As opposed to “fiscal fundamentalists” who have given us a national debt of $10,625,198,211,000.00, with a falling GDP and increasing unemployment!
Way to go, RINOs!
Find out who the poobahs are in your State.
Yes, Whitman’s going the wrong direction.
But for my own sanity, can someone refute her numbers for me? She says McCain lost 6.4 million moderate votes. OK, but didn’t McCain also lose because conservatives didn’t vote? Anyone have a link to that analysis?
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” — Thomas Jefferson
What the Public Education ‘system’ teaches
Young and Ignorant — and Voting
At least, you may think to yourself, we are not getting any dumber. But by some measures we are. Young people by many measures know less today than young people forty years ago. And their news habits are worse. Newspaper reading went out in the sixties along with the Hula Hoop. Just 20% of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 read a daily paper. And that isn’t saying much. There’s no way of knowing what part of the paper they’re reading. It is likelier to encompass the comics and a quick glance at the front page.
Young people today find the news irrelevant. Bored by politics, students shun the rituals of civic life, voting in lower numbers than other Americans (though a small up-tick in civic participation showed up in recent surveys). U.S. Census data indicate that voters aged 18 to 24 turn out in low numbers. In 1972, when 18 year olds got the vote, 52% cast a ballot. In subsequent years, far fewer voted: in 1988, 40%; in 1992, 50%; in 1996, 35%; in 2000, 36%. In 2004, despite the most intense get-out-the-vote effort ever focused on young people, just 47% took the time to cast a ballot.
Rick Shenkman
I would argue that the upper class members like Whitman (which create the “party of the rich” stereotype) are far more of a problem for the Republican Party than social conservatives. Remember that Hispanics and blacks in California supported the anti-gay marriage ballot measure even more than white people did.
If the current brand of social conservatism turns off too many moderates, the answer to calls that the GOP wants to 'legislate morality' is to perform a subtle shift in methods (not a shift in conviction) - we direct our efforts more to stopping the government from legislating immorality, and couch the argument in terms of freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so on. The same end folks - depravity only exists in such quantities by our sponsoring of it and its fruit. Failure is self-limiting when not subsidized. This is the core reason why the fusion makes sense - that we all agree that bad behavior (exists and) should not be rewarded or condoned, and that good behavior should be at least met with its natural rewards. Differences exist with the details, but we all agree on those grounds. The Democrats do not, the left does not.
This shift would not turn off moderates, and would help consolidate the other legs of the conservative movement (by highlighting policies at the confluence of our shared goals). A turn to federalism would further consolidate the party on all fronts, and be abstract enough not to cause mushy moderates to flee to the Democrats.
The main problem was (and is) that the GOP drifted on a host of issues, and self-proclamations of fiscal responsibility (for example) rang hollow - people hate hypocrisy, and the Republicans delivered it in spades on several fronts with trillions in DEFICITS (not even debts!!!). The media was handed trillions of rounds of ammunition, and bought from us miles of rope.
Smaller federal government, less federal spending, lower federal taxes, ample latitude left available to state governments, responsible and transparent monetary policy, and a renewed push toward personal responsibility. Opt-outs for entitlement programs, resetting federal policies on a host of morality issues to the null position (knowing full well that states occupied by moral people will adopt moral policies, while other states will wallow in filth and depravity without dragging the rest of us down).
If Obama follows a Clintonian style of not rocking the boat too much, the major problem the GOP will face is convincing the electorate that it can deliver on these fronts - and not instead deliver what it did when it recently controlled all branches of federal government - don't give me that BS about not having a filibuster-proof majority; those years were squandered, that political capital was wasted, that mandate was spent on bread and circuses. Two SC judges and a tax cut aside, it was 6 years of waste and 2 years of insanity.
That new style of "big-government" Wilsonian Republican party was a total failure, a throw-back to the Democrats of the 1960's. Back to basics, back to Reagan and Goldwater.
Christine Todd Whitman can go any time she wants.
These are the people who we want to finance.
Riiight!
ebay under her espoused Net Neutrality censorship.
ebay under her espoused the view that man is basically good. Just look at the behavior of the anti-Prop 8 folks and draw your own second opinion.
Oh come on Christy I know you left out God and Guns. Please spare me.
Coming from the woman who barley beat the hated Florio and then barley beat the closeted swish McSveevey.
Chris, I’d be more inclined to listen to the policy prescriptions of northeastern moderates if they were winning on their own turf. How’s that workin’ for ya?
You know, maybe Christine is right.
We SHOULD “free” the GOP. The conservative base, Reaganites, constitutionalists, “hockey moms,” and the rest of us “unwashed” should “free” the GOP of their support. They should be free to take a flying leap.
Mark
When will these idiots learn you can be both socially and fiscally and constitutionally conservative at the same time!
Conservative philosophy is unified, not divided into parts.
The rights of the unborn and protection of the institution of marriage are things we hold very dear, and there is no way in HELL we will relinquish them for the sake of a bunch of whiney RINOS, Christine.
I would suggest it is people like YOU who have damaged the party the most, and it is people like YOU who need to be handed their hats and shown the door.
I’d like to suggest four necessary conditions for conservatives to regain control of the GOP and eliminate the destructive RINO domination.
1. GOP registration required to vote for GOP candidates so that crossover voters do not select our candidates in primaries.
2. Move primaries up in several large conservative states so that RINO-infested northeastern states no longer chose our presidential candidate.
3. Allot delegates to the GOP convention from each state based on the number of registered GOP voters in that state. Just because a state has a big population does not get you more delegates to the GOP convention- Dark blue states should not choose our candidate.
4. Divide the delegates from a state between candidates based on primary results- No more winner-take-all primaries.