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GOP leaders warn of election disaster
Politico ^ | 5/6/08 | JOHN BRESNAHAN

Posted on 05/07/2008 3:50:49 AM PDT by Dawnsblood

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

“There is an attitude that, ‘I better watch out for myself, because nobody else is going to do it,’” the member said. “There are all these different factions out there, everyone is sniping at each other, and we have no real plan. We have a lot of people fighting to be the captain of the lifeboat instead of everybody pulling together.”

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

And in a closed-door session at the Capitol, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told members that the NRCC doesn’t have enough cash to “save them” in November if they don’t raise enough money or run strong campaigns themselves.

Although a top House Republican brushed aside Gingrich’s broadside as “hype from a has-been who desperately wants to be a player but can’t anymore,” the harsh words from Cole were harder to ignore.

“It was a pretty stern line that he took with us,” said one House Republican.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: democrats; election; republicans
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To: angkor
The elephant in our living room is the Evangelicals who have done much to conflate religious values with conservative principles.

Conservative principles ARE moral and religious values. Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are endowed by our creator - God limits the jurisdiction of government including eminent domain, tax rates, wars and health care not just abortion, homosexuality etc.

You might look to the secular atheists in the party that have diluted the foundations of conservative philosophy - who have compromised a thousand times because they didn't really believe this conservative stuff. But then again, maybe your part of that "get those God lovers out of the party" type of Republican - you know the loser type!

221 posted on 05/07/2008 8:41:32 AM PDT by DaveyB (Land of the taxed and home of the slave)
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To: Dawnsblood

I found this entertaining little U-tube clip over at DU:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQpCdfpX2Yo


222 posted on 05/07/2008 8:47:46 AM PDT by acoulterfan
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To: bill1952
Well... no Democrat is going to appoint SC justices popular around here. But unless the Democrats are feeling politically suicidal, you are not going to see the sort of embrace of radial black political opinion that helped sink the Democrat party during the "culture wars" of the 1970s and beyond. ----- IMO some readers here need to recalibrate their political reality meters as regards the current state of both parties: Obama and Clinton are not "Marxists" - they are not even "Social Democrats" by the standards of the rest of the world

And the reason the democrats are likely to win big in November is that they are proposing at least partial solutions to problems (such as the specter of Medical Bankruptcy" if you lose your job) that the voters want solved but which most of the Republican Party does not even recognize as a problem.

You can see this in Newt's proposals for a new action plan: not one word about heath care, but instead a proposal to improve the Air Traffic Control system... as if a 50 year old unemployed middle class woman with cancer cares about airport delays while trying to decide if she should pull her daughter out of college, lose the house, on take a chance on forgoing the last half of her radiation treatments.

In this situation sane conservative politicians would be taking about how to insure her while doing the least damage to the economy and the motivation to work, instead the voters hear only why we can't solve the problem, or diversionary discussions of HCSAs and other programs that don't solve it.

And conservatives will get clobbered in November, having forgotton that in a minortiy political position "The best is the enemy of the good".

223 posted on 05/07/2008 8:48:24 AM PDT by M. Dodge Thomas (Opinion based on research by an eyewear firm, which surveyed 100 members of a speed dating club.)
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To: DaveyB
Conservative principles ARE moral and religious values.

Moral values, yes. "Religious values", nope, Sorry.

By "religious" I mean doctrinal, denominational, adhering to a church or formal religious body. I do not mean spiritual.

maybe your part of that "get those God lovers out of the party" type of Republican - you know the loser type!

Did Jesus Christ teach you that sort of rhetorical trick? It's pretty darned fancy.

In any case let me reiterate for your benefit: the Evangelicals and their associates have already destroyed the Republican Party and are on their way toward destroying the conservative movement in America, largely by conflating their religious beliefs and values with non-sectarian conservative principles and values.

Is that clear enough for you?

224 posted on 05/07/2008 8:53:29 AM PDT by angkor
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To: lasereye

That’s two years ago! Let the Dems filibuster today while gas is at $4.00 a gallon


225 posted on 05/07/2008 8:55:01 AM PDT by Rodm (Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings)
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To: angkor
how deeply did Newt assent to anthropomorphic "global warming". In fact he did not, he merely kept letting the issue pass.

So on the central tenet/focal point of the debate, Newt remained SILENT!?!!! That was just so pathetic and gutless.

