Posted on 04/30/2009 9:15:01 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
The party needs a healthy debate, but not because he's left.
BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Arlen Specter's decision to go Democrat has sent the GOP into a new round of infighting over what the party is, and where it goes now. Mr. Specter is a very unhealthy basis on which to be having what might otherwise be a healthy debate.
Not that anything could stop the bitter winds now blowing through the Republican fields. Within hours of Mr. Specter's bombshell, the sides were formed up. Team Good Riddance featured the Club for Growth's Andy Roth: "Arlen Specter is the epitome of everything voters have come to hate about the Republican Party." "Arlen Specter makes case for term limits," Tweeted Mike Huckabee. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out," sang pundit Michelle Malkin.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
. . . . .
But the GOP will never win running as a less enthusiastic version of big-government Democrats. Washington votes are the only way for congressional Republicans to actually demonstrate a philosophy to voters, and it is here the party must reclaim its mantle of the party of limited government and entrepreneurship.
The Huck is with conservatives on this?
A delicious story. I hope we see more of these.
I just want no part of a party that emulates the dems. Why bother?
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I’ve sent numerous emails to Kim Strassel concerning her WSJ voiced support for the illegal alien invasion. She doesn’t seem to grasp that citizens here elect representative who pass immigration laws that we expect to have enforced - no matter whether foreign nationals whine about it or not.
She never responds. Frankly, I believe she is stupid and doesn’t understand the Constitution and what law and order is all about.
Sphincter will not even make it out of the dem primary, what a sucker!!!
Arlen is now the ant at the dem’s picnic. DM
The GOP should have been after Specter for at least a decade.
Suddenly liking Huckabee. Forgive me.
The WSJ is and has always been part of the OBL. It’s futile to argue the point with them.
The left needs some “moderation”. :)
THIS is the key point in her fine editorial!
THIS is the point we need to chisel into a granite slab somewhere - and then use to whack the McCains and Collinses and Grahams (Lindsey, not Phil!) over the head with!
Smite them, so to speak...
I disagree;
on any topic EXCEPT securing our borders Miss Kimberly exhibits a fine mind, leading me to believe her views on that topic are colored by knowing where her bread is buttered.
Her employer, you'll note, is the leading advocate of cheap illegal labor in this country.
"ANYthing for cheap labor" is their motto.
So she's not stupid - she just has no principles.
Under the bus with all of the NeoCommies!!!
Exactly... and we need more reporters reporting this. This is the antedote to Peggy Noonan's piece.
There are a few truisms regarding Republican politics that can be throughly viewed by recent history:
1. Decreasing taxes, increases gov't revenues.
From that, for any Republican (like McCain, Specter, Collins, Snowe and others) to buy into the 'pay as you go' ruse where any legislation needs an equal increase in taxes, means that they don't get it. They should read or reread "Free to Choose", for one, or just look at the revenues after each tax decrease since Kennedy.
2.Campaigning as a true conservative wins elections.
Reagan, GWB, almost all the '94 class.
3. After running as a conservative, you have to govern as a conservtive or you will lose elections or stature, have to retire or be forced to change parties.
GWB - while he ran as a conservative, he governed as a fiscal moderate and went along with all the moderate Republicans (and Leftist Dems) in Congress to spend and waste too much of the increased revenues from his tax cuts.
GHWB - rode in on Reagan's coattails and blew it by caving into George Mitchell and the Dem congress on 'no new taxes'.
Jeffers, now Specter, and anyone who lost an election vs. a Club for Growth'er or an NRA supporter - DeWine - from the latter, and a whole host of others in the former.
I'm sure all of us know of some instances of this is the individual state legislatures as well.
Hispanics will vote 'Rat for the most part because they are more at home with the Lefty gimme gimme simplistic politics that they are familiar with from the corrupt one party Mexican system, only the 'Rats promise many more goodies than either the Republicans do or Mexico's politicians can. So, it's virtually a foregone conclusion that the large majority of Mexican immigrants, *particularly* illegals, head straight for the Lefty plantation.
Ithink it goes even deeper: Latins have no cultural insight into the Anglo’s thinking on political compromise, which is based on enlightened self-interest. Spanish individualism and Indian tribalism compete the Mexican soul, and this has not been a part of the English political psychology since the Glorious Revolution. In short, if as I think the whig spirit is basic to our system, the Latino will never master it.
This is "newspeak". Sphincter, Chafee, Snowe and Collins are NOT "moderates". They are LIBERALS.
Rather than making sure no one doesn't 'miss the message' - why don't you read what I said. I said the GWB went along with the moderate Republicans who spent too much. The liberal Republicans that you cite (and with which I agree with the label that you attach) didn't have enough votes by themselves to push through the spending that was voted into law from 2000 to 2006 - it took more than them to pass those laws. So stick your 'newspeak' where it doesn't shine.
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