Posted on 05/20/2009 12:04:13 PM PDT by pissant
Dick Cheney is 68, white and bitter. He is the Republican Party today.
The Republican Party has no serious wing other than the Cheney wing. The moderate wing of the Republican Party is distinguished by the fact that it does not exist, and yet it is still shrinking.
Arlen Specter, senator from Pennsylvania, recently left the Republicans for the Democrats, and Jon Huntsman, the Republican governor of Utah, is joining the Obama administration as its ambassador to China.
After Huntsman’s appointment was announced last week, article after article said he had been one of his party’s “leading” candidates for the presidential nomination in 2012.
Leading candidate? With the possible exception of Salt Lake City, you could fire a cannon down the main street of any city in America at high noon and not hit a person who had ever heard of Jon Huntsman.
Everybody has heard of Dick Cheney. True, a Washington Post headline last week said: “As Cheney Seizes Spotlight, Many Republicans Wince.” But a wince can sometimes be mistaken for a spasm of ecstasy.
Cheney has many pluses. He is very, very good on TV. (People who don’t like what he says overlook how good he is at saying it.) He is calm, articulate and often courageous. Who else but Dick Cheney would have the guts to go on “Face the Nation With Bob Schieffer” and say “in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh” rather than Colin Powell?
After that, Maureen Dowd wrote: “Cheney, who had five deferments himself to get out of going to Vietnam, would rather follow a blowhard entertainer who has had three divorces and a drug problem (who also avoided Vietnam) than a four-star general who spent his life serving his country.”
To which the Republican wing of the Republican Party replies, “Yeah? So who wouldn’t?”
One of Cheney’s greatest attributes is that he revives the whole “Daddy Party vs. Mommy Party” argument that has bedeviled Democrats for decades.
Republicans say they are the Daddy Party. They are strong and will protect us from communists, terrorists and people who want to take away our guns. Republicans say Democrats are the Mommy Party. They say Democrats care only about social programs for the poor, don’t care about national defense and don’t understand terrorism.
Bill Clinton described the dilemma in December 2002 by saying: “When people feel uncertain, they’d rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and right.”
Cheney offers a clear choice. He is for waterboarding to save the United States from terrorism. He is a Daddy Party kind of guy.
True, President Obama gave the go-ahead for the military to shoot three pirates last month. But Cheney actually shot a guy in the head once. How Daddy Party can you get?
And why do you think Barack Obama has been so busy recently trying to cover his right flank? Now he doesn’t want to release torture pictures, he is in favor of military tribunals and he is not planning to reinstate a ban on assault weapons anytime soon. He also is not joining the attack on Nancy Pelosi, who apparently knew all about waterboarding (but insisted it be done with Evian).
The Republicans need a person who knows how to attack. John McCain never seemed comfortable in that role. When McCain would mention Obama during his campaign speeches and people in the crowd would yell “Off with his head,” McCain would actually try to calm them. Cheney would have said: “Why stop with his head?”
Dick Cheney is the voice, the face, the spirit and the guts of the Republican Party today.
He’s tanned, he’s rested and his approval ratings can only go up.
The Republicans could do worse in 2012. And probably will.
Wrong: He's angry about Osama's policies that will make this country less safe than when he was Vice President.
The term “Moderate” is a code word for a liberal just short of extreme.
I was in the navy for 21 years, and I was near Baghdad, in the Triangle of Death, in a marine infantry battalion, Sept. 2004-Mar. ‘05. While I was there, I rarely heard my co-workers (mostly marines and soldiers) complain about American presence, in Iraq. After I returned to the U.S., I heard many people, who haven’t served, in the military, complain about it. The servicemembers know that we protect the Americans from terrorists, but too many Americans aren’t grateful. I never heard the marines or soldiers say that we were there, to get oil.
Pissant, you are right, Americans like a fighter. I feel as though I have been sucker punched every day for the last several years without being able to fight back. We are on the ropes and cornered, it is time to start punching back.
