Posted on 11/07/2006 8:02:25 PM PST by Philistone
The most important thing that Republicans should learn from tonight is that America is a representative democracy.
This does NOT mean that your congress critter shares ALL your beliefs, or that he is a perfect human being, but rather that, in general, he votes the way you want him to.
It's like hiring a lawyer. You may despise his personal life and his principles, but what is important is that he WINS YOUR CASE.
Democraps could care less about the morals of their elected officials as long as they win.
Republicans could learn a lesson here...
What the Republicans need to learn from tonight is that you can't buy your enemies love. No amount of money or power sharing or ass kissing will get you one vote from the people who hate you and when you do those things, i.e., NCLB, Medicare expansion, Amensty for illegals etc., you run the risk of losing your base.
Another lesson they need to learn is that if you are a Republican, and I don't necessarily think this true with the Dems base, you have to listen once in awhile to what your base is telling you. Our President, his handlers, the Senate and to a lesser extent the House does a terible job of listening to the people who vote them into office.
Thirdly, right or wrong a lot of Republicans will not vote for perverts and crooks. The Democrat base doesn't seem to care about such things, but a large number of Republicans do.
And lastly I think a lot of the vote tonight was influenced by the war in Iraq. Many on here will never allow themselves to admit that there may need to be changes made in how we are handling Iraq, but the facts are it is a huge issue for a lot of voters. Not all of those people who voted against the handling of the war are against the war. Many are against what they see as aimless wandering in the desert with no real plan to win and no real plan to get out. A good number of those people are not Cut and Run people they are plan and win people, and they don't see that we have a plan nor an administration willing to admit it. I do not compare Iraq to Vietnam in any sense other than the sense that in both wars there came a time when we seemed to be fighting a directionless, PC holding action while we tried to decide what to do next. The American people will not support the sacrifice of America's young without a clearly stated, defensible reason.
I think if the party gets their head on straight and starts to listen to the concerns of their base they have the chance to win big in 08. Unlike 94 I think this was somewhat of a temper tantrum of the electorate. The Republicans gave nobody a real tangible reason to vote for them. There was no "Contract With America" just stay the course. The Democrats have no plans and now they can't run against the majority, they have to govern. If the party takes a hard look at where it is, makes the necessary changes in leadership and recruits some quality candidates I think the Dems party will be a short one.
Also Karl Rove, who was the mastermind of this debacle, has to go. People want leadership from their elected officials, and that is not Mr. Rove's specialty. His specialty, like all others of his ilk, is politics. That will win you a few elections, but eventually people want to see a return for their investment. Men like Karl Rove don't know how to deliver that because that takes principles, vision and the willingness to stand up for what you believe in not playing to polls, triangulation and always worrying about the next election cycle. Give the people a reason to vote for you and leadership on the things that matter and the elections will take care of themselves.
Hey honey, put your glasses on, put down the Stoli and re-read what I said.
Because of the drift leftward by Congressional Republicans, enough of our base did not vote, and that cost us the House and Senate. With these close races, it only took 1-2% of the base to stay home to change everything. And that happened because the Republicans did not act like conservatives.
If you want to blame the media, the stars, the weather, go ahead. Denial seems to be your middle name.
Good night
Nope, he can't do that. But he puts on a mean BBQ. Wanna bring your llama over? ; )
He is strictly a veggean. But he might be able to bring some good Andean ...
Well I am a conservative, he doesn't have any :)
Technomage ----- you hit the nail on the head.
My thoughts (similar in nature) can be found here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1734492/posts
We have a winnah!
Me, I'm going libertarian. So they let people smoke pot? That's small potatoes compared to the Socialist hammering we're about to take.
You are right about Iraq only in that that is the perception America has. I do fault Bush for not using his bully pulpit to cut through the MSM anti-war propaganda. His interviews with O'Reilly and Hannity in these last two weeks were great. It's a little late in his administration to introduce himself to the American people though. He should have done that four years ago.
I don't care what your llama eats as long as he's got some fat on his ribs.
You are absolutely right on this. I have a very close relative that is with close ties to the Pentagon. They are seriously wondering what Bush is doing to manage the war on the home front. We are winning every battle, but Bush cannot seem to make a concerted effort to get his message out.
" It's all waiting for Conservative saviors, as a soon as that savior shows he is a human being afterall, and the MSM destroys him, FR will throw him overboard.
How many decades have we been doing that?"
Right. It's that 'waiting for Reagan' ... kind of like waiting for Godot.
Bush I've always pegged as the "Truman of the GWOT", but I never pegged him as getting us in a war that ended up being unpopular and leading him to lose Congressional majorities ... that's what happened to Truman btw.
The MSM is a big big issue we have to face constantly.
You can only fight idea and energy with our own ideas and energy ... tomorrow is another day.
Never, ever, ever, ever, give in.
Time to partition Iraq and get the hell out.
Yes, but he has gone over to the Giuliani camp last I heard... and I sure as hell ain't voting for him in '08...
He can't get the message out because the MSM controls the message. I don't care how much we see on the net. Until the good news, and soldiers words hit the mainstream on a regular basis, his message won't matter.
I'm afraid it's too late but all he'd have to do is regularly come out and make some hay about a specific project successfully accomplished in Iraq. He could regularly make a big deal about the successes of a particular unit or soldier or Marine. The fact that the MSM would go nuts trying to rebut it would only fan the flames of public interest for more coverage. He has the power to create a competition in the media over which POV is more supportable. Right now the media is just chugging along with the same ole same ole. Running him over.
He really did not try. I understand the MSM hindered him, but he waited until the week before to go on to Rush and Hannity. Bush could have gone around the country and talked to every major conservative radio host, he could have given more interviews to conservatives. The libs in the media would then have to respond. This is Bushes and Roves defeat with a helping hand from Hassert, Delay and Frist.
I agree. Bush waited for the media to taught the military successes. Bush needed to out there cheerleading. It's to late, the Democrats will start the process of winding the war down. Best to partition it quickly and tell the Turks and the Iranians hands off or we bomb.
No no no no. That's what the Dems want. It won't work. If the U.S. even suggests that to the Iraqis they really will fall apart and have a civil war. If Iraq falls the jihad will grow a hundredfold.
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