Posted on 11/08/2006 2:10:38 PM PST by KMAJ2
And that is precisely why we got creamed yesterday:
The Democrats convinced people to vote for them; the Republicans *expected* everyone to vote for them.
Conservatives just got tired of being to the Republican Party what Blacks are to the Democrat Party. Abandon the base, lose the race.
This reminds me of 1992 when pocketbook issues dominated and voters chose pennies over principles.
The MSM has had a relentless series of features on health care cost, insurance gaps, etc, in recent weeks. People know they are being squeezed, and at this point many are ready for Hilary-care.
Far too easy to blame it all on Iraq...but that is what the majority did.
don't forget the high gas prices coupled with the record oil company profits.......my sister is still po'd about that and blames Bush and his buddies....
Are you saying that you do not approve of the American people?
I fail to see how a Dem-run congress has made us better off. I agree with you totally that Republicans need to work on being more appealing and so forth, but we are in a middle of a war. Now is not the time to "teach lessons" by voting in an anti-war party. Maybe they do need a wake-up call, but the timing is bad.
I believe the voters lost the War on Terror last night. Also remember (those who think we are teaching a lesson to the R's) 12 million illegal immigrants will be citizens soon. Only an ignoramous (sp) would think that we have a snowball's chance in hell of ever winning the congress again. This is all part of the Dem playbook. They know these people will become part of their plantation when they are given amnesty.
Hope so
The Democrats DID NOT convince anyone to vote FOR them. They convinced people to vote AGAINST the Republican incumbents and won by DEFAULT.
Whatever they did or did not do, the GOP had their ass handed to them.
Sour graps are soooo bitter.
Whatever. Truth is, the Republicans have been taking the conservatives for granted for a long time now. A lot of conservatives had enough of being treated by Republicans the same way Blacks are treated by the Dems.
By the way, I did vote straight R yesterday. And, yes, I felt like a chump for doing it, knowing that the Pubbies weren't going to put a brake on spending, secure the borders....
If anything positive has come of this, it's that we won't have to hear again, "We can go as Lib as we want because you conservative chumps have nowhere else to go anyway."
The tax cuts aren't set to expire until 2010. We will recapture both Houses by then and retain the WH. I know it hurts - but I think the country needed to be reminded one last time why the Conservative approach is the right course. I also think Congressional Republicans needed to be reminded. Now, under the leadership of Pelousy, the USA will see what the LEFT is all about.
"Tell me another one, Pinochio."
Nick Lampson. He's anything but a liberal. Not nearly as conservative as Delay, but any democrat politician in Texas (besides the likes of Sheila) has to be fairly moderate.
I do not trust any of them. Zell Miller is the exception.
I wonder how many posters on this site are persuasive in their conversations with others - with family, work, church, community etc? If they come across the way a lot of them write on this site - they are pushing people away rather than positively representing a good and credible philosphy.
Gas prices are down 40%. I guess Bush and his buddies must be total screwups to let gas prices fall that far.
With all due respect to your sister, people who are PO'ed because of oil prices and blame Bush are out of touch with reality and must get their opinions from Entertainment Tonight instead of thinking things through.
I also voted straight 'R', but I was voting on the principles that the Republican party is SUPPOSED to stand for vs. the principles the Democratic Party is SUPPOSED to stand for.
There were no single issues that were more important to me than the basic philosophical differences. I didn't vote FOR any particular candidate and there were only a few Democrats that were actually honest enough about their platform that I voted AGAINST them.
I did not see a single positive forward-looking message from any Democratic candidates. It was negative Monday-morning quarterbacking all the way. I didn't buy into that, but I think a lot of people did. It was foolish to believe nobody could be worse than the incumbent, especially when the challenger gives you no information on what he'd do differently.
I think the timing of this election sucked. There were late-breaking scandals that didn't give the Republicans time to clean their own house before the elections. That was their own fault, though. They ignored and tried to hide the Foley issue, the Delay issue, etc.
Everyone knows politics is a dirty game, but it would be refreshing to see a large caucus of scrupulously honest Congress critters. I still think that group is more like on the Republican side than it is from the Dems.
My guess is yes, at least to the extent that they can still run against Bush and Iraq. But two years hence and with two legislative sessions with them in majority on record that may not be quite so easy as it was this time. I won't go into the laundry list of complaints that seems to have alienated the conservative base, although the size of government and illegal immigration figure large in that. But using those as exemplars of the rest, it turns out that "compassionate" conservatism wasn't really conservatism at all.
But the real problems were Iraq, Iraq, and lastly, Iraq, and the use that was made of it by political opposition both abroad, in the U.S. media, and in the Democratic party. When you're involved in a long-term project such as Iraq the most important thing is to show progress. Even the setting of artificial milestones effects that, and once the obvious real ones - the Iraqi constitution and the vote for the new government - were past, the entire affair appeared to stagnate, full advantage of which was gleefully taken by the media. That's not a problem with the military, it's a problem with communications. IMHO, of course.
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