Posted on 12/11/2006 11:06:46 PM PST by Luis Gonzalez
Our view: In Arizona and nationwide, voters rejected rigid ideologues in favor of those who promised moderation, dialogue.
The picture that emerged from last month's elections, at both the state and the federal level, showed a majority of voters weary of hard-line, intransigent ideologues on the far right.
We know that, because voters turned both houses of Congress over to the Democrats and for the first time in many years gave Democrats 27 of the 60 seats seats in the Arizona House of Representatives.
They also re-elected Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, giving her a 27 percentage point victory over her ultra-conservative challenger, Republican Len Munsil.
And so there is some irony, to put it kindly, in the comments from some Republicans who believe the party suffered because its candidates were not conservative enough. That line of thinking suggests that what voters really wanted were tougher, more rigid conservatives. If that were true, then candidates like Republican Randy Graf, an aggressive conservative who was running for Congress in District 8, should have trounced his Democratic opponent, Gabrielle Giffords. But the opposite happened. Voters told Graf to take a hike and sent Giffords to Washington.
It is remarkable, then, to hear Republicans like Bill Montgomery, who did so poorly in his race against Attorney General Terry Goddard, declare: "The Republican Party took a hit because we strayed from the principles that make our party so strong and that serve to unify our membership, which consists predominantly of fiscal and social conservatives."
This is the same as saying Republican conservatives should stick to the principles that made them unpopular and that voters, for the most part, rejected.
Montgomery was quoted by reporter Daniel Scarpinato in a Star story last Wednesday. We are more inclined to agree with Steve Huffman, a Republican moderate who ran a primary against Graf and lost.
"I think the most important conversation we have to have right now is: 'Are we where the voters are?' " Huffman said.
It's an important, practical question that suggests that candidates should be responsive to voters' concerns. It makes perfect sense, and if other Republicans were to accept reality they would see that there was nothing mysterious about the election results. Voters rejected the fringes and moved toward the political center. The Republicans in District 8 who rejected Huffman didn't get it.
Many of them would undoubtedly agree with Montgomery, a political novice, who told Scarpinato, "I've always had a problem with the term 'moderate.' If you always take the middle ground, I don't see how that's a virtue. That's not leadership."
On the contrary, we would say that it is both a sign of leadership and a necessary asset to realize the wisdom in compromising on 10 or 20 percent of the issues in order to achieve success on 80 percent of the others.
Compromise is not a dirty word, nor is it fatal to try to understand another viewpoint in the hope of negotiating an issue that gives both sides some of what they're seeking. A case can be made that compromise is a sign of wisdom and maturity.
The point that hard-liners like Montgomery miss is that public service does not require rigid adherence to a personal ideological agenda. It requires an ability to remain flexible enough to respond to the people who elected you as their representative, not their emperor.
Failure to accept the fundamental message of the last election will eventually dilute Republican power at the state level as sure as it has at the national level. Voters want a change, not a restatement of the same old manifesto.
I do want the government out of social issues, but the trouble is that the liberal-tarians want to invade my life and that of my family. When I am all too willing to give them the anarchy they ask for, they pee all over themselves and run to the same nanny state for protection...
We're right on the frigging cusp of things here. One one hand I'm afraid I'll be around long enough to have to participate and on the other I'm afraid I won't be but my child will.
Recreational drug use has been chemical warfare waged against the children of this country since the 1960s. The homosexual perverts are waging a psychological and biological war against them and us.
I have seen warfare up close and real personal, it is not always just bombs and bullets...
Or you can be like Ronald Maximus Reagan and be genuine and act on your instincts. Your own real principles if you have any.
they pee all over themselves and run to the same nanny state for protection...
Then they aren't libertarians. They're liberals who don't have the faintest idea of what libertarian principles actually are. Bill Maher is one who particularly irks me for doing that. In a libertarian society Bill Maher would starve to death.
My main objection to the 'drug war' is that I'm tired of being an unwilling babysitter for other peoples kids. I have others, but that's the short version.
I'm mostly a Republican but I have a very wide libertarian streak. I promise to stay out of your families life unless you ask me over for dinner.
I think if we really wanted to end the drug 'problem' the way to do it is legalize it. All of it. Sell whatever those fools want in 5 pound sacks at Safeway to anyone over 21 years of age.
In about 6 months the sane ones among us can police up the bodies and be done with them.
I also promise not to run to anyone for 'protection'. I may have to call on the Gendarmes to document a few things and the medics will most likely have some refuse to haul away but other than that I'll leave Government out of it.
The homosexual perverts are waging a psychological and biological war against them and us.
I really don't give a fig what consenting adults do to each other indoors and out of my sight. Lay one hand on my child and well....lets just say I'll need those Gendarmes and the medics will have another mess.
Let 'em bugger each other out of existence. Just don't come crying to me when you come down with some fatal malady spread by a particular unnatural behavior.
They got themselves into that mess, they can get themselves out. I don't really care one way or the other.
Public health threats should be dealt with as such. We don't allow people to walk around knowingly spreading TB or Typhoid after all.
Just think. Inside of a couple of years most of the idiots will have killed themselves off one way or the other and the rest of us can go about our business in relative peace.
We'll leave the discussion of dealing with the murderous followers of that syphilitic caravan raiding pedophile for another thread.
L
We don't see things a whole lot differently...
I thought not. But then our friend Beyondthesea said he appreciated our brilliance.
It's about damned time someone did.
L
That's about the most preposterous statements I've read on here. Unless you define recent as 12 years.
I call BS on the article.
1. Signed the No Child Left Behind Act, delivering the most dramatic education reforms in a generation (challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations). The very liberal California Teachers union is currently running radio ads against the accountability provisions of this Act.
In my opinion, this is one of Bush's worst mistakes because it yokes the best and brightest students to the worst. Be honest, there are some kids who just can't or won't learn, but this bill guarantees that those failing students will get more tax payer monies thrown at them. And what is called "soft bigotry" is often no more than simply calling a spade a spade. It is pure fallacy to think that spending more money will assure equal outcomes for all children regardless of their innate capabilities.
So true. You nailed it.
Yes; "rigid ideologues" like Jeb Bradley, Charlie Bass, Jim Leach, Mike DeWine, Nancy Johnson, etc.
Of that list, about fifteen should be an relatively easy return to the GOP.
Bird cage liner works for me with the paper on which this crappy and intellectually empty article was written.
Don'rt be astounded. The voters are ignorant......... it's in the plan.
Yes. I was glad to hear Bill Bennett saying good things about Duncan Hunter a few weeks ago on his show. I'm glad to hear Bill isn't entertaining a run for office himself and is instead talking up good men who are.
Between that, the scandals, the media assistance, and the cluelessness of the electorate, the democrats won by a narrow margin.
All of this thinking about whether it was because we were too conservative or too liberal is simply pointless. You can run all conservatives or all liberals. It won't do anything to make the voters smarter or make the media tell the truth.
LOL ...... if only I could get you two to write a book.
I'd drive the bus on the book tour.
I call the article B.S.
LOL! ..... well said.
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