Cheney is pro-homo rights himself. This is swept under the rug. The reason why he is worshiped by a few is Rush, hannity, Levin the last two being invasion cheer leaders. BTW: If you disagree with them you are a traitor. You can never think they were wrong and be a good american.
I disagree with Rush and Co. all the time. Wish they were as conservative as me.
I didn’t mention conservatives. I said “people”. And Cheney does not have and hasn’t had high poll numbers with the general public.
There aren’t enough conservatives to swing an election on their own. Democrats and moderates have vilified Cheney.
You sir are clueless about the base of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is at a crossroads in it's existence. Either it takes the Right path or it discovers the end of the road. By 2013 we'll know.
I still like Rush but he has some canned themes that he must always try to fit the facts to. One of my favorite is the the so called Bush miracle recovery all due to tax cuts. Notice he never talks about Greenspan printing and government spending both had a temporary effect (and both were re-distribution.) It doesn't fit the theme.
I said that Cheney cannot win the election.
I said nothing of the nomination. Winning one does not mean you can possibly win the other.
America loves a fighter.
America may love a fighter, but they did not love Dick Cheney after eight years of the Bush Administration and vilification by liberals and moderates in both parties. America went as far away from the policies of the Bush Administration as they possibly could.
These things are always snapshots of the present. No one was more vilified than Nixon before he was elected. Chaney is a true conservative if Obama screws up as bad as we profess he will a conservative will look pretty good.
Cheney/Petreaus 2009
Seriously.
This is what we have to overcome.
I know. It's insane.
I don't think we can overcome it with Cheney at the helm, though.
Re: “Look at the California budget vote yesterday—how many Suzy Creamcheese Obama voters showed up? Yeah, somewhere between zero and none.”
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Absolutely. My unscientific review of voters on my street here in lib-land, complete with many Obama auto bumper stickers that remain to this day, tells me that NONE of them bothered voting yesterday.
I saw no ‘Obama voters’ at the polling place Tuesday — and yeah, I’m profiling.
There are few candidates that would fire up the base like Cheney can. And even fewer with the debating skills and knowledge base to stuff Obama’s head up his marxist arse.
The anti-Cheney won the 2008 nomination for the republicans. And now we have a marxist in the oval orifice.
base? Cheney? Not good! This is a disaster, explains the last two elections and why libs like MSNBC want to keep him in the news. Cheney stands for WOT and invasion, that's it. That is only a sub-set of issues(Hannity and Levin's #1) . Turns out that was NOT the major factor last Fall.
Dick Cheney is 68, and fearless. He speaks and the Left goes berserk and flees the battlefield in a panic. He is the Republican Party we should be building.
I'm tired of supposed leaders that are afraid of leading, and only want to triangulate their way into office through the side door.
Cheney, Bolton, Palin, none of them perfect, but all of them warriors in a party that is emasculating itself in an effort to be more "electable". If you can't explain why your opponent is wrong, and you can't explain why you are right, then frankly you're in the wrong business, and we may as well elect Democrats.
People like your sister would not support any republican. The independents sway with the wind if Obama screws up bad enough we can defeat him.
Re: “.............And unlike Bush, Cheney defends himself with stiff uppercuts and deadly choke holds on his opponents.
America loves a fighter.”
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Well I SURE DO love a fighter! Cheney is doing a fabulous job of speaking out now — really stepping up to the plate now that GWB is gone (not that I disliked GWB, I did NOT - compared to Zero and company, GWB was absolutely terrific!)
I hope Cheney continues speaking out and riling up the left!!!!
I hate to hijack this thread, but I was looking at some statistics this morning re. the Ca vote yesterday. It was county-by-county election results. Orange county had one of the largest disparities between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes while Marin county had one of the smallest, yet it looked like there was this 30% ‘yes’ vote across the board throughout the state and I’m wondering what that was—state workers, illegals, liberals, all the above......? What are your thoughts?
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