Posted on 11/04/2008 6:34:16 PM PST by jrooney
A special thank you to Noonan, Gerorge Will, Ron Paul, et al. Thank you fools! Thanks for putting us all in danger now from terrorists and the real suppression of conservatism. The Fairness doctrine is coming. Rampant oppression is coming. Taxes being raised is coming. Yes, the ship is now goign to be sinking for good. Obama, Reid and Pelosi will be controlling the direction of this country.
“This thread should be pulled. Now!”
Bit of guilt there?
Gee, what a stalwart! I’d just love to be trapped in a foxhole with you...
You've been spewing the blame Sarah crap all over FR tonight saying Romney or Ridge would have been better. If you really believe that, then you are not a centrist. You are a democrat and probably should be here on FR. At least the PUMAs have more sense than you and your friends.
Guy wanted to participate in reach arounds with the Democrats anyway. When the public can't perceive much difference between the Dem and the Rep they'll pick whoever says he'll pay them money.
You're wrong. Rush was trying to block Hilary who looked like a shoe-in and wanted Obama to get the nomination because he was "unelectable".
Wills, Noonan, etc. and many here on FR tried to point this fact out and we were told to shut up if we won't get in line with the "party".
The Republican party needs to return to its base ideology and run candidates that support that ideology if they are going to have any chance in 2012. Obama is a snake oil salesman that should have been a walk over for the Republicans, but instead of supporting core conservative values McCain and company pandered to the issue of the moment and let the snake oil salesman out juke them at every turn. Republicans got exactly what they deserved in this election. Ronald Reagan would be ashamed of what the party has become.AWB
Sorry. Palin was the only aspect of this ticket that made voting for McCain a possibility for me.
Excellent question.
If you have “friends” like that, I think it means they are not Republicans. I have some friends I know voted for Obama, and they didn’t even need to tell me. That’s because they just do nonsense like that, otherwise they work hard and don’t steal.
Blame the only conservative in the race.
McCain lost this race all by himself (with a little help from his moderate buddies and media pals).
The Republican Party . . . can learn to live with big government, determining that it's not so bad, just as long as it's Republicans intruding into the lives of Americans instead of Democrats. Or it can remember its roots and realise that a majority set against its own bedrock principles of limited government and individual liberty is not one worth having---and thus not one that can long be sustained.Warnings issued in plenty enough time. And, as usual, unheeded.---Ryan Sager, from "Live from the Reagan Building," in The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.)
. . . Big-government conservatives are quick to point out that despite the best effort of small-government conservatives, government continues to grow . . . Even many believers in small government seem to accept the impossibility of actually cutting government . . .
First, little evidence indicates that big-government conservatism is more politically popular than its small-government competitor. The big-government conservatism of George W. Bush and the [Republican] Congress led to electoral disaster. Although the 2006 election results can certainly be blamed in part on Iraq, scandal, and traditional voter uneasiness in the sixth year of a two-term presidency, the magnitude of the Republican loss clearly reflects a wider discontent. Not only did an embrace of big government fail to save the Republican majority, it likely undercut Republican efforts. Without a principled conservative difference between Republicans and Democrats, many voters had no reason to look beyond the war or the scandals. Republicans were forced to run negative, largely issueless campaigns, attacking opponents over trivialities such as whether an opponent once included racy sex scenes in a novel that he wrote. Beyond being merely sleazy, such campaigns will neither motivate voters nor help build a conservative governing agenda.
[Fred] Barnes is wrong when he says, "Reagan and Gingrich failed for lack of public support." In fact, in 1996 after two years of the most small-government-oriented Congress in recent history, Republicans gained two seats in the Senate and lost only two seats in the House. These results came in the face of Bill Clinton's overwhelming reelection as President and the fact that Republicans had to defend an enormous number of freshman House seats that had been narrowly won in 1994. In fact, those Republicans who were among the most hardcore budget cutters were reelected by even larger margins than they had received in 1994. Many of these members were specifically targeted for defeat and some were running in districts Bill Clinton carried. Tom Coburn, for example, won by 10 percentage points while Bill Clinton carried his district by 7. Even Linda Killian of National Public Radio, who chronicled the 1994 freshmen Republicans, concluded that no backlash occurred against Republican attempts to reduce the size of government.
After the 1996 elections, Republicans began turning away from their government-cutting agenda. A steady erosion of electoral support followed, culminating in the debacle of 2006. As former House majority leader Dick Armey points out, the Republican defeat of 2006 was not a "repudiation of the conservative legacy that drove the Reagan presidency and created the Contract With America. To the contrary, it [represents] a rejection of big-government conservatism." Nor is it completely clear that Reagan and the House Republicans of 1994 failed. Certainly, they were far less successful in reducing the size of government than one might have hoped. Yet how much larger might government have become in their absence?
Regardless of whether small-government conservatives were or could have been successful in the past, the question remains of whether a small-government agenda could succeed today. We are living in a time of both international and domestic insecurity. Dan Casse says that "reducing the size of government no longer resonates with Americans as it once did." And in the population at large there may be "less popular fear of bureaucrats possessing too much control than of ungoverned forces surging out of control," as David Brooks claims.
