They're just soooo much more intellectually honest than those of us who voted, as I did, with PRIDE in my country, my president, my troops.
...or maybe they weren't buyin what the Pubs were sellin. Don't blame the re-action for the lack of Pro-action on the Republican side. Don't put the cart before the ox.
Many will recall the great ad by David Zucker.
Well guess what? The future is now:
One of the first key procedural votes in the Democrat-controlled House last week established legislative rules that Republicans say will make it easier to raise taxes by a simple majority vote.
The straight party-line vote received little attention Thursday as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, was elected speaker of the House. But Republican leaders and conservative tax-cut advocates said it opened up a huge loophole in a Republican-imposed rule drawn from the Republicans' 1994 Contract with America, which requires a supermajority, or three-fifths vote, to raise taxes.
Democrats unanimously voted down a motion offered by Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio that would have prevented them from waiving the rule, a move that tax-cutters said signaled the Democrats' intention to raise taxes between now and the 2008 elections.
"American taxpayers need to hold on to their wallets because the new House rules concerning taxes are not worth the paper they're written on," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).
"After spending an entire year on the campaign trail claiming she will not raise taxes, the first vote Nancy Pelosi brings to the floor for a vote as speaker will open the door to billions and billions of dollars of tax increases over the next two years," Mr. Norquist said.
And to think many in the middle thought Zucker was just joshing.
How did those new members to Congress vote on this measure, even those who ran on a "no new taxes" platform?
Democratic officials saw Mr. Boehner’s motion as a move to tie their hands on future tax policy, and the majority leadership effectively held all of its troops in line to oppose it, even though some of its members ran on pledges not to raise taxes.
And there you have it. The new blood in the Democratic party was unwilling to go against Pelosi and company. So here we are. The Democrats are threatening to pull funding for our troops who are risking everything for this country while at the same time they are planning to dig deep, very deep into your wallets.
But at least the Republicans were taught a lesson huh?
Gosh, a whole vanity devoted to attacking conservatives and blaming them for the failures of liberals.
>>>single issue purity over the safety of America
Are you talking about the invasion of 20 million illegals into the US?
I think you are misunderstanding what happens. The breakdown in American politics is not 50-50 R and D, with a bunch of R defectors, as you imply.
The breakdown is 40-40-20. Forty percent are various minorities looking for preferential policies, socialists, leftists, green-wackos, homosexuals, union members, and public employees. In other words Democrats who know they are Democrats.
The Republicans have a base too. Cultural conservatives, most of the military and military families, more religious people, whites, college educated, business achievers, etc. They too know who they are and why.
Then there is this 20% that are "independents". What this means is that they don't have a strong identification with either party. They vote based on things other than clearly understood politics. Don't you know people like this? I certainly do.
They tend not to be able to explain their beliefs in logical terms, but rather "I feel" "he seems like" and other primarily emotional takes on things.
It is this 20% that is up for grabs. The Dem play book was to spend 1 year denouncing the Republicans as "corrupt". The icing on the cake was the homos-outing-homos drama a few weeks before the election.
This entire strategy was not designed to make reasoned arguments to logical thinkers, rather it was designed to sway those "middle of the road" (ie: voters who don't vote based on ideology) to think the the R's are bad.
Just as the teams making it to the Superbowl will have lots of fans from all over, so a consumer 'gestalt' is established in elections.
For thinking ideological voters there were lots of reasons to vote against Kerry. (For instance his stands on the Contras in the 1980s, his support of nuclear freeze).
But these are difficult points to argue with "swing" voters. The winning strategy has to be more like that used by American Idol winners. Build a sympathetic story for your guy, show the others in a unflattering light.
Things like the poorly thought out convention, the windsurfing (used in opposition ads), the flip-flop designation and the six houses debacle where probably more important in defeating Kerry than any policy of his.
The election we just went through the Donks got their theme front and center. "Change". "End of Corruption". And tagged the R's but good with the themes they wanted to tag them with.
So blaming (mythical) Republican voters who were smart enough to know better but voted D anyway is off base. Sure you may find some few of these beasts, but the swing was not made up of defecting Republicans. It was made up of swing voters.
Sadly, in our system, these people decide elections. That's why we need people like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove to win them, and the Donkeys need James Carville and Donna Brazil to win them.
The hardest barrier going forward is the apparent decision by the MSM to move from grudgingly attempting some sort of even handed coverage to outright boosterism for the Donkeys. If this continues in force it remains to be seen if it is possible for any R to win a media dominated race.
Go figure?
It's also good to see you're getting a head start on 2008.
For God's sake, the election was 2 months ago. Quit whining about it and just figure out where to go from here.
Don't you think most of the blame should be the Republican Party which time and time again try to shove left-leaning candidates down out throats.
Just look at the top contenders for Presidential candidate. All RINOS ...McCain, Guilliani, and Romney. Where are the conservatives?
You people make liberals conservative.
I usually don't respond to vanities but.....
" but the, “ I’m staying home because I’m so much more conservative than you, so much smarter than you..” 1 in 7 voters must be held to a higher standard. "
How about instead of holding the voters to a higher standard we hold the politicians to a higher standard. After all, they work for us, we don't work for them. I think you got it backwards.
What is this 'single issue', pray tell?
So calling them idiots is your plan to get them to vote next time? AND vote for Republicans? Brilliant.
It's not the end of the world.
The Dems need to push the legislation and then get it passed, which will destroy their cover as "moderates" and " willing to be bipartisan". If the POTUS has some stones and VETO's bad legislation, they then have to try and overide his VETO and they don't have the votes to do that.
This of course presupposes that the jellyfish in the GOP Senate and the Pres grow a spine.
Is there any evidence that conservatives stayed home? I don't know any who did. Further, I don't know any conservatives that voted for Democrats as a "revenge" vote.
What I saw was that the Republicans lost the middle so called swing voters on the war and immigration.
In either case, the collective "we" conservatives did it to ourselves.
There is an excellent article in Commentary magazine which disects the words of the conservative commentariat who have turned against Bush and exhorted voters not to support him. For example, the author cites what writers who now are saying that Bush is "no (saint) Reagan" were saying about Reagan in the 1980s. He was not conservative enough for them while he was in office.
Is Conservatism Finished?
Wilfred M. McClay
January 2007
Unfortunately a subscription is required to read it online.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and figure out a way to help move things forward.
If you have a natural critical bent focus on Pelosi and Co.
Many others on this thread have basically said the same thing. But hey, it's a free country and an open forum!