If the Democrats have 16 DINOs and the office of Vice President or 17 or more DINOs they will control the Senate. If the Republicans have 16 or 17 RINOS they will control the Senate. If the Republican party consisted of only Conservatives it would never have more than 34 or 35 Senators.
There are in the USA some 17 States that are quite conservative and 17 states that are quite liberal. But the remaining 16 states have about 34 percent Conservatives and 34 percent liberals while the remaining 32 percent of voters are moderates. In those states the moderates always determine a winner unless the moderates are equally divided.
Moderates, often called swing voters, sometimes vote for Republicans and at other times vote for Democrats. They are not ideological. There have been many elections in these states in which the same moderate voters will elect a Republican Governor and a Democrat Senator or vice versa.
They almost always vote for the most likeable RINO or DINO on the ticket. In such states it is next to impossible for a Conservative to be elected. But it does occasionaly happen. Leftist Candidate in such states pretend to be moderates and often get elected. Conservatives nearly always demand they be labeled as conservatives and therefore rarely if ever win.
Pennsylvania did have a conservative Senator. The right tried to take down Spector in his last primary by pointing out how conservative Rich Santorum was. They pointed to conservavtive Santorum and said if they could elect one conservative Senator they could elect 2.
The result, Spector easily won the primray and the general election. The problem was moderate voters in PA now knew that Santorum was conservative so they defeated him when he ran for reelection.
It was one of the dumbest moves I have ever seen. When they were trying to take down Spector, I posted that the right would not defeat Spector. They were just setting up Santorum for defeat. Of course the idiots on the right told me i did not know what I was talking about. When Santorum got beat they never bothered to blame themsleves for defeating one of their own. Learning from experience is something few on the right ever do.
It is just one more example of the total political arogance of those on the right. They think they know it all when in fact they know next to nothing about winning elections. They actually believe that Conservatives can win in a swing state. Democrats know better. They have their liberal candidates run as moderates... and the liberal base understands they have to do that to win. The right can't wait to trash any Republican who tries a similar strategy.
But back to my main point. What happens when a party loses it all? If Obama and his Democrat controlled house and senate are successful they are going to hold all the power for many years.
For RINO to get back into power one of two things must happen. He or she could leave the Republican party and join the Democrats who are already in power. that would make the right wing happy while causing Democrats to be ecstatic. It is one reason the media thinks those on the right are stupid. The second course of action is to see to it that the DINOs and Liberals do not have any success enacting their agenda. That will reduce the support of their base. It is the self interest of the RINOs who want to be back in power that causes them to stay in line when the Republicans are totally out of power.
Of course the Republican party is full of people that think that they can win a majority of Senate seats if they just run enough strong Conservative candidates in the swing states. They must have flunked math in grade school. They actually think that 34 percent of the voters can cast 50 plus percent of the votes. That has never happened and never will.
The key to a parties success is to elect in swing states as many In Name Only party members as possible.
Look what has happened in Ohio. The Republican party was taken over by conservatives and they proceded to run as many conservative candidates for state offices as they could find. They lost them all.
The end result was the state of Ohio went from being a state dominated by Republican (RINO) office holders to true LIBERAL Democrats being in power while pretending(at election time)to be DINOs.
The right wingers apparently think that a DINO such as Senator DEWINE is much inferior to LEFTIST Senator Sherrod Brown. They no doubt are anxious to replace RINO Voinovich with a true liberal. I have heard conservatives say "I would rather have real liberal than a fake one. Drive the Rinos out of the party." They need to take a course in math and try spending about an hour in the REAL WORLD.
The choice in Maine is not SNOW and COLLINS or two Conservatives. The choice is SNOW and COLLINS or two far leftist Democrats.
If people like you got your way, the Democrats would never lose the house the senate or the presidency in the 21st century.
Vonservative victory hinges on electing conservatives in conservative states and as many RINOS as possible in the swing states. Then working with the RINOs so every one with an R by his or her name gets some of what they want.
The primary stupidity of the right is the belief that the reasons that cause them to be conservatives would convince moderates and liberals to be conservatives if someone just taught them the truth as the conservatives see it. NOTHING COULD BE LESS TRUE.
Moderates are not unaware of what conservatives believe and why they believe it. They are aware and reject those reasons. Making the same rejected arguments to them 10,000 more times will not change the results.
The key to a conservative victory in the house and senate is for Conservatives to work to elect as many conservatives from conservative states as possible. And to elect as many RINOs from swing states as possible.
Then to have a majority leader of the Senate and Speaker of the house who understands that to get RINO support on issues important to conservatives that conservatives must give to RINOs some of what they want. It cannot be a one way street as so many conservatives demand.
The most surprising thing to me is how ignorant of our system of goverment conservatives are. Our system was designed to make it very hard to get anything passed in the Senate that is not approved by a majority of the moderates. It is easy to do in the house. A simple majority will do. And the house leadership has real power over its members.
But the Senate was constructed so it would be very hard for either side to make major changes in our laws or policies. The founders wanted those in power to have to find a way to get the support of moderates or fail.
You seem to be saying.. I know how to help get my views adopted... sure all I have to do is trash Snowe, Collins, Spector and McCain..that ought to prove how much I approve of party loyalty.
I used to be puzzled at how the nation could be such a center right nation and yet the left, mostly by its lonesome self, wins time after time. But no more. It is obvious that the right believes that the nearly 1/3 of the voters who are moderates should have no say in government.. In fact any RINOs who expect a fair shake in the Republican party should be run out of town on a rail.
Didn't think so! e
Then when the recount started more Fraken votes were found, and one group of votes disappear but they are counted anyway, all favoring Frankin.
Then the challenged votes that are changed, dropped or counted also favor Franken.
Statistically that does not make sense and I have to conclude that I don't have as much faith in the honesty of the Minn recount.
The same delusions you spell out also occur on talk radio, some blogs etc.
We tend to be an echo chamber, and rationalize away our defeats. No one mentions Santorum anymore, on of our great losses in recent years.
We ignore Hayworth. We used to have Pete Wilson in California, we now have an actor.
Minnesota elected a wrestler Governor, and now might send us all a washed up comedy writer to the Senate.
Michigan once had a rising star named John Engler, who was said to be on the cutting edge. Look what Michigan has become.
My own state of Kansas was once in fairly conservative hands, but our GOP Governors and many of the Suburban GOP reps tended to be more moderate. So we started to install more conservative reps on local school boards, state boards and in Party offices. So far so good. Then they started to push Creationism on state and local school boards, and got very aggressive on the abortion issue. We started to be a national joke on talk shows and in other places where the moderates, rinos and such were watching and reading.
We overplayed our hand, and now have a Dem Governor and the House seats in my area, once solid but often moderate GOP, are now in play, or solid, but moderate dems. They reflect the electorate, whether we like it or not.
We have to do our best to support the most conservative candidates that can reasonably be elected. We have to quit deluding ourselves that we are only a Reagnesque figure away from a return to some revisionist past.