Maybe they can even spin it the same way... Sauerberg picked a outspoken Bush-hating gay marriage activist to be his spokesman and they said "okay so one of Sauerberg's staffers happens to be gay", so perhaps we can say Obama's new communications director "just happens to support the Roe vs. Wade decision"
I just think we're lucky that many pathetic RINOs like Sauerberg went down in flames, because if they had "won", they'd probably be gushing over Obama's sleazy Clintonite appointees and promising to rubber stamp them. Hopefully in 2010 we can get some real conservatives nominated and begin to make a comeback.
It didn’t matter who Saurberg picked in part because neither he nor any of the other Republicans who ran had any chance of winning. I wasn’t thrilled with the doctor, myself.
But to make another distinction, the employees of the President of the United States have far more impact than the employees of one U.S. Senator.
I agree that we’re lucky that Sauerberg lost. That race should help conservative candidates win statewide primaries, in Illinois, in 2010. Conservatives will remind moderates that Sauerberg and then-Treasurer are moderate, and both of them lost. If we nominate conservatives, they’ll win at least 45% of the vote, which is more than Sauerberg and Topinka received.
In 2010, republican candidates for the U.S. Senate and House should make promises that would be similar to the Contract with America. They would say that, if Republicans regain control of both houses, they’ll pass a set of about five bills, including tax cuts, welfare cuts, and better enforcement of immigration laws.
The Republican Party in Illinois was destroyed by George Ryan and Judy Baar Topinka. A true conservative in Illinois politics is as illusive as a chimera, with the possible exception of Peter Roskam.
I read your profile page. I, too, live in Illinois, though I am a Southerner by blood and heritage and heart and soul, finding myself in Illinois because I was transferred up here for my job. I, too, am an American first, a conservative second, and a Republican third (and I may be jettisoning the latter since the party of Reagan is, alas, no more).
The Republican Party has been called the Party of Lincoln, and, because he was its first real standard-bearer, there is truth in that label. However, the Republican Party of Lincoln was almost the complete opposite of the Republican Party of Reagan: Lincoln favored a huge and all-powerful federal government and was dismissive of any state sovereignty; Reagan, on the other hand, opposed big government and supported the Founders’ concept of sovereign states, and believed — as did the Founders — that the states and local governments were far more apt to act in the best interests of their citizenry than was the federal government.
The Republican Party of Lincoln is pretty much akin to the Democrat Party of today: Both were firm believers in more and more taxation, the oppression of critics, heavy-handed regulation of commerce and economy, and the unquestioned primacy of the federal government over all aspects of daily life. The Republican Party of Reagan, in contrast, was more in line with the Democrat Party of the mid-Nineteenth Century, as it championed individual freedom, states’ rights, low taxes, and a much smaller federal government. It’s ironic how the two, separate and distinct sides have morphed into their own polar opposites over the course of a hundred years or so, so that the one has become the other.
Finally, I note you have a decidedly anti-Confederacy bent, which is not surprising given your background. But, consider this for a second: Was the secession of the Southern states all that different than the secession of the colonies from Great Britain? Didn’t both pretty much seek the same thing, i.e., freedom and independence from what they saw as an oppressive and dictatorial government? Believe me, had the Founders been around in 1860 they would have opted for secession, as well; as they would have seen that the Southern states had more reverence for and allegiance to the Constitution — and its original intent — than did the Northern states.
And now, with an Obama administration set to unleash a Marxist nightmare upon America, will we see a new generation of Rebels and Patriots (the terms are synonymous in this context, especially since the left was so eager to tell us over the last eight years that dissent WAS patriotic) rise up against a tyrannical government? I think we will.