Posted on 11/09/2006 9:58:04 AM PST by meg88
yep
The Republicans were deaf. Deaf, deaf, deaf.
Pence supported the wall, didn't he?
The Republicans cannot recapture the spirit of 1994. It flat out will not work for them if they attempt it. I mean, who would believe them??? They have pissed that opportunity away for years and years to come. The next time the Republicans say, "We are for decreasing the size and scope of the federal government" the only propper response is, "yeah, riiiight, sure you are." The Republican spending of the past 12 years is the proverbial bell that cannot be un-rung.
Why not?
Add dumb and blind to your repertoire. When we return to CONSERVATIVE roots, we will win again.
Gee, I dunno - maybe because fiscal conservatism is a pretty solid core value, both for the sake of this country AND winning elections?
Not true. Amnesty is avoidance of legal consequences (not necessarily all) involved with lawbreaking.
After the new DemocRATic Congress gives "amnesty" to the 20 million illegal aliens that are "already here," what the GOP does will become totally irrelevant. It was the DemocRATS that brought the illegals "out of the shadows" and handed them a voter registration form. Americans REALLY screwed the pooch on November 7th.
Yeah, that's appealing.
Can the Republicans Recapture the Spirit of '94?
No, the conservatives must do it !!!
Yeah, let's look at the future - huge shortfalls in funding for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid (and what happened in the last few years? We made the Medicare problem even BIGGER).
We have more and more people realizing that government needs to be smaller before its size reaches critical mass and people pay more in taxes than they take home - and the GOP made government BIGGER over the last few years.
Yeah, the GOP needs to look to the future and the problems awaiting us there THAT THEY MADE WORSE. And change course and try to reduce the scale of the problems.
I like the idea of Pence in there but Boehner had exactly four months in that spot. It's hardly fair to put it all on him.
From what I read it seems most of the incumbent GOP races that were expected to be close in the House the GOP ended winning
Which to me means the GOP voters knew the consquence of staying home or switching
It also stated that most of the losses were in GOP incumbents that were considered safe in the House
Which would seem to indicate the GOP voters either stayed home as a protest or voted for the DEMs as a message sender
But in either case they figured it was a safe GOP seat and making it close would send a message
I don't know how else to interpret it
If that is true it is a monumental gaff on their part,
akin to voting for Perot and electing Clinton
If true I wonder how they feel today
Any thoughts
You're right .. life sucks and there's no furture for us
Why bother
There is a lot of truth here. There is a big problem with the idea that they lost because they weren't conservative enough....to a degree it is true, but a lot of it is frankly Iraq.
Republicans lost because voters:
1) Are tired of the Iraq they see on the news, and want some changes. A lot of this is our fault...failure to see it as a problem, unwillingness to admit problems, change course etc. in a way that would not be cutting and running.
2) Corruption.....we have handled this issue horribly. Instead of saying "we will clean up our mess and do real reform," we passed limp-wristed reform measures and basically said "Democrats do it, too." Yeah, we kicked people out, but that is not what the voters saw. They saw our rationalization and whining.
3) Lack of action/getting the sense that Republicans are out of touch. Frankly, it is hard to name one significant, tout-at-election-time achievement of the Republicans in the last year.
Here is a list of items on the agenda in 2004. None of these were accomplished:
• To create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation and making the tax relief permanent.
• To create jobs, we will make our country less dependent on foreign sources of energy.
• In a new term, I will lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code.
• We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger workers to save some of their taxes in a personal account, a nest egg you can call your own and government can never take away.
The Republicans had no plan to win this year except say "the Dems have no plan." While true, it did not work. And rightly so. Voters wanted to see our agenda, something radical, something to attract their interest. We didn't even offer anything boring. We offered nothing.
All of this combined to make this president, the history-defying president actually having coattails, to perhaps have reverse coattails this year. The voters wanted change, and it is not hard to see why.
This banishment to the desert will give us time to get shaken back to our core as a party of who we are, and give us time to re-energize us, which we need.
The past year or so the Republicans have been running on autopilot.
As for Morris' prediction of 20-year rule? That is beyond ridiculous.
This was not a sea change in voter sentiment. It was a slight ripple based on frustration with Republicans, contrary to most on this site, by independents and Dems, not Republicans staying home.
VOTERS WERE NOT VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS. THEY WERE VOTING "LET'S TRY SOMETHING NEW.....THE REPUBLICANS HAVE FRANKLY NOT ONE DIDDLY SQUAT THIS PAST YEAR, AND THEY SEEM TO NOT BE LISTENING ON IRAQ. WE DON'T LOVE THE DEMS MORE THAN THE GOP, BUT WE WILL GIVE THEM A SHOT. WE CAN KICK THEM OUT IN 2008 IF WE HAVE TO DO SO."
If Democrats remain center-focused like they have suddenly become again with Emanuel (former Clinton guy) smartly realizing you need a "vital center," they can win some elections. But, if they do these investigations, turn to the left etc., I firmly believe the voters will kick them out. America is still a center-right nation, not a liberal country. The battle for the Democratic Party soul is on..."New Democrat" Emanuel vs. Nancy Pelosi and others.
And if Nancy goes all-out liberal, the Democrats will pay at the ballot box in 2008.
I really hope she does, because if she does not, in my opinion, it will be MUCH HARDER for Republicans to win elections from now on. It will be Clinton all over again...appealing to the middle and any attempt we have to call them liberal will not stick.
To win in that environment if the Dems actually stay moderate until 2008 (which seems unlikely to me), we will HAVE to do a Contract with America 2. That type of move would make voters see conservatism as appealing and a reform movement. That would resonate with voters and cause us to win. But, if the Dems stay moderate, I can guarantee having us just call the "moderate" Democrats liberal without an alternative plan *****WILL COST US ANY CHANCE FOR WINNING IN 2008 OR LATER******.
A good start would be learning to attack their opposition.
The Hispanic vote seriously damaged the R's in this election. The Republicans have ignored illegal immigration for so long, it is now suicidal to oppose it.
Mark my words, the Republican party will now choose to overtly embrace illegal immigration and integrate Mexico into the United States.
First rule of holes - when you find yourself in one, stop digging. The GOP did the opposite and dug the fiscal hole deeper and deeper.
People WANT limited-government conservatism now. They are starting to realize that government is getting too big on all levels - and the answer is not tax cuts, but government cuts. But they will turn with a vengenence on those who preach limited government but then turn around and bloat the budget. You really need to quit attacking those speaking what used to be fundamental conservative truths unless you LIKE being in the Congressional minority.
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