Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan won because they were Midwesterners and ran somewhat as outsiders, although in Truman's only election he beat a very EASTERN NEW YORK POLITICAL HACK and former PROSECUTOR as close to a Giulani clone as anyone who has ever run for President. Fred Thompson will probably win the election on the basis of his geography and the fact he has been out of the Senate long enough that he does not smell of Washington insider as does Hildebeast and Osama Obama. The argument you make is moot because of something called the electoral college. George Wallace was smart enough to know that one does not have to kowtow to the eastern elite to win election. He was shot in 1968 when he had More Popular votes than any Democratic candidate at the time. Richard Nixon, no political dummy in his own right, was paying attention and formed a winning strategy called the Southern strategy.
The news to you is that the sun in this nation does not revolve around the east coast liberal elitism as you think. The dolt Bush has ceded a good part of the Republican Party to Teddy Kennedy another elistist draft dodging drunken fratboy like himself. We now call those boys and girls the Kennedy wing of the Republican Party. But I am an optimist not a hand wringer like yourself, and my political hero Ronald Reagan ceded not part of the Republican Party, he annexed part of the Democrat Party for his own, and we called them Reagan Democrats. Therein lies the paradigm, you are an apologist for Jorge and his Kennedy wing of the Republican Party, and I on the other hand say if Ronald Reagan could claim part of the Democrat Party to call his own, then it CAN be done again.
You offered me a rambling rant, sir, I return your serve.
The GOP needs to get over the idea of Dems vs Them as many DEM's are conservatives looking for a good reason to vote for a conservative. If the GOP runs DEMLITE they stay in their own party. Reagan managed to pull Dem Conservatives for a landslide victory not once but twice.
When the GOP goes liberal it looses. I think a number of congressmen last election were booted out not on their record but rather a dislike for Bush policy. They knew they were mad but not mad enough to see just which RINO's needed booting out and which conservatives needed to stay.
I can not imagine anyone thinking we need Arlen Specter for any reason or Orrin Hatch yet some seriously thought Hatch would have made a good USSC Justice. Ones who think this call themselves conservatives?
The one point I disagree on is I think Bush won solely because Gore had too many scandals. I think any other DEM would have taken Bush in a landslide. Bush before the general election was already telling the conservatives to kiss off and was heading for more liberal venues. That almost cost him the race. In 2004 Bush had another close race. Again it wasn't the policy of Bush people were cheering on but the insanity of Kerry turned them off. Bush also by 2004 had angered a substantial portion of his own party.
Liberalism does not unite DEM votes getting behind GOP candidates but Conservative Republicans get substantial DEM conservative votes.
But to your point: Yes, I’m making regional distinctions. They are HUGE. I’ve lived for at least two years and taken part in presidential electoral politics in the South, the West, the MidWest, and I grew up in NYState. Most of the country believes that the GOP is a generally “conservative” party, and that IS true in the South and the MidWest. It is less conservative in the West (CA, especially) and it is a mixed bag in the East, but in the NorthEast, Guilliani is a good example of the “middle” of the GOP political spectrum. He is by no means the most “leftward” GOP politician. Chaffee and Jumpin’Jim Jeffords demonstrate that contention. I don’t know much about NorthWest GOP politics, but I believe it is pretty similar to the MidWest.
I AGREE with EVERYONE who believes we must do all we can to do prod, push, pull, kick, etc., the GOP national party as “rightward” as possible. I have no problem at all with telling them, very vocally, “I won’t donate a single buck to the national GOP if (illegal immigration, Chaffee, queer rights, etc.) is supported”. However, that then REQUIRES that you do what you can do to:
>1. Financially support individual “conservative” Republicans in lieu of the national party even if they aren’t running for office in your state (as I do) and let the national GOP know that you’re doing so.
>2. Work your tail off in the primaries to get as “conservative” a Republican in the general election AS IS ELECTABLE in your state.
>3. Keep in mind that it is almost always more likely that a ANY Republican from your area will take a more “conservative” stance on an issue than ANY Demodog elected from your area. The ONLY time you should sit on your hands during an election is on the rare occasions that you estimate it to be quite likely that a Demodog you “allow” will be a one-termer... this is VERY RARE the way Congress has rigged their re-election chances (and why I support term limits). This means your area must be VERY conservative and is now being represented by a liberal Republican, who must be defeated. Chaffee is one of the very few RINOs in recent years who were so liberal voting that it didn’t much matter who they would be replaced by, even long term.
>4. Keep in contact with your CongressCritters - visit their local offices - and let them know where you stand on the issues, and put a face on their public. Base decisions about #3 remembering that your office time will be prove more valuable with a “liberal” Republican than any Demodog (as I tried to show by referring you to the immigration votes of liberal Republicans Snowe and Collins) so, in general, vote and work for their election anyway if they gain the nomination... (I’m suffering in this respect right now since my somewhat liberal CongressCritter, who I at least had great respect from regarding the illegal immigration issue, was replaced in ‘06 by a super-liberal Demodog)
Realize that EACH and every RINO that is replaced by a Demodog YANKS the country left, given the iron-fisted control the Demodog leaders have historically exerted. The best hope of going “rightward” is to replace Demodogs from more “conservative states” like the Dakotas, etc., with Republicans... it is NOT to get rid of the NE RINOs or abandoning the Republican party - if we do that, we’re gonna have 3-4 Ginsberg clones on the Supreme Court faster than you can say “Jack Robinson”. Hopefully, at some time in the future, the national party will be sufficiently dominated by “conservative” R’s that more conservative, party discipline can be demanded. That is not now the case in the GOP, and it behooves conservatives to recognize that, live within those constraints, and keep plodding away to change it rather than getting depressed by that.
I’ve been following this advice for over thirty years now (since Goldwater) and by following this path, conservatives have made remarkable strides rightward in many respects, and this country would CERTAINLY have been much more socialist if sKerry and Kennedy Demodogs had been elected instead of the NE (and other) RINOs. As Conservatives, our major focus right now has to be replacing the Dems in the “Red” States with Republicans, and stop focusing so much on the NE RINOs- you CAN’T replace them with “conservatives”.
Like it or now, in this business, the perfect is the enemy of doing good, and in the game of national politics, it is critical to keep in mind that the USA is NOT as conservative as many on this web site would like to believe.