Yet public opinion polls still show that a majority of Americans say they would prefer smaller government. Since the mid-1970s, the New York Times, CBS News, Washington Post, ABC News, and independent pollster Scott Rasmussen have all asked voters whether they preferred "a smaller government providing fewer services" or "a bigger government providing more services." As [an American Enterprise Institute study, "Attitudes Toward the Federal Government"] shows [nearly 50 percent for smaller, under 40 percent for larger], Americans have consistently supported smaller government.
Moreover, support for smaller government cuts across demographic and partisan lines. Predictably 79 percent of Republicans prefer smaller government, but surprisingly so do 53 percent of Democrats (according to the most recent polling results). Even majorities of traditionally less-than-conservative categories such as women (62 percent), young people (52 percent), and minorities (52 percent) favour smaller government . . . In fact, even as Democrats were heading to victory in 2006, a CNN poll showed that by a 54 to 37 percent margin, Americans thought that government was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Overwhelmingly they preferred small government. This poll also showed that 72 percent of Americans thought that government had gotten bigger during the Bush administration, which may help explain Republican electoral misfortunes . . .
In many ways, big-government conservatives are showing their contempt for voters. Dick Armey tells a story of a Republican member of Congress who approached him during the debate over welfare reform. "I know this is the right thing to do," the member said, "but my constituents just won't understand." Armey replied, "So you're telling me that they are smart enough to elect you, but not smart enough to understand this?"
Besides, American voters tend to like politicians who stand for something, even if they disagree with what that something is. That is the reason why "flip-flopper" was such a devastating charge against John Kerry in the 2004 election.
Republicans, of course, might worry that taking a consistently limited government position might cost them some support from religious or populist conservatives. But such fears are likely overblown. Religious conservatives are unlikely to defect to the more overtly hostile Democrats, particularly if Republicans advocate federalist principles that allow states and localities to deal with social and cultural issues. In fact, Republicans might even gain a new pool of voters. According to [a] Pew survey . . . although 57 percent of self-identified libertarians voted for President Bush, roughly 40 percent voted for John Kerry. These libertarian voters certainly didn't back the senator's plans for raising taxes or increased spending. Rather, they objected to Republican deficits, spending, foreign policy, and involvement in personal decision-making. Consistent small-government conservatism might lure these small-government voters back to the party that claims to represent smaller government.
Finally, it is important to ask whether success can be measured only in terms of electoral politics. As Richard Weaver put it in his famously titled book, Ideas Have Consequences. Or as George Will recently stated even more strongly, "Only ideas have large and lasting consequences." By staking out principled positions in favour of limited government, conservatives can change the terms of the debate for years to come.
Barry Goldwater lost overwhelmingly, yet his campaign launched a generation of conservative politics. Indeed, without Goldwater there would have been no Reagan and no Republican Revolution of 1994 . . . The evidence suggests that reducing the size and power of the federal government would be safe, popular, and good politics. But ultimately, that doesn't matter. In the end, conservatives should stand for limited government and individual liberty simply because it is the right thing to do.
(Emphases added.---BD.)
---Michael D. Tanner, in "The Small-Government Alternative," from Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution. (Washington: Cato Institute, 2007; 321 pages, $22.95.)
I have greater needs than she has for those things.
If McCain loses, it’s no one’s fault but his own. This is what happens when ‘Republicans’ try to act like democrats. The RINOs and country clubbers got the candidate they wanted, and probably the results to go along with that lame candidate.
No, operation Chaos was to bloody Hussein. Otherwise, the coronation would have taken place Jan 2008. HilDog was already toast. “Chaos” kept the chaos going.
It’s not the end of the world, we will survive the Obama presidency.
Remember in 2000, 2004, how happy were we when George W. Bush won? Well, as it happened, nominating George Bush is probably the worst decision the Republicans had ever made. George Bush to the Republican party is like Jimmy Carter to the Democratic party. Look what George Bush has brought us after 8 years in charge, he destroys his own party with his stupid immigration policy.
As much as I hate being defeated, but the fact is, being back-stabbed by the my own president (who’are supposed to champion my cause) had made me feeling even worse.
Even if McCain wins tonight, the socialist movement of Obama will not go away. A four-year McCain presidency will almost certainly to guarantee 8 years of Obama presidency in any case. It’s better to get it over with - Obama is unprepared to be president, he will go down in flame.
How did “Operation Chaos” help Obama? It entailed Republicans crossing over to vote for Hillary in primaries to slow the Obama train down.
Yes... How foolish of us to expect the GOP to adhere to Republican principles.
Y’all...and I say “y’all” because I’m not and never have been and never would be a Republican of the current ilk of the last 20 years (call me a little “L” libertarian....extreme Constitutionalist).....y’all selected this shitty (sorry for the dirty language but I can’t comoe up with a more apt word) candidate and NOW you’re whining about it?
PA-thetic....next you’re gonna question the results.
The ONLY hope there is is a non-supermajority Senate.
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