Posted on 09/28/2007 6:46:32 AM PDT by Maneesh
I was at the Ogonowski - Tsongas debate in Andover, MA yesterday. No surprise from Tsongas who came across as a big govt liberal who will be the lapdog of Pelosi and Hillary. She said what a liberal democrat is supposed to say and will most likely win the seat because she is a Democrat in MA (that is usually all it takes here).
Ogonowski's performance is what concerned me. He flat out said that the decision to go into Iraq was wrong and we should never have gone in. He did say that now that we are there we should not advertise a time table for surrender and stay and finish the job. Did he say this to appeal to the linguini spined MA moderates or does he reallty believe this ?
The other observation was that he kept saying " People are sick of partisan bickering" and I will get along with Democrats and Republicans. His demeanor was very subdued and nice without any passion. Is this focus group tested behavior from the RNC in 2007 ?
I want a partisan and passionate congressman that believes in their principles and will not change just to get along. The more conservatives dilute their message and passion, the less likely they are to win.
I hope Ogonowski was behaving this way just to appeal to the confused moderates and independents in Kennedyland. For Republicans to win they have to go back to their conservative roots and not be afraid to say it with passion.
All the more reason for conservatives to speak their mind, they have nothing to lose. Why try and get along with the traitorous rodents ?
I know that, I can recite the percentages in my sleep. But the state is not THAT Democrat as the elected numbers represent. What few Republicans that are there are go-along to get-along liberal RINOs that provide no opposition at all. They need to be sacked and we start over from scratch. We can’t do worse then where we are now, it’s not possible.
I made the suggestion awhile ago to you that one option is to let Conservative activist college students take over the state GOP and do all the GOTV in targeted districts. That’s what the Dems did in the ‘60s and ‘70s with liberal students to bolster their numbers and oust senile Dems and Brahmin RINOs that had been around since Wilson and Harding were President. They were partly why you had the state go for McGovern in ‘72.
Denial just ain't a river in Egypt. I am glad that Ogonowski is running and I don't criticize him for not taking a more conservative stand, which would be political suicide in MA. You have to plow the fields with the oxen God gave you. In order to win, Ogonowski will have to garner not only Reps and Independents. He will need Dems.
(and the NJ GOP was the overwhelming majority in the '90s... and now it is at post-Watergate levels and heading towards MA moribundity). Again, we need to fight and take these places back ! Abandoning them is not an option.
If it were only that simple. The demographics of NJ are changing. The state is also corrupt. My grandfather was a ward healer for Frank Hague. I was born in Jersey City. Hudson County will deliver the votes necessary for the Dems to win any statewide election. The Keans and Whitmans were not conservatives. Schundler is a prime example of how difficult it is for conservatives to win statewide office in NJ. Corzine and Torricelli demonstrate how Dems win despite being flawed and corrupt.
Ogonowski is polling fairly strongly for a Rep. Is he in the race to win or make a statement? I suspect he is trying to win.
I recommend that you move to MA from TN and take over the chairmanship of the GOP. Maybe then will you gain some appreciation for the situation there.
In TN, you have a Dem governor, the Dems control the House/assembly 53 Dems/46 Reps and the Reps narrowly control the Senate 17 Reps/16 Dems. Hopefully, you can turn things around there in TN before you move to MA.
??? I'm sorry if you're having a problem with what I'm saying here. What exactly do you take exception with ? Your posts constantly have that negative "it's all over" tone to them, and that's the mindset we need to rebuke rather than spread.
"I am glad that Ogonowski is running and I don't criticize him for not taking a more conservative stand, which would be political suicide in MA."
With all due respect, bullcrap. We've just spent this entire thread outlining why going liberal as a Republican has been a complete failure in this state and elsewhere. If it worked, we'd have the entire northeast and coastal states filled to the brim with elected liberal RINOs. Time to try something that works.
"You have to plow the fields with the oxen God gave you. In order to win, Ogonowski will have to garner not only Reps and Independents. He will need Dems."
Dems already have a candidate. He needs to appeal to disaffected center-right voters, regardless of party, and those fed up with the lack of choices.
"If it were only that simple. The demographics of NJ are changing."
It IS that simple. Don't fight, and the bad guys win. The demographics of NJ have always been changing, that's not an excuse for "let's surrender." We keep falling back and we're not going to have anything left.
"The state is also corrupt."
