FAQ - The 11/7 Republicans!

Re-election. Convinced that the Republic cannot survive without their services, they will say and do anything to get elected.

2) That’s not entirely fair. For instance, Chuck Hagel has been a consistent and annoying critic of the war since almost day one.

True. But you specifically asked about the new class of RINOs. Let’s call them the 11/7 Republicans. After the election results came pouring in, these Republicans took a hard look at Iraq and decided that it was a quagmire. The ones who are up for election in 2008 were especially likely to reach that conclusion. They realized that Iraq was not only a quagmire, but one that had to be drained before their reelection campaigns began in earnest.

3) Do quagmires get drained? Never mind. You always mix metaphors when you’re angry. Anyway, aren’t politicians allowed to change their minds? You’re always defending Mitt Romney’s right to evolve, aren’t you?

The point with Romney is determining what he stands for and what he will do. It’s also about determining whether or not he can be relied upon to follow through on his campaign promises. For instance, Democrats always run on middle class tax relief and then realize after taking office that budget realities make delivering such relief an impossibility.

With the 11/7 Republicans, what’s going on here is completely craven. As a class, they universally pronounced failure as not an option in Iraq. Now that they’ve stuck their fingers in the wind, they don’t care whether we succeed or fail. All they care about is that the issue vanish before it harms their reelection campaigns.

4) But some people have in good faith decided that the Iraq war has failed and the time has come to cut our losses, no?

I haven’t heard any Republicans say we lost. Markos Moulitsas says we lost – he said it a couple of days ago. But even mainstream Democrats shy away from so eagerly embracing defeat.

5) So you’re arguing that the 11/7 Republicans should say we’ve lost and that it’s therefore time to beat a manly retreat?

I’m saying they should rest on their principles, assuming they have any. If that’s what they believe, they should say so. But I am extremely suspect of any Republicans who say their view on Iraq has changed over the past 70 days because of facts on the ground. The UN report that came out yesterday merely reported the same old/same old, albeit with a 10% decline in Iraqi deaths.

6) So whatever could have caused the epiphany for these erstwhile war supporters?

The electoral disaster that was 11/7. More than anything else, they want to box 11/7 in to 2006, and make sure there’s no repeat of it in 2008.

The moral turpitude of potentially sacrificing millions of lives to preserve one’s Senate seat is I think rather obvious. But then there’s also the political obtuseness of the play. The Republicans didn’t get creamed in 2006 for getting us into a war. We got creamed because we didn’t win the war we got into. Regardless of how hard the 11/7 Republicans try to distance themselves from Iraq, it won’t work. This is America, and we don’t like losing. The authors of a defeat are seldom rewarded with electoral success, even if they seek to abandon the game halfway through.

First of all, being true to their hearts would likely be a disaster, since their hearts’ greatest desire seems to be reelection at any and all costs.

What they should do is take a refresher course on why the Iraq war is so important. They should also get themselves up to speed on the context of the Iraq war, to wit that it is but one battle in the long war against Radical Islam.

Who’s to say? I’m still haunted by my conference calls with the congressmen who wanted to lead the Republican caucus. Remember those guys (and gal)? Not a single one of them could name a book he had read on radical Islam or terrorism or any other related subject.

10) But one of them said he spoke with Frank Gaffney and arranged a private viewing of “Obsession.” Don’t those things count?

No. Given that these guys are so intellectually incurious that they haven’t picked up a single book on the subject in the five years that we’ve been involved in an existential struggle, I really question how much headway Gaffney was able to make. Besides, if Gaffney made a lot of progress up on the Hill, I don’t think you’d see these ghastly 11/7 Republicans rising from the Capitol’s swamps.

Rip it apart. No two ways about it. I wouldn’t even think of voting for a Republican who didn’t support the war against Radical Islam. I think most Republicans feel the same way.

But the party leadership probably doesn’t. The party leadership, after all, supported Lincoln Chafee. So the bar has been set very low for the 11/7 Republicans to earn national party support. If the national Republican apparatus supports candidates who disgust its most loyal supporters, 2008 will make 2006 look like the good old days as far as the GOP is concerned.

12) It sounds like you’re being pretty strident there, outlining the Barnett Ideological Purity test. The audacity! What gives you the right?

To paraphrase Harry Truman, I’m just giving you the truth and you think it’s hell. Maybe I’m wrong, and Republicans will eagerly support a national slate of Chafees and I’ll be a lonely, cranky voice in the wilderness. But I doubt it.

