It doesn't matter how big your tent is when you've kicked out the center poles, piled 'em up and burned 'em, and your tent is now laying flat on the ground.
Posted on 11/04/2008 10:20:52 PM PST by paudio
I know this view is not popular here, but we need to have an honest discussion after what happened last night. There has been many calls to throw 'RINOs' out of the party. Yesterday's results, however, show that we cannot do that. Like it or not, conservatism is a word with many meanings: social, economic, libertarian, 'patriotic' conservatism, etc. Recently, it's obvious that whatever coalition that Reagan put together has fallen apart. Dubya, ran as a conservative,managed to bring all factions together, but as a president, he gave privilege to one or two factions, and left the others cold.
Sarah Palin may be the darling of social conservatives, but not necessarily of the other conservatives. When we said 'she rallies the base', it seems now that we only meant 'she rallies the social conservatives'. It should be clear now that there are just not enough social conservative voters to win a national election. With her on McCain ticket, we cannot argue that 'the base' stayed home tonight.
The way I see it, in order to rebuild the party, we need to start from one of two assumptions: (1) there exists a conservative idea that encompass all factions of 'conservatism', or (2) Such idea doesn't exist, but we only had good communicator that managed to bring different people together. I used to think it was number one, but recently I started to doubt about it. It seems to me that the second one is much more important. Reagan, Newt, and candidate Bush (not the president) did a good job in their time.
So, in my opinion, in order to be able to compete with the Dims again, we need to find a person that can unite the whole factions back. Perhaps, we also need an issue to do so.
The other problem we have now is the tarnished brand of conservatism and Republican party that was caused by Dubya's inability or unwillingness to counter the media's narratives. At this moment, more than ever, we need to win the independents and moderates. Hoping them to vote for conservative candidates while throwing the 'moderates' in the party is really a misplaced hope.
I know there was some fraud, etc. but he didn't steal this election IMO - people across the board obviously thought he was the better candidate. Look at all the exit poll categories and see what a broad appeal he had.
Even the rich, who will be milked in the new regime, liked him better. Why is that?
We need to think about these things and also determine the extent to which, in the TV age, looks and demeanor really play a huge role in candidate. And make sure our candidates are competitive in this realm, shallow as it is. Our message gets lost when we run a very old, kind of grouchy, man unfortunately... I wish everyone just sat down with papers on various issues, but they don't.
looks like black vote this time is not much different at all from 2004..so far
The Goldwaterites said the same thing in 64. But the principles on which it is supposed to stand are 100% American as opposed of the Euro-socialism principals of the Democrats.
We will get through this. Obama will fail but we need to help him fail. By that I mean don't give him a honeymoon period.
It’s not really about handouts and redistribution to the real voters. It’s never been about guilt. Those are distractions. It’s about One World Government dominance. The real voter has no voice.
No, the “big tent” isn’t all that big. The real way to expand the Republican Party is to stand for something. Why do we keep ignoring our most succesful campaigner, Reagan? He did not run a “big tent” campaign but certainly had our biggest electoral wins.
My boss who is in the “above $250k” group was an Obama supporter. I still don’t get it.
To be honest, that’s one area where Palin really does have it. She’s beautiful.
People voted for Obama because he is a world-class charlatan. He is a charming snake oil salesman who has never accomplished a damn thing in his life and yet millions believe he'll change their lives and take care of them when he hasn't even taken care of his own relatives.
It is mind boggling the horseshit these idiots bought into.
The majority in this country have become an embarrassment to everything America used to stand for.
Yep they voted for Obama because they thought they’d be “sticking it to ‘The Man’”.
Then they are going to find out that according to Obama, they are “The Man.”
You know you have hit rock bottom and the only way left is up when you elect people that are influenced by Oprah.
Do you really believe that the American voter elected a person like Obama and his wife? They didn’t.
Its a miracle that the GOP wins any elections with 90% plus of the black vote against us under normal circumstances. It will be a long, hard fight to win the hearts and minds of black voters but even a world where 25-30% generally vote Republican would be a big, big, help.
We don’t even run candidates in places like Detroit. No representation there at all. Who is getting the word out to the people who suffering most from the socialist disasters of the past? No One.
I’ve long thought that we should open “Hope Centers” or something in places like Detroit where we can show our flag and get the message out. Missionaries. We need to start somewhere.
It doesn't matter how big your tent is when you've kicked out the center poles, piled 'em up and burned 'em, and your tent is now laying flat on the ground.
He knows he’s “the man”. It’s inexplicable.
what needs to be done is run GOPs as DINOs in the primaries. We should have done this when we had majorities in Congress to insure a continuation of a majority of like minded people.
The fact is once Gingrich and Delay left Congress, the rest of the GOP forget who brung them there. It became all about them and not about the country or the principles of the party.
GOPs are wusses......they are quick to offer up each other as sacrificial lambs and puff out their chests when eat their own. In all this time, they haven’t figured out a way to outsmart the Press or a way to buy out the NYT or Washington Post to at least get balanced reporting.
The GOP and GWB have kept our borders open which is changing the composition of our electorate. The flood of illegal aliens into our country gaining access to our health care and welfare programs has cost the American people. GOP did nothing.
In addition, the Country Club Republicans have continually nutured the good ole boy network giving us Dole and McCain. I felt, at times, we were being set up to throw the election to the Dems.
I could go on and on......the point being is we have no leadership in the GOP, history does repeat itself. I had to laugh when one reporter said that one McCain rally looked like an AARP meeting. You know what, he was right!
We need fresh young blood.....with fresh new ideas, and we have to make sure we retire the present GOP mentality if there is any hope of regaining a conservative country,
Also, expect people like Oprah and others like her will not be taxed like us. They will get exemptions. We won’t.
You are right.
Liberal white guilt...
We just ran the candidate whose whole campaign indeed career was an effort to reach out to moderates and independents and we got our clocks cleaned. Here’s an idea let’s actually run on conservative principles like Reagan. Seemed to work well the two times it was tried.
If there is anything actually remaining of a democratic process, only a principled conservatism will have a prayer of defeating the forces about to assume power with all the propaganda at their disposal.
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