Some conservative commentators defiant, others glum

The Seattle Times ^ | Thursday, November 9, 2006 | Howard Kurtz

[indcons]

Conservative commentators were bloodied but unbowed Wednesday.

After a day in which Republicans lost their grip on the House and before Democrats were declared winners of the Senate, too, some of the right's most prominent voices found little cause for discouragement.

"Democrats, in my mind, don't have a mandate because they stood for nothing," radio host Laura Ingraham told her listeners Wednesday.

"Republicans lost last night, but conservatism did not," Rush Limbaugh said on the 600 stations that carry his program. "The Democrats beat something last night with nothing. They advanced no agenda, other than their usual anti-war position."

Two distinct camps quickly emerged among the columnists, talkers and bloggers who spent much of the past six years defending the administration. One carried an air of defiance, the other a mood of resignation that what President Bush on Wednesday called an electoral "thumping" was perhaps deserved.

[TBP]

True, but asa I noted previously:

1. By an 11-point margin, voters said they believed that the praty of Big Government was the Republicans, and
2. Many of the new Democrats ran as conservatives.

This election was in many ways a rejection of Big Government and when the people see what they got, many of these districts (a stunning number of which were close) may well reverse field.

[FastCoyote]

"Name one right wing talker who defended President Bush for the past six years."

Maybe that should tell you something. Some of them tried, but there were so many pokes in the eye that what could they do?

[af_vet_rr]

This election was in many ways a rejection of Big Government and when the people see what they got, many of these districts (a stunning number of which were close) may well reverse field.

That remains to be seen. If they start repelling No Child Left Behind, etc., then we can say it's a rejection of Big Government. I think it'll be a few months before we know (and I don't hear a lot of people in Congress talking about scaling back Big Government as it is).

[TBP]

That Bush utterly failed to show our success in Iraq is inexplicable and unforgivable.

I know. You'd think from the way they acted that they wanted to lose.

[Reagan Man]

>>>>"Republicans lost last night, but conservatism did not," Rush Limbaugh said ...

How would you know Rush? You've forgotten what conservatism is all about. For the last year you've been off the conservative reservation, on a trip to status quo GOP-land, hanging out in the Bush`s! LMBO

[af_vet_rr]

Perhaps true, but I have yet to see a single story or post displaying the kind of apocalyptic "derangement syndrome" that the Democrats massively displayed after their loss of the last presidential election.

The Republicans lost like adults, the Democrats like the spoiled brats they are.

Exactly. We aren't running around wondering what to do.

In fact, many of us see this as a chance to clean house and get rid of the RINOs. Not only do I hope to see the RINOs who lost replaced with true Conservatives in the next election, I'd like to see RINOs still in office have Conservative candidates run against them in 2008 and 2010.

This is a golden opportunity, one we haven't had in a long time, to reboot the GOP, so to speak. No more do we have to listen to the liberal branch of the GOP beg and plead for us to support RINOs or else the Democrats will take over - the Democrats did take over, and now that it's behind us, we can move on to 2008 and 2010. The liberal side of the GOP can either follow our lead or risk the Democrats staying in power (or gaining more power). They have the choice, and I think we'll see where people truly stand come 2008 and 2010.

[goldstategop]

They played PC and didn't really commit troops and men to defeat the insurgency. The American people wondered why it kept dragging on. True, World War II took four years and we're still only in the third year of the war with a fraction of the casualties we had on a single day in World War II. People tend to lose perspective when comes to the long term historical picture. Above all, the war against Islamofascism will not end in our own lifetime. Like it or not, we are the world's policeman.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[mikeus_maximus]

Delay said when Republicans abandon their principles, they lose. I don't think they did. We've seen the real Republican Party over the last 6 years, and those in charge are not conservative. GWB, it's befuddled centrist poster child, is every bit the unmitigated disaster I thought he would be when the "moderates" and other benighted delegates pinned him to be our candidate in 2000. Yet I played along and voted for him twice. He's giddy now that he'll get his amnesty program and those pesky conservatives can't bother him anymore on anything.

I would like to think the GOP power-brokers learned a lesson here. I would like to think majority of the GOP base learned a lesson as well: Don't believe it when the GOP slaps the "conservative" label on a candidate.

But I doubt either has learned anything from this situation.

[pwatson]

"
1. By an 11-point margin, voters said they believed that the praty of Big Government was the Republicans, and
2. Many of the new Democrats ran as conservatives."

You got that right. I was very supportive of the President and voted strait R every election. Now that we got our butts whipped, it is time to reflect. Watch the Game videos of the other Team to see what they did well. Learn from our mistakes, rejoice at the loss of RINO's. Regroup and attack, attack, attack. I still remember Tip O'Neil speaker of the house and how bad the Democrats really can be, and that was before they purged all the moderates from their party. Now that the Democrat leaders are all to a person Communist Blame America First, types they will not be able to restrain their true nature. Our job is to expose every thing they do and attack. We need to purge the Republicans of all the Girly Men and find people with some big balls Women included. It is time to stand up and say we are proud, we are here and we are not going anywhere. No more get along with the Country Club. Speaking of bad Republicans. John McCain has to be clipped by every person on our side, that bastard has thrown a wrench into every possible Conservative agenda we tired to pass.

