Posted on 11/11/2008 9:49:17 AM PST by AJKauf
After a losing presidential campaign, the candidate quickly (and often cruelly) is painted as an object lesson in what not to do — but that should not happen in 2008.
In order to truly revive itself, the GOP should be more like the real John McCain in the future, and less like the conservative cast of the past decade: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tom Delay. And it certainly should not look to the likes of Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin to lead a restoration.
You do the math: America has a moderate majority — 50% of Americans are centrists, compared to 20% who are liberal and 30% who call themselves conservative. ,,,
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Just the Christian Right, estimated to be actively 30m participants, can be doubled if the Christians have a righteous reason to turn out. When is the last time the Christian Right's turnout even measured the full 30m?
The rest of the Conservative movement is much harder to measure than the Judeo-Christians, as they don't have regular memberships and meeting places, but the rule is the very same.
That is why Reagan Conservatism swamps all comers when it is tried- because all three pillars are attracted naturally to the candidates, and all three pillars come a'running with bells on.
It is TRUE Conservatism that would win the day- A commitment set_in_stone to principled Conservatism, Contract-with-America style, by a principled Conservative of unshakable qualifications. It has always been the case, and will always be so.
With that in mind, the author is partially right- The likes of Mitt Romney, or Sarah Palin, or any other who is not fully and completely a Reaganite Conservative is as doomed to failure as the next.
It is imperative, here on FR, of all places, the beginning of netroots, and the paramount Conservative meeting place on the web, that we move mightily to lift up those who are Reaganites, in the mold of Hunter, Tancredo, Keyes, DeMint, and etcetera, and quit falling for this absurd "electability" nonsense which has gotten us here we are- Lest we do exactly the same thing next time around.
When the opinions of Conservative powerhouses such as Schafley, Ingraham, and Malkin are intentionally maligned, and Conservatism is shouted down, here, of all places, we lend ourselves, and our aggregated power, to the very causes we purport to oppose.
That is not only the most relevant lesson of this past season, it is also the most shameful.
Well. Mr. Avalon, first let's compare the electoral success of Mr. McLame to those conservative figures.
Note that a Rasmussen poll (Oct.31) found that 31% of likely voters believed that "taxes will go down" under an Obama adminsitration, while only 11% thought so about a McCain administration.
Prove the qualification of Palin, Jindal, and Steele as Reagan Conservatives. They are not.
If this is the best the GOP can do, they will never get a vote from me again.
As a well-known columnist, beloved of the pajamahedrin, recently opined:
“How could we go after Obama for his illegal alien aunt and for supporting driver’s licenses for illegal aliens when McCain fanatically pushed amnesty along with his good friend Teddy Kennedy?
How could we go after Obama for planning to hike taxes on the “rich,” when McCain was the only Republican to vote against both of Bush’s tax cuts on the grounds that they were tax cuts for the rich?
How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that “moderate,” “independent,” “maverick” Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?”
(Thank you, Ann)
For you folks who didn’t want McCain, hey no problem.
We now have the Marxist.
There won’t be another free election.
The world has changed since ten or twenty years ago
and Obama and his cult will finish it off if another attack doesn’t first.
This reply to Pajamasmedia says it better by far than anything I can put into words, so if it is acceptable I will enter it here. Mahalo
“Bush ran as a centrist, served as a centrist, and was unmercifully savaged. Another centrist “win” will be the complete end of the Republican Party. No one seems to be able to define this mythical center pundits talk infinitely about. They fail to realize the center is between opposites. If you move your base to the Left, then you’ve just moved the center to the Left. You become a difference without much distinction and, as McCain proved, had no real reason to persuade people to vote for him so it became mostly a referendum on personality.
It would be suicide to move to the center. There is absolutely no activist base there other than the pundits and they sure as the world will not carry and inspire a base.
If the Republicans think moving to the center is the way to go and return to running a socialist country, why not just jump completely left and run as the Republican Socialist Democrat Party?”
Does anyone really know what a conservative is after President Bush(decent guy)? However, he is no conservative. How are you going to win as a conservative if no one really understands what that is.
Only a screaming, raving lunatic would think of George W. Bush’s domestic policies as “conservative.” By the end, even Hugo Chavez hailed Bush’s socialism.