We can be a big tent party on a lot of issues. There’s room for differences on almost everything. But a minimum requirement is that every Republican candidate for office be serious about the war. That doesn’t mean we all have to agree. Even the woefully misguided paleocons can have a seat at the table. But politicians so fundamentally unserious about the most pressing issue of the day that they’ll do a 180 on it to bolster their political fortunes aren’t worth supporting.

One way to solve the issue that appears to be going against Conservatives, don't donate contributions the the RNC or individual RINOs until the Republican Party boots them even if it means being in the minority party for years. Why have Republicans like Hagel, Snowe and Collins who's only goal is to destroy the Conservatives?

Conservatives need to defeat the RINOs in the primaries by voting for a conservative to run in their place. A true conservative has a good chance to win on their own. To counter the Emily's list, there is the Susan B. Anthony List which supports true conservatives from whatever party, but they have to be bonafide in their stance.

We have known the answer for a painfully long time.

Sure, since politics was invented!

A politician cannot use the levers of power without first being elected!

The problem with the Republican politicians who originate in the more liberal States and jurisdictions, is that they must feel their way through their own voter bases, and since the president no longer has any sort of political capital left, they cannot take the political risk to back him in any way. They require political cover to go against their constituencies. They don't have any.....

The politician is not responsible for this situation. The Republican base is!

They lame ducked president Bush and turned him into president bust before the second tern got underway, and it has since deteriorate into the isolation of the president from the party and he is supposed to be leading it.

If you want to know who did this, just look in the damn mirror. This is politics 101, and Republicans failed every test.

It's the new Mason-Dixon line with a few straggling Liberal Republicans holding on because they're in Liberal States. Conservatives won't beat them in primaries because of the states they represent so the only true option is for the Republican Party to make a decision whether they still want to fund them and if they still want to then a lot of Conservatives will be done giving to the RNC.

In theory I agree with what you're implying, and in the last election some on the right stayed home because the GOP in Congress didn't do everything (or even most) of what we sent them there to do. So what do we have now? take a look at what's coming out of thei Congress and ask yourself if the GOP were still in control would we see tax hikes...etc? I think not.
I live in Mn. So in 08 my choice may very well be Norm Coleman or Al Franken, and if not him it will be someone just as bad. So what would you do in this case?

"What is more important? Getting re-elected or the United States of America?"

I prefer a RINO who is sometimes critical of the war, than a full-blown moonbat who will do anything to undermine the war effort. So in this case, the RINO's re-election is indeed good for the USA.

RINOs have proved their worthlessness at least one too many times so it's time to get them out even if it means Moonbats takes their place temporarily. In this case being the minority party is still the minority regardless whether it's by 1 or 4. Hagel, Snowe and Collins are being more than just critics of the war, they are interfering in the Constitutional Authorities of the CIC.

So in 08 my choice may very well be Norm Coleman or Al Franken, and if not him it will be someone just as bad. So what would you do in this case?
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Well, if all Americans (which excludes the moron left) would vote like I do, things would change. I carefully size up the candidates to allow me to pick the few that I think are worthy of STAYING in office. The rest are voted out with a heavy anti-incumbent vote. The voters have yet to learn HOW to hold those douche bags in Washington accountable for their dysfunctional presence.

Anyway, that is how I fight it.

RINOs have proved their worthlessness at least one too many times so it's time to get them out even if it means Moonbats takes their place temporarily.

Yeah, but not while we're at war. Imagine how different the Senate would have been if RINO Lincoln Chafee had won re-election. Republicans would control legislation and all the committees. Why would that be such a bad deal? (Keep in mind that RI is never, ever, ever, ever going to send someone more conservative than Chafee to the Senate.)

It would have been fine had he won or any other Republican won but since they didn't and the Republicans are now the minority go ahead and weed out the other top RINOs like Hagel, Snowe and Collins and be in the minority by four instead of one because it doesn't matter the number.

I'm glad that you recognize the importance of being in the majority. Now, removing Snowe and Collins for a full-blown Democrat (I assure you, Maine isn't going to vote for Tom Coburn), does that bring us closer to a majority, or further away.

Also, don't forget: right now, a single defection (Lieberman) from the Democrats will defeat a bill. If you remove Snowe and Collins, you will need three. Every Senator counts, don't forget that.

(BTW, I find Hagel to be despicable, especially since he's from Nebraska, and they deserve better.)

The Republicans need to peel some Rats off their seat from the South or West to make up for the losses in the Northern and NE part of the country. The NE Rep Libs cost the Republicans a true mandate for a long time now and payback will be hell when the party dumps them. We already played this cater to the RINOs game and they stabbed the Conservatives in the back and most Conservatives won't fall for it again. Snowe and Collins have already said they will side with the Rats on everything that deals with Iraq so they're useless anyway.

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