My one slight disagreement is that I can no longer agree to hold my noise and vote for someone as lothesome as Romney.
I will write in Fred Thompson.
Losing power and elections is all the RNC can understand, so they need to know why they lost.
The Evangelicals have been a pox on the political process of this great nation since they assisted in the election of the Georgia Peanut Boy in ‘76. Let them go and say good riddance to trash.
Conservative fears of repeating Florida 2000 helped Bush win reelection in 2004, despite the party's overall drift to the center. By now, any conservative elements in the House and Senate were in complete retreat. The moderates ruled the roost in both houses. RINO defections on the Iraq war (Mistake #28), wasteful earmarks (Mistake #29) and ethics scandals (Mistake #29) were now front and center for the GOP. The only conservative victories of 2005-06 were the confirmations of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court. And it took a battle to defeat Bush on his nomination of Harriet Miers to do it.
Nice analysis but I think you missed an imposrtant mistake, let’s call it 32B, the GOP allowed the dhimms to gang-up on Sen. Santorum and defeat him in PA. A Crucial Error that.
An excellent accounting of how we got here. I am depressed and no longer watching any election coverage. I may or may not mark the box next to the ® this year. I hope we can dig out of this hole.
ping for later.
I don’t believe you have ever listened to James Dobson. He is not egotistical in my book, and I would like some proof to back up this smear of yours. I think egotistical applies to you if you wrote this. Dobson is concerned about the family and the soul of America.
If you want to "wrest leadership" from anybody else, you have to have a candidate, otherwise, it just won't stick.
Talk of mistakes and the notion that Iran-Contra cost Reagan his coalition or conservatives their control of the party is mistaken.
There just wasn't a Reagan in the race in 1988, so conservatives, Republicans, and Americans made do with G.W.H. Bush.
It was like that in 2000 as well, and it's the same way today.
There just isn't anyone as conservative as Reagan with the same appeal that Reagan has in the race.
Gingrich probably should have run for President himself in 1996 (Mistake #12).
If he had run that would also have been Mistake #12.
And what did conservatives get for 2008 GOP candidates? Were there any Reagan conservatives who possessed all three legs of the coalition stool - strong national defense, social conservatism, economic conservatism?
Clearly not, but could there have been?
Christianity has a social side that can't be denied forever, so naturally Evangelical social conservatives and laissez-faire economic conservatives wouldn't always be in the same boat.
A coalition involves fudging things as well. For a long time it meant making noises that appealed to social conservatives without making real concessions to them. Eventually either they'd get their way on things or they wouldn't and somebody would be alienated.
"Economic conservatism" mixed free marketeering and low taxes with some protectionist gestures and social programs to win over those who weren't converted. At some point there were bound to be conflicts about that, and about deficits as well.
It's also harder to campaign on a strong national defense when we're involved in an unpopular war.
Only problem with your theory is that Dobson didn’t endorse Huckabee or anyone else. The last part of your post is fantasy. Thompson lost because he was lazy, ran in only one state, and when the going got tough . . . he gave up and left conservatives in the lurch. Substitute “trusting Fred Thompson and supporting only Thompson instead of promoting another conservative into the race” as a mistake for the last few paragraphs and I think it makes as much sense as your historical analysis (which is excellent and not just guessing).
bump for later study.
I was really reading this and trying to believe... until ya got to the “bed time story telling land of make believe”... ala Fred Thompson.
All you Fred Heads pretty much get the fact that Romney IS Giuliani and that he’s just lying about it...
But so is Fred.
Fred IS McCain... and the problem isn’t that others aka Dobson didn’t like Fred or as the other post says Fred was “too” conservative.
No... outside of the deluded here, NO ONE LIKED FRED!
Fred got at BEST 3rd place and sometimes 6th out of 7 with only Duncan Hunter behind him.
Wacky Ron Paul beat Fred in more than a couple states and he’s still IN.
Sorry guys and gals... Fred vanished because he WAS NOT FOR REAL.
And the only difference between us... you and me.... is I KNOW it to be true... and yer still in denial.
But everything else in this article is right... and we better be HOPING we Nominate McCain,....
Why?
Cause then those RINO PUKES LOSE AND GET BLAMED !!
If we Nominate Huck, the Evangelicals get blamed...
If we Nominate Romney, then Anyone who has Money can flip flop and BUY the election...
Nope... McCain is our only toxin potent enough to KILL the GOP quickly enough to RESUSCITATE it.
Anyone.... ANYONE else... is slow poison.
Very good article.
I agree that the Ayatollah Dobson is most to blame.
Fred made some tactical mistakes ( skipping the Ames straw poll & the New Hampshire debate ), but I don’t think they were the real reason he and we lost.
This is childish name calling. Dr. Paul is a pacifist. Now maybe you believe all pacifists are kooks but at least then perhaps you could just say that he is a pacifist. When you say he is a kook, then you imply that all of his fantastically urivaled and principled stands on social and fiscal issues are also kooky. If you really think he is a kook all around, then conservativism is just a style to you and not an ideology.
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.
You can bag on Dr. Dobson all you like, but you are just insulting me and other Evangelical Conservatives who greatly respect but have never followed him. BTW we were listening to Dobson on the radio 20 years before we could even start listening to Limbaugh. Dobson never asked Thompson to "kiss his ring". All Dobson did was to offer political analysis that was very reflective and not determinative of reality. The race was Thompson's to win, but his tardy, anemic, non-engaging and uninspired bid is squarely to blame for his failure. Dobson didn't owe him an endorsement anymore than Limbaugh does.
