"
Or perhaps some are frustrated by their own inability to formulate cogent points of debate and thus desperately fall back on their sign up date in a last ditch bid to manufacture credibility out of thin air." Yeah, it's kind of like a gaggle of 10 year olds measuring their dicks in a school yard.
Of course Pawlenty is a liberal, you know, these old timers say so. You can't tell by reading his voting record and position papers, you have to learn from being insulted in a forum. Hell, this Pawlenty guy actually appointed a
PRO-LIFE chief justice to the MN supreme court! What a liberal RINO.
My God, this man wants
teacher led prayer in school! How RINO can you get.
This Pawlenty RINO commie wants to require the
Pledge of allegiance in public schools. Can you imagine that!
He strongly favors
Mandatory 3 strikes sentencing laws... GD liberal of him, don't ya think?
OMG he wants to
privatize social security! Shame on him, these liberal RINOs will stop at nothing!
Drug use is immoral and laws against it should be enforced? Doesn't sound very conservative to me.
He thinks the feds should fund the
Real ID program and electronic verification of citizenship prior to employment. GD commie rinos are going to ruin our country!
Pawlenty
supports that crazy Patriot Act. Man, this guy is way out there!
Let's run him out of the party!
HawaiianGecko - So far, your list shows that Pawlenty does not stand for one core fiscal conservative belief.
It shows me he favors imposition of religious views: “teacher led prayer in school”.
He wants undermine tax support for the social security system when most needed by diverting it into privitized hands.
He is also ignorant in his belief that drug use is immoral - it is a physical function of brain chemistry. Addicts are compelled to use through a chemical hijacking of the drive system that creates basic feelings of need like thirst and hunger. At the same time, the drug supresses the parts of the brain that regulate impulses and the sense of right and wrong. It is a physical medical condition, not a matter of morality. This does not mean that the individual should not be held responsible for criminal acts he or she committed, which often provides the leverage and motivation to get an addict into the prolonged treatment needed for recovery.
Basic core ideological values of freedom that support real limited government, local control, lower taxes, and protection of private property rights have a broad appeal and should be the underlying appeal of the party. This includes the staunch protection of individual freedom, free enterprise and the American dream of being able to achieve based on hard work, innate talent and a culture of opportunity.
Other than the right to life, I believe the party should tone down its promotion of rigid religious tenets, creationist and other fundamentalist credos in its rhetoric. This is what alienates many who would otherwise align with a fiscally conservative small government party.
I would also like to see an expansion of the social positions of the party to own Community Development, capacity and leadership building programs. Re-building local ownership of solutions to local social problems is very consistent with our position as oppositive to big government. (The Greatest Generation were masters at this.) It would bring aboard many women who are currently democrats-lite, but are involved in their local schools and churches or employed in the health or social services field.
We also need to work on some easily articulated positions on our stance on the economy that shows us to be the party of idnividual opportunity and not the party of Tax breaks for the wealthy.