Posted on 02/09/2008 11:44:24 AM PST by Jim Robinson
It was the Christian right that was the wind beneath Reagan’s wings. The Republicans had better remember and relearn that lesson if they ever hope to be a contender again. Conservatives of all stripes had better learn to co-exist and work together towards the same end, promoting and teaching real conservative ideals and goals.
Whoah! :-) It took me a minute to “get” what you were even talking about! Yeah...Hunter Thompson... I remember now. Didn’t he put a bullet in his head a couple of years ago? ...talented writer, but defintely a little strange.
Virginia doesn't have party registration for voters. Anyone can walk into the polling place (assuming you're registered to vote in that jurisdiction) and ask for either a democrat or republican ballot. They don't care what party you support or who you voted for in the last primary. I actually considered asking for the dem ballot so I could vote for Hillary on the theory that she is more beatable in November than Obama. But I've never voted for a democrat and I just don't think I could do it even in a primary.
AH...there you are!
Here’s the problem, the groups are not united. The socials, limited government and economic types all had candidated in the race and look at where the republicans are today. The social conservatives loved Bush but he’s going down as a friggen disaster for his compassionate conservatism and lack of fiscal discipline. No way economic types are going to embrace Huck and the socials won’t get behind Romney or McCain. No one backed Hunter or Fred and they both had good platforms.
The Christian right embraced former democrat Ronald Reagan who signed an amnesty bill, screwed the pooch on Lebanon and was not solid on pro-life. In the end we wound up in better shape with him but with his past positions he wouldn’t make it today.
Read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail about the 1972 Nixon vs McGovern contest. It is so funny and has so many crazy stories, some of which are definitely true. Also the book serves to remind that there has been so much turbulence in the in Presidential Campaigns and what we are seeing now is a trip down memory lane for us old hags.
I’ll try to pick up a copy of it soon! :-)
No, that is definitely not right. I hope somebody got it changed. I would have gotten myself arrested making a fuss about that.
There's a common brand of authoritarianism that masks itself as conservatism, and which people do not abide. I think people respond well to real conservative principles, but unfortunately many Republicans seem to be stuck on "liberal-lite".
How often have you seen conservatives openly oppose a spending program not because it's to expensive, but because the actual results will be contrary to the stated objective? A very large part, if not a majority, of discretionary government spending falls into this category, but Republicans almost never make any principled argument against it. Instead, they always try to minimize funding, ignoring the fact that doing so gives the proponents of the spending programs a ready-made excuse for their failure.
The fact of the matter is that the government could spend a trillion dollars a year on prescription drugs, and they still wouldn't be affordable to everyone. Even a hundred trillion dollars wouldn't be enough.
The only way conservatism can win is with real conservative leadership. Liberal-lite is a guaranteed losing proposition.
anyonebutmccain BUMP!
That is foolish and dangerous. Either Hillary or Obama is going to be President in January, or else we'll soon be wishing one of them was (the only way I can see McCain winning is if the Democrats and LSM decide he'd be useful to them). So if you're voting in that primary, vote for whichever one of those you would be more willing to have win.
You bet.
If I were still voting, I’d vote Huckabee.
The primary in Indiana is May 6th. This is one vote that McCain won’t get.
We should no longer be compelled to hold our collective conservative noses and be coerced repeatedly to vote against someone rather than for someone in a Party we've called home for decades as genuine conservatives!!!
It's especially bad this time because they're going to try to deliberately rub our noses in this false choice and not only "tamp down" conservativism, but "stamp it out" of the Party completely!!!
We are under direct threat and I applaud your plan and hope somehow it succeeds. Even if not, it'll send a message to these lame brained Party "leaders*" that we will not go quietly into that long dark night!!!
*This includes George W. Bush, unfortunately
Been praying you’d weigh in forcefully on this.
THANKS MUCH.
I agree.