>> The media wanted us to back Rudy Giuliani. <<
Uh, no. Giuliani would have been a second choice, but does anyone around here really question that the media’s favorite Republican lapdog was McCain, he of the McCain-Feingold Suspension of the First Amendment Act, and the McCain-Kennedy Shamnesty?
The shock is that it took so long for this sort of post-election loss analysis to materialize. It was no surprise that liberal democrats, disguised as “centrist republicans,” would conclude from the election that McCain, and the host of other GOP candidates, lost because they WEREN’T LIBERAL ENOUGH!
This was the same rationalization for the loss of both houses of Congress in 2006. But, of course, in the empirical world, if the conclusion were accurate, then McCain’s campaign, and those of the other at-risk republicans, would have been more successful for having applied the lesson in going further left. However, how to explain the failure?
Idiots like this author can continue repeating the “centrist” mantra after every election loss, the last of which I’m sure we haven’t seen for such amorphous platforms. Just remember that the only reason McCain got the votes he did was Sarah Palin. I was ready to write in Angela Davis/Bob Avakian rather than vote for John; then he selected Sarah and things changed.
The “centrist republican party” needs conservatives about as much as conservatives need this party of Chaffee, Snowe, Collins, Specter, Graham, Pawlenty, Hagel, Lugar, Voinovich et al. Time for a divorce and a third party. Let ‘em eat centrist cake with the libs.
I do ... ;')
McCain was a candidate in his own right ... he had run in 2000 and had been prominent in national politics for years. Rudy's candidacy was purely a media creation. IMO.
In any case, the entire selection process was corrupted by media chattering, push-polls and demoncRats voting in open primaries. It was set up from the beginning to saddle the GOP with a weak, lukewarm (at best) candidate. And that's what we got. Sarah Palin was the only bright spot in the whole dismal affair, and she was totally off the media "RADAR screen".
“You do the math: America has a moderate majority — 50% of Americans are centrists, compared to 20% who are liberal and 30% who call themselves conservative. ,,,”
Sure. But Reagan won a landslide with that same arithmetic.
The fact that 20% of conservative peeled off from McCain is telling enough.
The fact that Obama ran on a ‘middle-class tax cut’ and was able to OWN that issue (!!!!!!!!!) when he’s a far-left tax-and-spend spread the wealth socialist should boggle the mind.
“50% of Americans are centrists, compared to 20% who are liberal and 30% who call themselves conservative.
This is false.
Since the beginning of the Battleground Poll, question D3 has consistently been answered by respondents in excess of 60% that they are conservative”
No, it’s not false. This has been the self-identified label numbers. I’ve seen the gallup numbers, and its usually about 32% conservative, 20% liberal, 48% moderate. And the funny thing is that they are reasonably consistent for a few decades now even though political tides ebb and flow.
The 60% number is for a different question, I think maybe the generic ‘do you prefer smaller govt?’ Although I heard the “Govt should do more vs Govt should do less?” question came out at 50% do more/40% do less this cycle.
Go look at the question and post it and the result.
Here’s the solution for winning moderates - ITS THE COMPETENCE STUPID!
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/11/moderates-want-competence-not-mush.html
John is singing he Siren’s song for the GOP. Listen at your own peril.
Throughout the campaign, we were constantly exhorted to put aside our reservations about McCain and vote for him, because the alternative was unspeakable. So we did.
Now the unspeakable has happened, our votes notwithstanding. Your gripe isn’t with conservatives; it’s with those who voted for the unspeakable, the center for whom your guy whored to no avail. And, suddenly, it’s Sarah’s fault, and the conservatives who voted McCain because - and only because - of her.
But, since the new, “centrist,” “hey, look, we’re almost as liberal as they are” republican party is bent on excising the conservative contingent, it’s finally time for a divorce, and a move to a viable third party. Those of you left as republicans are free to scout around for groups, find out what they stand for so you can pretend to lead them, and enjoy future elections. Evenutally, two parties will emerge: Democrablicans and conservatives.
What’s the worst that can happen with a third party, now? Lose an election and have a marxist in the White House? Been there, done that. Good luck.
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