And the sun rises in the east. We know that.
"My grandfather was a ward healer for Frank Hague."
OK. One of my relatives ran the then-4th largest city in the nation (St. Louis, MO) during the early part of Hague's term (from 1913-25). He was a reformist Republican and generally considered the city's greatest Mayor (Henry Kiel). Had the Depression not occurred when it did, he would've finished out his career in the U.S. Senate (he got more votes than President Hoover did in 1932 in MO, and Hoover carried the state 4 years earlier).
"I was born in Jersey City. Hudson County will deliver the votes necessary for the Dems to win any statewide election."
Hudson hasn't had that kind of disproportionate pull in elections in 4 decades (and Reagan carried Hudson in '84, for example -- Boss Hague would've been horrified).
"The Keans and Whitmans were not conservatives."
I know. And that's why the party is in the toilet today. Liberal statist RINOism has been a cancer to the party.
"Schundler is a prime example of how difficult it is for conservatives to win statewide office in NJ."
Schundler was too much of a threat to the corrupt RINO regime. He was deliberately destroyed by them when in almost any other state, he would've been a rock star. In actuality, the last Conservative Governor of the state was Charles Edison, and he was a Democrat at the time, in the early '40s. Boss Hague helped him to victory.
"Corzine and Torricelli demonstrate how Dems win despite being flawed and corrupt."
It helps having RINOs aide their cause, too. It was a Whitman-appointed RINO court that gave the thumbs up to the illegal Torricelli-Lautencorpse switcheroo, otherwise the Torch would've been toast.
DJ, you know that I agree with you that the GOP needs to stick to conservative principles in order to be successful. However, we can’t run Bob Dornan in Northeast Massachusetts. Ogonowski is probably more conservative than some RINOs that represent districts that gave President Bush between 57%-62%, but unlike those guys who should be run out of town in a rail, would be representing a district that gave President Bush just 36% in 2000 and 41% in 2004 (and whose voters for the most part are not hawkish or socially conservative). Unlike the case of Wayne Gilchrest of MD, I would be willing to cut Ogonowski some slack.
I think the evidence is now in that electing RINO's leads to Liberal Democrat success in the longer run: see Taft in Ohio, Ryan in IL, Whitless in NJ, etc.
Carpetbaggery ? I already told you what should be done. This kind of sarcasm is unhelpful. I know the situation in MA. I've been there (I was there during election season in 1994 when the infamous Romney-Kennedy race occurred).
"In TN, you have a Dem governor,"
No kidding. I'm right here in Nashville, y'know. He used to be Mayor. My father dealt with him frequently.
"the Dems control the House/assembly 53 Dems/46 Reps"
We haven't had majority control since Reconstruction. The Dems have (despite not having received a majority of the vote for the House in 12-14 years) ruthlessly gerrymandered districts in my state since after we got parity in 1968 and elected a GOP Speaker.
"and the Reps narrowly control the Senate 17 Reps/16 Dems."
We elected a Republican Senate Speaker in January for the first time in one hundred and forty years. Like the House, the Senate is also gerrymandered, but had an unusual arrangement that the aged Democrat Speaker who ran the body for 36 straight years was finally tossed out despite 2 sessions of being majority GOP. I'm not going to go into depth about that, because I've written 100 posts on it on FR in the past 6 years. And that figure is outdated. It is 16R/16D and 1 treacherous RINO turncoat switched to Independent and will vote with the rodents. The fact that we got a GOP Speaker was a "turnaround." Rodents running things in TN could be counted upon as finding water in a lake. Trying to weed them out has been difficult simply because of the lines. Like MA, Nashville has a 90% Dem representation but that doesn't reflect ACTUAL VOTING. This county can vote majority GOP, albeit rarely, but generally is about 40% GOP. Anyway, enough about that.
"Hopefully, you can turn things around there in TN before you move to MA."
We will, thank you.
In the debate yesterday, there was no mention of the Islamofascists and terrorism. No discussion of abortion either because you have to be a baby killer to get elected here. I think people are hungry for leadership from a true conservative. Maybe that will help some libs snap out of it when they see a true leader who can speak his mind.
That evidence is about as overwhelming as you can get. In this past decade, there has only been one elected liberal RINO Governor succeeded by a more Conservative Republican, and that was Rhode Island. Carcieri only won because a perennial moonbat rodent that had been rejected twice before grabbed the nomination for a 3rd time (otherwise the office would’ve gone to the rodents).
