Posted on 10/16/2007 9:12:20 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
The GOP brand stands in profound disrepair because the party oligarchy does virtually nothing to defend it. James Dobson, Ron Paul, Lincoln Chafee, Walter B. Jones, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani all have one thing in common beyond a sometimes tenuous relationship to the GOP. Each individual knows he can flaunt the party at will on issues that party voters care about.
Every one of the individuals listed above has taken at least one, if not several, stands that GOP loyalists are totally repulsed by. Virtually nothing has been done to castigate these people for their disrespect for core party beliefs. When the party fails to punish disloyalty, it rewards this type of behavior. The GOP will not reacquire a positive brand image until several of these above listed “mavericks” get put down and sent to the glue factory for processing.
The GOP claims to be an inclusive party, but still pays far too much attention to the ratchet-jawed lunacy of Reverend James Dobson. If Dobson had stated that he could not endorse either Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson for President because of their lack of commitment to a specific set of issues that would be fine, the reverend has a right to his standards. But Reverend Dobson could not just stop there. He had to announce that he felt Fred Thompson didn’t even qualify as a Christian.
"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.
So now we have a person who claims to have the right to point to various candidates and say “Christian. Not Christian. Christian. Not Christian. Etc…” If Dobson wants anyone to care about his pro-family movement at all, he needs to stop questioning the validity of their baptism into the faith. If the Reverend is going to accuse anyone who is not his hand-picked candidate to run for office of being a Philistine, it may be time for the GOP to question this man’s credentials as an asset to the GOP. Leave this spoiled brat far behind.
In 1988, Ron Paul wasn’t even a Republican. He was too busy running for President under the banner of the Libertarian Party. Of course that didn’t stop Ron Paul from representing the GOP and taking its money and apparatus to run for Congress both before and after his run for The Presidency. The GOP should never have taken him back after 1988. He felt no loyalty for the party whatsoever. His campaigning in front of “Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth” shows the man to have no sense of shame in lobbing over-the-top accusations against his own party while they are in power. Chris Pedan needs your support in unseating this imposter Republican.
Former Senator Lincoln Chafee seems to have thankfully receded into our review mirrors. He quit the GOP last month, but that only made the obvious official. His continued support of liberal priorities such as higher taxes and more environmental regulation, combined with his refusal to even endorse Goerge W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004, caused Stephen Laffey to challenge him in the 2006 GOP Primary.
The GOP should never have let Lincoln Chafee leave the party on his own terms. He should have been ousted by Laffey, with a strong infusion of party support. In primary races like, Toomey V. Specter, Chafee v. Laffey, and Paul v. Pedan, the GOP party leadership needs to stop reflexively hanging on to disloyal incumbents. It’s not as if having Chafee gone from the Senate left our side short a Republican.
North Carolina Congressman, Walter B. Jones, seems to follow closely in Chafee’s tergiversate footsteps. So much so that he also faces a primary challenge from Joe McLaughlin. McLaughlin sites numerous examples of why Walter Jones no longer belongs in the GOP.
Jones’ failed to support the Republican leaderships’ walk-out and subsequent boycott of HR3161, voting with the Democrat leadership for the bill which allows the use of federal funds to house and employ illegal immigrants.
Jones has consistently sided with the Democrat leadership in opposition to Republican Jeff Flake’s “earmark amendments”, including voting to leave in the one million dollar earmark for Jack Murtha’s mystery defense contractor.
Jones was the only Republican to sign a letter to President Bush demanding the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and give the suspected terrorists held there the right to challenge their detentions in American courts.
The list goes on far further. These just some citations as to why Walter B. Jones has become MyDD’s favorite GOP Congressman.
John McCain remains our party’s New York Times Approved “Maverick.” As the point man on George W. Bush’s immigration fiasco, he all but called the GOP voting base idiots on the floor of the Senate. The man seems to genuinely believe we all have hookworm except when it’s time to vote for John McCain again.
His odious McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act would have capped US CO2 emissions at 2000 levels. It would have further required all our emissions to be reviewed by a bureaucrat at the commerce department to determine if they were “consistent with the objective of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change of stabilizing GHG emissions at a level that will prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
Luckily, the senator’s backdoor Kyoto bill fell 12 votes short. We were not as fortunate with his campaign finance reform legislation on behalf of George Soros. Nor did things go as well for us with his Gang of 14 shenanigans regarding judicial appointments.
John McCain does have his positive side, and is committed to protecting unborn babies from being aborted and defeating all terrorists not captured and detained at Guantanamo Bay. However, his coziness with liberal agenda items, and his profoundly condescending disrespect for strong border enforcement advocates makes this man far too problematic to the party to nominate as a presidential candidate.
While on the subject of problematic presidential nominees, Rudy Giuliani has to receive condign criticism. He did a wonderful job of cleaning up New York City, and vastly lowered the tax rates and improved the economy therein. He also told the Saudis to go and stuff their check after 9-11, rather than admit the US was partially responsible for the attacks by being too friendly to the nation of Israel.
