For me, it’s Romney or __________. Fill in the blank, but it won’t be McCain.
>>Mitt Romney.. his Country Club wing of the party.<<
I thought Country Club Republicans were Episcopalians?
“Unfortunately, Dr. James Dobson and a few evangelical leaders decided to cut off their nose to spite their face (Mistake #35). You see, Fred’s not a Bible thumper. Neither was Ronald Reagan. And like Reagan, Fred is a bona fide, all-around, federalist conservative. That wasn’t good enough for Dobson. And when Fred refused to kiss Dobson’s ring of evangelical purity, Dobson went shopping for a candidate he thought he could control.”
I think Dobson’s ill conceived attack on Thompson played a major part in ensuring that no conservative will occupy the White House in 09.
Excellent, excellent commentary.
“At best, the GOP could still end up with a George W. Bush-lite nominee like Mitt Romney. He will at least pretend to care about conservative ideals from his Country Club wing of the party.”
Romney will drive the last nail in the conservative coffin by going hard left while hordes of glassy eyed image lickers worship his silly putty looks on “A Day in the Life” threads. His fake sincerity will insure a smooth ride over the cliff to socialism.
Interesting stuff. I disagree about the Fred related mistakes. Fred in fact ran a poor campaign and failed to motivate people. You could say that seeing the morass of RINO candidates, the MISTAKE was drafting Fred in the first place. We would have needed either a) a better candidate/campaigner to draft or b) get behind Mitt that much sooner. But Fred went where he was meant to go. That part, sadly, was no mistake.
This crap is getting tiring. I hope it goes away over after the nominee is chosen. Yes, McCain is annoying (personally, at this point I’d rather see Romney, but neither of these two are all that great), but this garbage about “you are either a conservative or you are not”, and “he’s no better than Hillary” is ridiculous. I haven’t seen Hillary staunchly supporting the WOT and Iraq war. I haven’t seen McCain pandering to NOW and the pro-abortion lobby. And bet your bottom dollar that Hillary will appoint a few more Ginsburgs to the USSC.
Fine, keep bitching now (that’s what primaries are for), but have some sense in the general election campaign.
As for Rush Limbaugh, he makes the best case that can be made for opposing McCain in the general, but frankly its not very good. By suggesting that somehow Hillary “will be no worse” than McCain, and that “we may need a Hillary” to bring back conservatism, he’s really minimizing the importance of conservatism. Connservatism is important enough to me that I will always pick the MOST conservative candidate available, even if it is McCain in the general election. Conservatism is important enough to me that I do not want 4 or 8 years of a flaming liberal Hillary. Is Rush suggesting that the next 4 or 8 years are not important? Hell, they are to me.
Romney or McCain...either way we get AMNESTY
McCain for the ploiticical advantage...and Romney for the Big Business/slave wages, pathway to citizenship, we cant send them all back...
Welcome to Amerivilla
Looks like another Duncan Hunter endorsement to me. Draft Duncan Hunter, Take II!
Very good commentary. Right on the money.
I don’t think it’s Conservatism that is dying. It is the Republican Party.
I don’t know anyone who is happy with the horrible choices we are left with for this election.
The Republicans will lose this election(just like they lost last year), and hopefully, they’ll be smart enough to return to the Reagan roots that brought them (us) to power.
Mistake #6 wasn't a mistake after all. If Mistake #3 had been reelected, that would've truly made Mistake #6. Had Americans made the mistake of reelecting Bush Sr. he would've continued to destroy the Republican party as Noonan says his son has.
So, if you want to be intellectually honest, if you must blame Perot voters for Clinton's win, then you must give Perot voters credit for the Republican win in '94 because that certainly wouldn't have happened with Bush Sr meandering through another four years.
bump for later reading.
It’s Chuck Norris’s fault!
Credibility-flush. Writer has personal issues. I stop reading.
Ouch. I have seen that analogy made more than once lately.
Best post I have read on F.R. since I registered.
This is the straw that broke the conservative movement:
“Unfortunately, Dr. James Dobson and a few evangelical leaders decided to cut off their nose to spite their face (Mistake #35). You see, Fred’s not a Bible thumper. Neither was Ronald Reagan. And like Reagan, Fred is a bona fide, all-around, federalist conservative. That wasn’t good enough for Dobson. And when Fred refused to kiss Dobson’s ring of evangelical purity, Dobson went shopping for a candidate he thought he could control.”
Dobson is a complete ass -— THAT was THE moment when the tide turned against Thompson.
Newt made a lot of mistakes (shutting down the govt and threatening to default was major no no)
Some of the conservative “mistakes” are actually consequences (3, 8, 14, 25 for example). Conservatives didn’t actually vote for clinton. well, if they did, we’re in really big trouble.
Fred made many mistakes too. He waited too long, hired Spence Abraham to be campaign manager, appeared to contradict the GOP pro-life platform and just gave the general impression he wasn’t really into it. And he justified that impression by dropping out. We were excited when he started to go after Michael Moore on his blog but he “fell asleep” until the SC debate and by then it was too late.
You left out Buchanan. He blew the Pubbies up in 1992 before Perot ever got a chance. With his sour face and angry diatribes, he became the poster boy for liberal fundraising. Bush I wasn’t perfect, but Buchanan did serious damage to the Republicans before leaving and then totally destroyed Perot’s Reform party, which actually had some momentum going to be a viable third party before Buchanan got there.