Your statement, "The state isn't that liberal and that rodent to excuse such a ghastly representation." Again, MA is the most liberal state in the country. It is a fact/reality that must be dealt with in any GOP political strategy. Resources are finite and where they are allocated must take that reality into consideration.
We've just spent this entire thread outlining why going liberal as a Republican has been a complete failure in this state and elsewhere. If it worked, we'd have the entire northeast and coastal states filled to the brim with elected liberal RINOs. Time to try something that works.<
Where has it worked in the Northreast? In 2006 many RINOs lost their seats because their Dem opponent was more liberal. Why settle for a liberal Rep when you can get the real thing. If Reps had run "real conservatives" in those races, they would have suffered even worse defeats. People who run for election must reflect in some degree their constituencies. If you don't, you lose no matter how passionate and forcefully you express your views.
Dems already have a candidate. He needs to appeal to disaffected center-right voters, regardless of party, and those fed up with the lack of choices
For MA, Ogonowski is polling well for a Rep. He must be doing something right. Reagan understood the need to appeal to democrats as well as Reps. Ogonowski has to define issues that cut across partisan lines, e.g,, illegal immigration, and use that to distinguish himself from his opponent. You overstate the level of dissatisfaction in MA. Here are the MA results in the 2006 mid-terms Five of the 10 Dems in the House ran unopposed [including Meehan] and only one of the other five won by less than 70% of the vote , i.e., Delahunt who won with 65% of the vote. That is domination by one party, my friend.
It IS that simple. Don't fight, and the bad guys win. The demographics of NJ have always been changing, that's not an excuse for "let's surrender." We keep falling back and we're not going to have anything left.
Don't create phony strawmen. I never advocated surrendering. My point is not to criticize Reps who are brave enough to run because they are not conservative enough. Instead, support their commitment and courage.
Hudson hasn't had that kind of disproportionate pull in elections in 4 decades (and Reagan carried Hudson in '84, for example -- Boss Hague would've been horrified).
LOL. In 2004, Kerry won NJ by 250,000 votes. He won Hudson County by 67,000 votes second only to Essex's 120,000 vote margin for Kerry. In 2000, Gore won NJ by 500,000 votes and Hudson by 75,000. In 1996, Clinton won NJ by 550,000 and Hudson by 78,000. The bottom line is that Hudson County usually provides the Dems with the second largest margin of votes. Reagan was an exception and he only won by 18,000 votes.
I’ve read you comment on MA RINO Gov. Weld and NJ RINO Gov. Kean. I was wondering, how is it these two could win re-election by such an insanely large margin (Kean with 71%, Weld with 71%)and yet leave their state parties in ruin?
I don’t know. I opposed the war, for reasons of classic conservatism, meaning resistance to change or new ideas that have unpredictable consequences. However, I had no better idea.
Once we started the war, I’ve been 100% supportive of it —my country is at war, and now we have to win it.
So while he could be wrong about his initial belief of the war, there’s nothing inconsistant about his position.
The Democrats are not going to pick up 6 seats. More on the range of 3 to 4.
Ogonowski will not come out with Passion on the Original decision to go to war, because he can’t win any votes there. Where he does burst with passion is Immigration, Sticking It out in Iraq, and Making sure we keep the growth of Government in check. That’s where he will win votes, and that is where he presents the strongest most passionate arguments.
They were just Voter ID’ing you, the MassGOP is trying to get a database of exactly how many Republican/Conservative Independent people are left in the state, and whether you are a regular voter. With that information they can decide where to sponsor events and send mailings so that they can maximize the turnout of Massachusetts’ Right minded voters.
Bob Hedlund is a State Senator, Why is he running against the War, Did Massachusetts get some sort of oversight over the War in Iraq?
One reason why the Registered % for Republicans is so low in Massachusetts is because Inpendents can choose what primary they want to vote for, and still can remain as Independently Registered. People like having the ability to choose which ballot to take, especially since the most hotly contested primaries are on the Dimwit side. In the 1990’s they used to change the person’s registration after voting in a Primary to that party. The Democrats noticed that the R% was starting to go up again, and so they got rid of that rule, and now the R% is down to 12.5% again. If we didn’t have the stupid open primaries, the Republican % in Massachusetts would probably be on the order of 20-25%.
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