[trisham]

Conservative forever bump!

[Southerngl]

I agree with your entire post.

[doc30]

The failure to defend itself on Katrina dn point out the greater errors of the Democrat mayor and governor

And for putting FEMA under Homeland Security, where political pressure forced FEMA to concentrate on terrorist attack response over disaster resopnse in general. But you are right in that the locals need to coordinate with FEMA for it to be most effective.

[Southerngl]

>>5) This country’s continued, and highly exasperating, dependence on foreign oil;


Where will Israel be, when we have no reason to be concerned about the Middle East?>>

I think better off when we don't have to worry about kissing Isreal's enemy's butts anymore.

[SoFloFreeper]

People voted Dem over Republican 31.5-25 million. That was a stunning margin.

ANALYSIS OF THE D vs. R VOTE! Admittedly, this is very preliminary, but let's see where those votes were distributed...because it can be deceiving to just throw out raw numbers.

From the "Election 2006" site on CNN, I can see 13 RACES where the Republicans lost. Roughly speaking, they lost those races by a TOTAL of 4,687,000 votes. But where did those votes come from? Let's look:

NUMBER OF VOTES per state of 'rats over Republicans:

Connecticut: 339,000 (the Democrat lost that race to Independent Joe Lieberman, btw)

Maryland: 164,000

Michigan: 589,000

Minnesota: 440,000 (a big disappointment, Minnesota should have been closer)

Missouri: 42,000

Montana: 2,800

New Jersey: 187,000

New York: 1,328,000

Ohio: 453,000

Pennsylvania: 691,000 (another big disappointment, Santorum should not have lost by this many!)

Rhode Island: 27,000 (this is truly no big loss--both candidates were basically liberal Democrats)

Virginia: 7,200

Washington: 242,000

28% OF THE SURPLUS VOTES FOR THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IN THESE RACES CAME FROM NEW YORK STATE.

15% came from Pennsylvania: a true problem for the Republican party! So there IS a problem there.

13% of the surplus votes from the (sadly) blue state of Michigan. Wanna bet 90% of those came from Detroit? ;)

So far, we see THREE STATES have 56% of the extra Democrat votes....

Another 9% came from Minnesota. We're at 65% now.

Five percent came from Washington. 70%.

Tack on a big 10% for Ohio, where RINO DeWine lost. 80%.

You see my point: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan gave the 'rats about 66%--2/3--of their extra Senate votes. And 25% of those votes (15% in PA and 10% in Ohio) came AGAINST Republican incumbents; a significant number to be sure, but hardly an endorsement nationwide of the Democrat ideas.

Smarter people than I can deconstruct all this and tell us what to about it...but I think when the raw number is thrown out there, it makes the 'rats popularity look a bit exagerrated. I mean, look: Hillary's share of the "extra votes" was HIGHER than Ohio's and Pennsylvania's COMBINED!

I hope this makes sense.

[SoFloFreeper]

P.S. of course in my post above I'm talking about SENATE RACES!!!!

[OldFriend]

More like Rush wanted to be hanging out with the guys from 24. Can't see where he had anything more than his own ratings in mind.

Suddenly now he'd have us believe he didn't mean a word he said for these last few years.

Wow, next thing we know he'll be having his own TV show called FOOL THE AUDIENCE.

[Southerngl]

>>That Bush utterly failed to show our success in Iraq is inexplicable and unforgivable. How is it possible that in five years he did not show how we have saved the Iraqi people? I really want to know how any administration could be this tone deaf and just plain stupid. >>

Unfortunately he made the blunder of assuming people would just let him lead without question. Arrogance (and I hate to admit that because I love him dearly and feel he IS a great President) took his party down and the fact that the wimpy Republicans of Congress and the House did not back him or their fellow Republicans.

[af_vet_rr]

We need to purge the Republicans of all the Girly Men and find people with some big balls Women included. It is time to stand up and say we are proud, we are here and we are not going anywhere. No more get along with the Country Club. Speaking of bad Republicans. John McCain has to be clipped by every person on our side, that bastard has thrown a wrench into every possible Conservative agenda we tired to pass.

Amen to that! No more country club Republican crap. No more feel good "Compassionate Conservativism" crap that just introduces more big government (No Child Left Behind, "Guest Workers" (Amnesty for criminal immigrants), etc.).

Bush will get his Amnesty/Guest Worker program, and probably quite a few other things that Republicans in Congress were not going to give him, now that the liberals are in power, but that doesn't mean we can't work to get true Conservatives back in power and scale some of this back.

[Southerngl]

>>2. A huge amount of the Hispanic vote did not go Republican over the Illegal Immigration issue. Not a surprise the Democrats demonized the Republicans and the House and Senate stood by with a dumb stare like a deer caught in a cars headlights just before they got run over.>>

Exactly!! I told my husband that the Republicans are pandering to a group of people who would not vote for them in the first place, no matter much they coddle them. At the expense of losing the people who would vote for them! Why didn't they get that??