Though I’m not sure how much difference it will make in the long run. I think we must do exactly as you encourage as our only chance to have anything hinting of a tolerable outcome.
Great strategy. I hope this thing grows legs.
A total Grassroots Bedrock Conservative REVOLT against McCain and the RINO RNC Establishment/Enabling MSM, in the remaining G.O.P. primaries, to deny him the nomination.
We can work out the details after that and who would be the compromise, true conservative standard bearer in 2008.
BUT FIRST THINGS FIRST. In case Duncan Hunter is still on my state's primary ballot, I am going to vote for him and dilute the vote into a massive show of anti-McCain votes, denying him a plurality.
A WSJ front page story Friday, 08 Feb, related how two political categories faced notable “political head winds” from the public: 1) Mormons and 2) Evangelical Christians.
A WSJ/NBC News poll in late January “revealed that 50 percent of Americans said they would have reservations or be ‘very uncomfortable’ about a Mormon as president.”
This, of course, has just been demonstrated vividly in primaries in the Southern States - and less vividly, but assuredly, elsewhere except in Romney’s base states of Michigan and Massachusetts.
That has been obvious to many of us for some time; and it must have been obvious from some time to many people in the know - including Rush.
Now -
Ronald Reagan did not EXCLUDE anybody from the Republican Party. He brought people INTO the party - no matter what their political affiliation or lack of it.
There were no “RHINOS” in Reagan’s vision - if some Republican(s) lacked his vision and were going in the wrong direction, he gently presented to them a different and superior vision.
Reagan’s great premise for success was THAT HE LOVED HIS FELLOW HUMAN. As the Good Book teaches us.
He hated Godless Communism because he know it violated the BASIC DIGNITY of humankind and that it deprived humankind of God-given LIBERTY.
But he never hated his FELLOW HUMAN, no matter what the political circumstances were, even when nuclear missiles were at the ready by all sides. He conquered through LOVE.
The effort to define Republicanism as ONLY being for a certain position on the Republican political spectrum - whether to the left or the right - is terribly wrong.
This is not Ronald Reagan’s INCLUSION. It is EXCLUSION - the antithesis.
It is wrong, wrong, wrong. It reeks of vanity, of arrogance, and, yes, of more than a little amount of hate - and it is the very antithesis to the love that Ronald Reagan so well embodied.
This nation is a democracy and it is a republic. A President is President of ALL the citizens therein - and not just a single political segment of that citizenry.
John McCain won his delegates in free and open elections by votes by people, a number of these voters having surely given at sometime in their lives a lot more to this nation than any of us on this site - as through military or other service to this nation.
These citizens are COEQUAL in the EYES OF THE LORD. So why should there be attempts to make them UNEQUAL and disfranchise them through sheer political desire, unhappiness and, yes, HATE.
Again: THIS IS THE VERY ANTITHESIS OF RONALD REAGAN.
I am sorry, Jim, but I am not with you. I have great respect and love for you for what you have accomplished in bringing a medium in which we can work for, and succeed in, maintaining the eternal values which the Good Lord has shown us.
Without love, however, we are but nothing.
I voted for Romney in the CA primary, and I've never been a big fan of McCain's.
However, as a Dad of 2 currently in uniform (one Marine and one Navy) I dread the thought of what a Hillary or Obama will do to the military, and it will be difficult from which to recover.
Hillary detests the military. She will destroy discipline and morale by putting politicians in the chain of command.
Hillary and/or Obama will also go after Free Republic and similar sites (as well as Hewitt, Limbaugh and the others).
I'm telling you, a Marxist president will do unrecoverable damage. McCain is better than the dark side.
Disagree anyone? No problem. If you are civil, I'll be happy to respond.
Regards all - - USAF vet and Navy and Marine (in Iraq) Dad with rational worries about Hillary.
Too many winner take all states for this to work unless everyone votes for the same ‘anyone but McCain’. The alternative not only must get more votes, but enough votes to win the state...
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