226 posted on 05/07/2008 9:02:41 AM PDT by AmericaUnited
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To: AmericaUnited

>>>So on the central tenet/focal point of the debate, Newt remained SILENT!?!!!

You’re just a shameless imbecile, aren’t you.

Go watch the video on C-SPAN.


227 posted on 05/07/2008 9:26:29 AM PDT by angkor
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To: angkor
Moral values, yes. "Religious values", nope, Sorry.

Morals are religious - all ethics rest on religious systems.

By "religious" I mean doctrinal, denominational, adhering to a church or formal religious body. I do not mean spiritual.

You mean sectarian - I suspect you define the term in order to exempt your religion. That is a liberal not a conservative idea.


Either you will be ruled by God or by-god you will be ruled - Ben Franklin

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.- John Adams

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”- Thomas Jefferson

I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare the unsatisfactoriness [of temportal enjoyments] by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way.- James Madison

"It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge to Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and to humbly implore His protection and favor." - George Washington

"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent, our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian." - USSC - 1892

"If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity." Daniel Webster


I think what you might mean is ...Evangelicals the founding fathers and their associates have already destroyed the Republican Party and are on their way toward destroying the conservative movement in America, largely by conflating their religious beliefs and values with non-sectarian humanistic conservative principles and values.

228 posted on 05/07/2008 9:29:23 AM PDT by DaveyB (Land of the taxed and home of the slave)
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To: M. Dodge Thomas
>Obama and Clinton are not “Marxists” - they are not even “Social Democrats” by the standards of the rest of the world

Completely false argument. We are not talking about the rest of the world.

> some readers here need to recalibrate their political reality meters as regards the current state of both parties:

Well, IMO, that would be you.
We do not need to keep recalibrating our reality meters to encompass socialism as a viable and permanent tenet of America. Shame on you.

> not one word about heath care, but instead a proposal to improve the Air Traffic Control system...

conservatives do not propose more Socialist solutions to the problems that were created by government intervention in the first place.

The health care sector was detached from free market principles in 1964 and it has spun upward in price at a staggering rate in consequence of that intervention.

When the government gets out of health care altogether things would return to sanity, but your statement

is that they are proposing at least partial solutions to problems (such as the specter of Medical Bankruptcy” if you lose your job) that the voters want solved but which most of the Republican Party does not even recognize as a problem.

They are proposing further socialist fixes and will continue to do until our health care equals that of Haiti.

and that whole line of reasoning sir, is what got the GOP into this mess in the first place.

229 posted on 05/07/2008 9:36:42 AM PDT by bill1952 (I will vote for McCain if he resigns his Senate seat before this election.)
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To: Noumenon

I don’t even open my RNC mail anymore and I used to donate four figures each year to Republican candidates. I don’t want to see my money going to get people like McCain, Specter and Chafee elected. It’s sad. Our political system is evolving into a one party system, and I don’t know if my children have any hope of living in a free country.


230 posted on 05/07/2008 10:04:15 AM PDT by Texas Federalist (Fred Thompson 08)
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To: angkor
A shameless imbecile would keep defending an INDEFENSIBLE position. That's you. Newt should have flat out, unambiguously stated that man-made global warming is a fraud.
231 posted on 05/07/2008 10:26:58 AM PDT by AmericaUnited
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To: Texas Federalist

There are a few good guys who do buck the RINO’s, and they need our help to stay in DC. Why not send it directly to them?


232 posted on 05/07/2008 10:30:55 AM PDT by fetal heart beats by 21st day (Defending human life is not a federalist issue. It is the business of all of humanity.)
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To: angkor
Well you’ve just exposed your encylopedia of ignorance for the whole world to see.

And you failed to answer my question, while showing the world you accept the folly and ignorance of global "warming" as being something that man can fix.

Newt’s entire proposal hinges on capitalist and market based “solutions”

And one can only conclude that he too, has fallen for the global "warming" BS. I'd like to propose a free market and capitalist solution to Santa Claus' not being able to give gifts to all children everywhere, yea, let me get to work on that.

What you’ve effectively exposed is that you know nothing - and by that I mean zip, zilch, nada - about what Newt believes or says on this topic.

So what you're saying is that the video I linked to, which starred Newt Gingrich, is obviously a phony, cause that's not really him in the video, right? And since I am so wrong, that debate I linked to earlier was really between John Kerry and Chris Farley, right?

