In the end, the Republican "revolution" ran out of gas and out of vision. Too many congressional Republicans appeared to care more about maintaining power than using power to implement an agenda, which they also abandoned.It's an interesting theory, and one that many of us conservatives are clinging to, but how does it explain the election loss of Rick Santorum?
(Just asking.)
Santorum went in in 94 on an ant-Clinton wave. He was always to liberal for PA.I do not believe white Evangelicals voted for Dems. I believe people lie to exit pollers. Evangelicals can never vote for Dems because of one issue-abortion period. It would be a sin to vote for the party of murder.
I think it was a combination of his own falling out of line with his constituants - unfortunately cause I admire him so much - and the Dems nominating a familiar name and alternative.
There are "conservatives" here on Free Republic who actively sought to purge Santorum because he didn't endorse their boy in 2004. I'm hoping that when the Islamist nukes arrive here in America, those "conservatives" catch a 400-600 REM dose--so that they can die slowly and painfully in their self-righteousness.
The American people have chosen to once again dishonor their warriors and to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Why did we lose?
My opinion, after seeing exit polls, is the "Soccer Mom", again.
Big majority of women voted Democrat. I think maybe they cant take the body count on nightly TV. I also think they truly believe the Katrina Hurricane disaster could have been avoided.
The Soccer Mom has kids getting old enough for war, and they do not like it.
Santorum is a unique case within the election. Pennsylvania is a very strong pro-life state, even within the Democrats. Santorum got that vote the last two elections. This time, the Dems nominated Casey, who is pro-life and the son of the last staunch pro-life Democrat. And Santorum could no longer count on that vote.
Throw in some stupidity of his own (such as not living in the state but having the state taxpayers foot the bill for his kids cyber-schooling), along with becoming more and more corporatist within a very blue-collar electorate, and he was doomed.
I had heard that many conservatives did not support Santorum due to Santorum's support in the primaries (2004) for Arlen Spector instead of Spector's opponent who was a conservative.
Santorum still had people sore about Toomey from Specter's Primary in the last midterm....plus, he was getting a little to cozy with Hillary every now and then, that his conservative base told him to go take a hike.
He's far right for a blue state...and all of his elections were close calls. By running a pro-life son of a famous PA name, the Dems were able to knock him out. A big part of this elections was great candidate selections by the Dems. They handpicked candidates that could neutralize strong conservative positions in districts/states to bring some of the middle and middle left back over to their side.
The Dems learned how to play the PR game
They knew to stick together even though most of their candidates were running as conservatives
Have ya noticed how the NOW hags and NARL knew to shut their traps during the election process while the likes of Casey, jr went around claiming he was pro-life
Notice how we didn't hear the women in Hollywood screaming at rallies about how Bob Casey was going to rape women if he was elected
The Dems also knew to keep their traps shuts
They won this election for many reasons One of them being the fact they sat back and let our side do the complaining and ripping apart the Republicans for them
Don't get me wrong .. I'm not saying we should back off and go easy on the pubbies
But we sure as heck need to look outside the box to see how we lost this election
I dont see any mystery here.
A large percentage of Republicans were depressed over the Iraq war, and subconsciously want to see it end.
Rick was one of the biggest supporters of the war. As am I.
We just have to face the fact that not all conservatives think Iraq is worth the price in blood.
I apologize if you've read this in my other posts, but I spoke to many people at the polls on Tuesday (as a volunteer) and quickly realized that Republicans were reluctant, practically embarassed to argue in favor of having hundreds and thousands of American men and women killed, with no end in sight.
In retrospect, I believe Bush should have set a target end date, and been more forceful about it.
Say.... 2007.
Firstly, if the terrorists insurgents opted to wait...GREAT. The violence would subside.
If things changed, Bush always could push BACK the date when the time comes.
But at least it would have given Republicans, myself also, some hope that this will not be a never ending support of a Muslim civil war.
It seems to me that many on this board have, in my opinion, forgotten that it is the actions of Congress as a legislative body that is most important. Santorum, even though he is a terrible loss, could not overcome the inaction of the Republican congress by saying "I tried but they wouldn't do anything". The knee jerk reaction of the people... was to kick him out to punish the rest of the group. He is as much a victim as we are. Boy do I hate to use the term victim. Even Elizabeth Dole on Fox News Sunday had bigger ones than Bush and Hastert, to sacrafice Rumsfled after the fact is pure stupidity and pandering at its worst. The best defense, in most cases, is a good offense (in this situation it is probably a trite expression) and we should be reading Machiavelli instead of turning the other cheek. We must fight in the primaries and before to get the best candidates and then stay united until the next primary. We don't have to abandon principals to maintain power, but we sure don't have to commit suicide. With the Muslim Jihad in progress we can't take any more chances. If we do I'm afraid we will loose our heads in more than one way.
According to a Freeper who met him at a GOP event back in 2004, Santorum knew he was toast more than two years ago. He supported Specter over Toomey because he knew there was no way in hell anyone more conservative than Karl Marx was going to have a very difficult time winning in Pennsylvania.
PA is a very old (I believe it has the highest or second-highest median age of any state in the country) and increasingly dysfunctional state. Take a ride through the state on any of the major interstate highways (I-70/I-76, I-81, I-80) and you'll understand what I mean.
He ran on a Conservative agenda in the middle of liberal La La land.
Just was not gonna last.