Worried GOP bids to shore up conservative support for Nov.

St. Petersburg Times, FL ^ | Sept. 10, 2006 | WES ALLISON

[FairOpinion]

Leaders fear those disillusioned with the Republican-led Congress could stay home on Election Day, giving victory to the Democrats.

For all those glum conservatives out there, Terry Jeffries has a message: Yes, the Republican-led Congress has failed to plug the leaks in the nation’s borders. Yes, federal spending is out of control, despite pledges by Republican leaders to temper it. And, yes, Congress has failed to pass key social measures once thought all but assured, considering Congress and the White House are in Republican hands.

But Jeffries, the editor of Human Events, a respected conservative newsweekly, also wants readers to realize those frustrations will seem piddling if Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the strident Democratic leader from California, becomes speaker of the House after November’s elections.

Concerned that disillusionment among conservatives may keep them home on Election Day, conservative groups and opinion leaders have embarked on a two-pronged strategy, on one hand urging Republican congressional leaders to assuage their conservative base in the few weeks left, and on the other imploring the base not to abandon deserving Republican candidates at their time of need.

Through articles, opinion columns and talk radio, as well as Internet blogs, they are warning conservative voters that unless they flock to the polls in November, the Republicans may lose control of the U.S. House, and that the margin in the Senate could get dangerously close.

[nathanbedford]

60 years after the October Revolution, the Soviet Union was incapable of responding to the counterattack of Ronald Reagan and so lost the Cold War. The Soviet Union was incapable of responding to Reagan's strategy because it had not the institutions in place, primarily a culture which permitted self criticism, which permitted it to identify problems and adapt to solve them. By the late 1980s, communist ideology had so hobbled itself that it could never undo its failures and so crashed at the feet of Ronald Reagan.

In 1994 we saw the same phenomenon at work in the Democratic Party and it has continued to this day and it has led to their exile in the political wilderness, the administration of Bill Clinton being an exception of no consequence. Liberalism today has hobbled itself with Political Correctness and cannot analyze itself and its mistakes except through that prism and the party as a result becomes even more and more extremist.

I think you are spot on in your comments. We both hold FreeRepublic as a bulwark against this destructive myopia.