Posted on 11/05/2008 3:44:44 AM PST by Republicanprofessor
Should we reconsider the primaries? I live in NH and did not vote for McCain. Ironically, I did not even go to see him during the primaries because I didn’t see him as a viable candidate. The independents crossed over to vote for McCain and I was upset that my candidate did not win that first NH primary.
However, as the process continues, I thought that perhaps McCain had a better chance against Obama; a conservative like Romney might not have done well at all. I had hoped that more independents would support McCain, but now I am not so sure. Of course, I applauded the choice of Sarah Pailin as VP and hope to see her in the next election. How can we better get our message and our candidates to the public at large?
As we second-guess ourselves, is it time to reconsider the primary process? Should we still allow independents to cross over and vote in “our” primary or not? I would love to hear what others are thinking about this.
1) A hatred for Bush
2) Being able to falsely blame the economy on republicans in general
3) Race
Of course, there were also other factors, I am convinced voter fraud is in play in large numbers here, campaign donations from foreign entities made up huge sums of his cash pool, and telling huge lies that he has not been held accountable for (yet) play a big role as well.
Above all, the party has done this to itself over the past few years by running and electing moderates and liberals on the R ticket. It must stop or we are doomed as a party. I am just hoping this is the wake up call and the lesson is learned. We won't know the answer for about 3 more years.
We MUST somehow reform some things. Acorn and anything that even resembles Acorn needs to be dismantled and people need to be prosecuted in large numbers for their roles in these frauds. Voter ID laws need to be a mandatory part of the election process and that includes no free ID’s for non-citizens or illegals. And although I have no answers on how to accomplish it and still not hinder free speech, the media needs to be held accountable for their lack of responsibility here. They infused the public with twisted “reporting” and “news” for 2 years on this race. One could argue that we simply need smart voters who don’t fall for this, but unfortunately, you can’t fix stupid. Liberals depend on it to win elections. They pushed a guy who is just short of a damn criminal into the white house. All the rules went out the window; I am still in a state of disbelief. If McCain had the connections and past that barry has, he would have been burned at the stake a year ago, and that is a serious injustice.
We can all armchair this into the dirt and say why, what if, and blame whoever or whatever, but until we get back to our real conservative values, the thing we hold dearest, this train wreck will continue.
When one of our lousy politicians talks about creating jobs he really means adding positions to government.
In the past twelve months over 300,000 new employees were added to government.
Incidentally, the election of this dangerous communist as president allied with his communist buddies in Congress, is truly shoving America into its last days. This government is ripe for revolution.
Iowa has become an albatross around the neck for Republicans, and the GOP should begin by tossing their current “first in the nation” caucus status in the toilet. Stop reinforcing failure.
Base caucus/primary order on statewide party electoral success in the last general election, and ensure no crossover voting. Then lean on the RINOs to leave for indy or donk pastures where they can F up the socialists’ plans instead of the conservatives’ plans.
Absolutely. McCain became the presumptive nominee of the party with just 31% of the vote. We should eliminate winner take all primaries and open primaries [if possible]. We must have a nominee of the party that enjoys the support of most of the party. Any party that nominates a self-described maverick to be its standard bearer deserves to lose.
We will have to take a look at the total vote numbers, but the way it looks now, the total vote will not surpass the Bush-Kerry race, which Bush won 62 million to 59 million. So I wonder how energized the base really was.
Heck yeah
The democrats selected our candidate for us. All primaries should be only for those registered to the party. Either that, or we should all register as democrats for the next primary and give them Dennis Kuchinich as their candidate.
At least you had a candidate in the primary.
I voted absentee for Palin in the general, but I was SOL in the primary.
The party better do a better job of recruiting women and minorities if they want to win another election. Palin and Jindal are a great start. They need to build on that and leave behind the polished RINOS.
Well, I’m going to come out and say it: I don’t think we had any guys who seriously wanted to run that were both acceptable to the conservative base and had a snowball’s chance of winning.
We had a failure in having viable candidates. THAT’S something we really, really have to work on...encouraging leadership.
When Palin showed up as VP choice all of a sudden people got energized...but it wasn’t early enough. We need that type of excitement and motivation early.
And we need people with a whole lot better sense of strategy about getting the message out than McCain had.
“Conservative like Romney”?????????????????? You must be joking. Please start new here and not try to sell the snake oil - we need to start being honest if we ever plan on winning on ideas. I agree we need to hold the primaries FIRST in the conservative states not the liberal northease and Iowa.
Yup. You nailed one of the big things.
What I'd like to see is for the governors of all 50 states get together, and do a drawing for primary dates. Having so many liberal states front-loaded is not good at all for conservatives.
Anyone who thinks Romney, Thompson, Giuliani, or Huckabee were gonna beat Obama being outspent 6 to 1 and getting 80% negative press compared to the fawning adoring coverage Obama received is crazy.
No Republican will ever win unless they can go around the media and connect to the people like Reagen and even Bush did.
I would really like to have the party decide how the primary races to choose it’s candidates are run. Why should Democrat crossover voters in a few states help decidee who the candidate for the entire party is?
Great post, i think your idea is a good one.
Key part of recovery is reforming the primary process so only republicans vote.
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