That alone, does not a Republican make. He differs with the GOP base dramatically on abortion, gay marriage and immigration. To his credit, he’s never pulled a John McCain and called anyone stupid or bigoted for not seeing it his way. However, he needs to either decide, like Henry of Navarre, that “Paris is well worth a mass.” and change directions on these fundamental disagreements, or he won’t receive the support he needs to run for President.
The individuals I’ve written about herein come from different factions of the Republican Party. What each has in common is that they think they can gain personally, from taking the support of the GOP by enlisting under our banner, and then kicking our party’s voters in the ribs. This is killing our party’s brand and causing loyal members to feel like they have been played.
It’s time to stop buying the media spin that these people have moral courage. It’s time to call them brats; not mavericks. It’s time to leave some, if not all, of these ill-mannered children behind.
This was very early on with Fred Thompson, and at that point that's why Dobson used the qualifier "think."
I don't "think" he's a Christian does not mean, "He is not a Christian."
It means "I don't think that's true." or "I don't think it's a full moon tonight." or "I don't think dogs really eat cats."
It is a word of uncertainty. That is why he follows up with the expression, "at least that's my IMPRESSION."
Those who insist on Giulian will lead to the election of Hillary.
To vote for Giuliani would cause me to violate God's commandments.
This is why I have been saying, pick a Republican for President and push Hillary out of politics. After the election, tell the Republican party that if they don’t change within the first year, a third party will be developed and there will be three years to formulate it into something the American people can support. Congress is useless today and needs to be brought back to being the peoples representatives or they will be forced out of office.
Dobson knew exactly what he was doing when he said that. If his priority was the truth he would have:
a) done some research or
b)asked to meet with Fred Thompson to discuss his faith
_before_ opening his mouth.
It’s time conservatives reject the GOP/RNC as an entity.
Conservatives must take a stand and support only candidates that embody and vote with conservative values. We can no longer sweep-under-the-rug the policies and positions of anyone who carries an (R) next to their name — See 6 years of George Bush and a Republican Congress.
We must have faith and the strength of conviction that even if things turn against us in the short term - we will succeed in the long-run.
So, forget polls, forget conventional wisdom, forget the MSM hacks - the base must rally to its core principles or else it will be 4 more years of the same.
Nope. It was early on. It was a conversation.
It would be no different than your saying in a conversation with me, “I don’t think Rudy is a conservative.”
I’d have to agree with you. :>)
That is a disturbing thought - Stalinesque even.
George Washington on the dangers of political parties:
[While speaking on the subject -- The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.]
"All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They [political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.
"However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
Washington went on to say,
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."
How does the GOP think it can discipline those they’ve already kicked to the curb?
So that means what? To be a true conservative party we must emulate the people whose philosophy you claim to object to?
I can not understand that logic.
And if you will say that the party is a thing to have a political rigidity then be prepared to also be purged by those that you seek to purge - as is the way of ideological warfare in political parties - per Washington's warning above.
“The Dems will remain an extremely disciplined and united machine. Unlike us, they know what their goals are....”
Their goals are money and power. The same as the current majority of GOP standard bearers.
We must remember and recognize that our goal is smaller government, less government intervention, more personal freedom and a secure homeland according to the dictates of the US Constitution.
For a true conservative it’s not about Party and Power. It’s about life, liberty and the pursuit of happness
Well said - Here! Here!
I don’t hear a single Democrat claiming one of their major candidates doesn’t qualify as a “Christian.” I don’t see any former Democratic Senators completely ruling out endorsing any Democrats this cycle. I don’t see any Democrats accusing their leadership of being part of a 9-11 cover-up conspiracy.
When people do these ridiculous things, they need to be completely cut off from the money, the support and the brand name of the GOP.
Virtually nothing has been done to castigate these people for their disrespect for core party beliefs. When the party fails to punish disloyalty, it rewards this type of behavior. .... But Reverend Dobson ... had to announce that he felt Fred Thompson didn’t even qualify as a Christian.
***Umm, isn’t that part of Dobson’s Core Beliefs? Also, he’s not a Reverend. When the GOP core beliefs collide with my Christian core beliefs, the GOP beliefs are tossed.
“a third party will be developed”
I honestly think that would be great. Get the social conservatives (i.e. American Taliban) out and let the party be filled with fiscal conservative and social moderates. A party with that platform would blow the rest of the field away, because it is what most Americans want. Thus, fulfilling the defintion of a republic. The unholy alliance between the extreme religios and the fiscal branch of the party needs to end.
Amen. Pushing people out of the Republican party because someone decides they’re not “true conservatives” is like a circle of wolves hungrily eyeing each other and devouring themselves one by one.
Good points Wilco....I agree.
Unfortunately there are too many RINOs in the party....they are Republicans but not Conservatives
You know the GOP is toast when they say “we cant let Hillary win” when the GOP runs an equally-socialist candidate. No way will I vote for Giuliani or other liberal RINOs just to merely keep Hillary from the White House....thats the death of the GOP if we must vote for someone because “Hillary will win” if we do not
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