Rush has been hysterical the last couple of days and I don’t mean in a comical way. He is blaming a lack of leadership for our (Conservatives’) problems when the real blame is much wider. George W. Bush and his father have always represented the middle ground in the Republican Party and were a compromise (of sorts) between the old remnants of the Moderate Rockefeller/Nixon/Ford wing of the party and the Goldwater/Reagan Conservatives.
Much of the criticism of W. Bush echoes the criticism of Reagan at the end of his second term. We as Conservatives haven’t done the job to elect Conservatives and it shows when a McCain is nominated. We’ve had better choices and we have failed. Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Pete DuPont, Steve Forbes, and even Jack Kemp had better credentials than the men that won the nominations. Are many so-called self-described Conservatives really closet Moderates? Do we have true thinking Conservatives cutting off their own noses to spit their own faces by voting for moderates?
Any Conservative that votes for a democrat that supports the national democrat party with some mistaken idea that by doing so he will advance Conservative principles is a Fool. We need as many true Conservatives as we can get in Congress to roadblock any irreversible progress by the left in the next two years. There are no Conservative democrats left running for congress and the idea that Woody Jenkins and the fellow in Mississippi are less Conservative than the democrats is just plain stupid.
I disagree.
The leadership of the party causes the Republican Party’s struggles.
The party established the rules in the primaries, did not require only Republicans to vote in them, and decided that a few select states could vote before everyone else so as to eliminate the conservative choices by the time I could vote.
The party put resources into who should win those early races to see that the anointed one of the party is chosen. I have never been allowed to vote for my candidate in any meaningful way. The choice for me is easy. I am an irrelevant voter. My vote to nominate can never affect the outcome.
My vote should have as much power as those initial votes in Iowa or Florida. Theirs count, and mine does not.
Now, it is as if we had 100 voters, but the first ten in line get to pick the candidate, and the other 90 can vote for the survivor. If those 90 don’t approve, then they are at blamed for voting in the opposition.
What kind of a democracy is this? One man, one vote…the first to count, the last to confirm.
This is no democracy. This is a game.
I will not accept responsibility for “allowing” a Democrat into the office because I cannot support McCain for President. That was the known and reasonable outcome of the party apparachiks who planned this whole mess. I will not sanction it with my vote.
Don’t expect me to accept the resulting choice for McCain for the greater good of the country or party. If the Republicans cared about the greater good of the country or the party, they would not structure the primaries so, and they would give everyone a chance to vote for a conservative when it actually mattered.
The Republican Party is responsible for this terrible dilemma, and I am not responsible for the outcome of the vote...The party wanted it this way, now they can have it this way.
We need a national primary day with closed primaries.