233 posted on 05/07/2008 10:46:15 AM PDT by pnh102 (Save America - Ban Ethanol Now!)
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To: bill1952

You can’t be “miles to the right” of ANYBODY and push the Global Warming Scam. He might be INCHES to the right of McCain and Bush, but Gingrich is a Global Warming Fool. Which makes him pretty far left and pretty far stupid.


234 posted on 05/07/2008 10:48:13 AM PDT by samtheman
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To: Kleebo151

Follow Newt’s ‘94 plan. Unify around an agenda which will rally voters not blast them with accusations. Stop flirting with 3rd Party disasters. Realize that ole John , while flawed, is the candidate and is not , not as liberal nor is he a socialist pacifist like Obama.


235 posted on 05/07/2008 10:49:25 AM PDT by phillyfanatic
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To: Texas Federalist

Let’s see - our choices have devolved down to:

Rampant Marxism - Obama
Crony socialism - Hillary
“I’ll have whatever Hillary’s having, just a little less of it...” - McCain


236 posted on 05/07/2008 10:59:05 AM PDT by Noumenon (The only thing that prevents liberals from loading us all into cattle cars is the power to do it)
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To: bill1952
IMO, pretending that privatizing and deregulating the health-care and insurance industries are going to solve the problems of a 50 year old woman with cancer who has just lost her job is the sort of vacuous nonsense that voters are tired of hearing.

Private sector heath care is about market competition for the lucrative business of insuring people unlikely to get sick, for the very sound free-market reason that these is no way to profitably insure individuals at high risk of illness.

Currently, Republican heads are in deep the sand about dilemma - the Republican policy is to implicitly tell such voters and their friends and family "Tough luck, but that's the breaks - bankrupt yourself paying for care first, and then we will consider supplying you - maybe - with some level of care at public expense." And that's increasingly no longer a politically viable answer.

The smart thing to do in such a situation is to try to structure a solution that's most consistent with fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility, while acknowledging that it is impossible to act in some "responsible" manner to solve such problems at a purely individual level.

The VERY dumb thing to do is to insist that a purely private sector for profit solution is available (unless you intend to require that such providers issue affordable polices to high risk individuals, as they currently do in many employer sponsored plans).

That many conservatives can't see that as a practical political problem this is a separate but related issue to controlling access, treatment and administrative costs is just baffling to me - it amounts to a political death-wish.

237 posted on 05/07/2008 11:19:57 AM PDT by M. Dodge Thomas (Opinion based on research by an eyewear firm, which surveyed 100 members of a speed dating club.)
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To: samtheman
I can't agree.
He does not agree with anything that McCain is saying.

He is stating that any debate on the subject has to point to free market solutions for everything and that is diametrically opposed to McCain/Lieberman's Carbon cap and tax scheme.

Read his actual words.

There is a lot of talk/blather/complaining about us only 100% perfection in a candidate and that annoys me to no end.

McCain has serious and multiple flaws which, IMO, lower him to about a 10% acceptable candidate.
and that is not enough for me to stomach.

Newt, on the other hand, has almost every single thing that I am looking for.
Look at my tag. - I will not vote mccain, but I would crawl over broken glass to vote for Newt and defeat Obama.

Newt is a very smart man. Even if you don't agree with him.
Thank you for your posts. I look forward to them. - bill

238 posted on 05/07/2008 11:29:13 AM PDT by bill1952 (I will vote for McCain if he resigns his Senate seat before this election.)
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To: Dawnsblood

I’ll say it again.

Boehner, Blunt and the rest of the GOP leadership in the Congress is as weak as weak could be. The day after the election, they should have been relegated to freshman Congressman status like they do in the Army when they demote you to PFC.

But the again the GOP didn’t earn their nickname, the Stupid Party, by being smart.


239 posted on 05/07/2008 11:33:09 AM PDT by The South Texan (The Drive By Media is America's worst enemy and American people don't know it.)
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To: fetal heart beats by 21st day
There are a few good guys who do buck the RINO’s, and they need our help to stay in DC. Why not send it directly to them?

That's what I do. I usually just send my checks directly to Jeb Hensarling.

240 posted on 05/07/2008 11:44:35 AM PDT by Texas Federalist (Fred Thompson 08)
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