of Bush and the war in Iraq. Folks aren't too happy, either, about gas prices, even tho they've gone down. That always reflects badly on the party in power in elections.
The VA race was Kilgore's to lose, and he did. He was not a bad candidate, but the campaign itself was godawful. Three heavily populated counties that not long ago were fairly solidly Republican went Democrat. However, there's been scant attention paid to the Republicans apparently picking up one statewide office (Lt.Gov). Lost only one net) delegate seat. (for whatever good having a GOP majority did in Richmond, kinda hard to tell the difference between the R's and D's)
In CA it was a total wipeout from the people who held a special election a year ago claiming they wanted reform .. until it was offered. Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die.
Telling ourselves this wasn't so bad after all is not going to help next year
Read #10, and stop panicking.
"The ballot initiatives in Washington State and California were important too, and those went poorly..."
The ballot initiatives in California were a waste of time from the get-go. Arnold blew it, not the GOP. As for Washington State, I do not consider what goes down there any kind of a bellweather - until there is another election for Gov.
There were very significant ballot issues - in Ohio. There were 4 constitutional changes that were initiated and backed by big Dem money from outside the state. These were intended to really screw up control of elections, districting etc. The Dems lost big - by a 2 to 1 margin on each of these issues. This in Ohio was likely the most important ballot issue before the voters anywhere in the country. The State of Ohio won. The Dems lost.
The NRA endorsed Kilgore. Check your facts before you post.
California referendum is going into the dem's turf so I don't worry about that too much.
What is very worrying are the precinct results from the schmidt-hackett race and the kaine-kilgore race.
Schmidt ran in a district Bush won 64 percent of the vote and she won 52 percent. Hackett won some rural districts 2-1 over Schmidt. That shows if the dems run someone with any appeal they can win over rural voters.
Kilgore held up in the rural vote but look at the suburban richmond precincts. These are reliably gop wealthy precincts. Bush won these precincts easy and yet Kaine won them going away. This shows that even these upscale suburban precincts will turn to the dems.
Failing that, the goal would be to hammer the Republicans badly enough in Congress to elect Hillary in a landslide in '08.
However, I think something unexpected is going to put the Democrats in a very bad position.
By next spring I fully expect the US to lead a multi-nation expeditionary force into Iran for the purpose of achieving regime change. I expect some terrorist act on the part of the Iranians, either here or in Europe (or both), to push the US into a widening of the war. Unlike the Iraq invasion, which was authorized by an amendment to the original congressional declaration of the use of force against al-Quaida, this time we will be using an official declaration of war.
This changes the politics of the situation. We haven't used a declaration of war since 1941, and once it gets on the books, you literally must be for the war. "Neutral" is not permissiable. "Against" is not permissable. Only "For" is permissable. My Publius Essay from last year, Profiling, Internment, Dissent and a Declaration of War, shows what happens when the people are riled up because there is a declaration of war on the books.
Our own distinguished FReeper from North Carolina, Congressman Billybob, is correct when he states that a congressional declaration of the use of force and a declaration of war are constitutionally equal, but a declaration of war is different politically, rather than legally.
Once the voices of the Left have been stilled by popular demand, much the way the voices of the America First folks were stilled after Pearl Harbor, the Democrats are stripped of their key issues. This is why I think that my more recent Publius Essay, The Splintering of the Democratic Party, is a descriptor of what is coming.
Once the Democrats show themselves to be disloyal Americans, they are headed for the scrapheap of history.
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