I've got news for you, we Evangelicals don't need a Messiah in the Presidency, we already have one. We will love the Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves whether we are slaves or freemen, in war or peace, in prosperity or resession, under conservatives or liberals. We will do what is right regardless of what it costs us. Which means that saving unborn babies comes before:
We think that any President or Presidential candidate that is not right with God has much much bigger problems than being right with evangelicals, conservatives or any other part of the electorate!
Psalm 2
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday.
"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.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, took issue with Dobson's characterization of the former Tennessee senator. "Thompson is indeed a Christian," he said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."
In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian someone who talks openly about his faith."
"We use that word Christian to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," Schneeberger added. "Dr. Dobson wasn't expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy; he was trying to 'read the tea leaves' about such a possibility."
Thompson has said he is leaving the door open for a presidential run and has won plaudits from conservatives who are unenthusiastic about the Republican front-runners. A Gallup-USA Today poll, released Tuesday, showed Thompson in third place among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
While making it clear he was not endorsing any Republican presidential candidate, Dobson, who is considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the country, also said that Gingrich was the "brightest guy out there" and "the most articulate politician on the scene today."
Gingrich recently appeared on Dobson's daily Focus on the Family radio program, carried by upward of 2,000 American radio stations, where he made headlines by discussing an extramarital affair he was having even as he pursued impeachment against President Bill Clinton for his handling of the investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Dobson's phone call to U.S. News senior editor Dan Gilgoff Tuesday was unsolicited. It marked Gilgoff's first discussion with Dobson in over two years, since the magazine's political writer began work on The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, published this month by St. Martin's Press. Dobson had agreed to answer only written questions for the book.
Dobson's comments yesterday about the 2008 presidential race appear to be his first to a secular news organization in months.
Dobson recently sat down with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at Focus on the Family's Colorado Springs headquarters, marking his only meeting to date with a top-tier Republican presidential candidate. While Dobson would not comment directly on the Romney meeting, he stood by comments he made late last year that many evangelicals would find it difficult to support Romney because of his Mormonism.
"I still think that might be an impediment for him," Dobson said. "There are conservative Christians who will not vote for him because of his Mormon faith. I'm not saying that's the correct view or my view. But [presidential nominees] lose elections by 5 or 6 percent of the vote, so you don't have to lose much of the conservative Christian vote" to make a difference in the election.
Dobson said that neither of the two other Republican presidential front-runners Giuliani or McCain has attempted to contact him. "I do not believe that the current excitement over Giuliani will continue," Dobson said.
Dobson was a major force in the 2004 election, giving the first public presidential endorsement of his career to George W. Bush. Bush got nearly 6 million new white evangelical votes in 2004 that he didn't get in 2000, accounting for about twice his margin of victory. Dobson's national activist network led an unprecedented effort to get conservative evangelicals to the polls. Its greatest impact was likely in Ohio, the lynchpin to Bush's re-election, where Bush won by fewer than 120,000 votes.
Dobson, who turns 71 years old next month, has been the subject of recent rumors that he would retire from his position of Focus on the Family chairman and possibly step out of the political spotlight in the next couple of years. In the interview, however, Dobson said that he no intention of doing either.
"I have 10-to-12-hour-a-day energy," Dobson said. "I feel that God has asked me to do what I'm doing. I have no intention to stay away."
The real problem is the left wingers controlling our schools and the MSM
All the rest of the analysis is secondary
And if Hillary or Obama win there won’t be a USA left in 4 years for a conservative candidate to save
The biggest problem facing this country is STILL muslim terrorism —They aren’t going away and you can add the growing Chinese menace as well —But the average dumbed down American is too brainwashed to see it
PING for later read.
Romney has economic/fiscal conservative credentials.
I think Mitt Romney’s 1994 campaign platform is quite telling, since it indicates where Mitt Romney has been consistent for his entire political career -
http://www.freerepublic.com/~UnmarkedPackage/#mittnolib
“In the 1994 Senate race, Mitt Romney held the solid conservative position for 23 of the 24 issues listed; the only exception being the pledge to maintain the status quo in Massachusetts regarding a woman’s right to choose. A pro-choice position in Massachusetts in 1994 was a socially moderate stance accommodating the large majority opinion of voters in the state. In hindsight, it was wrong for a conservative to accommodate a pro-choice, status quo public policy despite his liberal constituency.
Romney freely admits now that he was wrong about the government’s role in protecting the life of the unborn and has changed his position on this issue to a pro-life stance as public policy consistent with long-held pro-life beliefs in his private life. However, it’s understandable how a first-time candidate in 1994, and former businessman, running a crusade for fiscal conservatism with solid conservative positions on crime, welfare, the economy, foreign policy, school choice, health care, and congressional reform might accept the status quo on a social issue respecting the liberal constituency he would represent.”
Excellent analysis. Better than the pundits.
Wow!
Standing “O” for you! That was a great post, well said, and hits the mark.
Thanks.
I honestly think letting it go to the convention is the best route.
Excellent and spot on.
I hope you have your flame suit at hand.