Posted on 06/03/2011 11:22:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The candidate would know Americans are more worried about their jobs and their savings than abstractions like 'big government.'
To win the presidency in 2012, the Republican candidate will require certain strengths. Among them, a credible passion for ideas other than cost-cutting and small government. He or she will have to speak in the voice of Americans who know in their bones the extraordinary character of their democracy, and that voice will have to ring out steadily. That Republican candidate will need, no less, the ability to talk about matters like Medicare and Social Security without terrorizing the electorate.
Americans already have plenty of cause for fear. They have on one side the Obama health-care plan now nearly universally acknowledged as a disaster. A plan that entails huge cuts in health care—$500 billion cut from Medicare—that will nevertheless cause no pain, according to its architects. As the polls on ObamaCare show, this grand scheme appears mostly to have alarmed Americans.
From the Republican side comes an incessant barrage of doomsday messages and proclamations that the nation is imperiled by the greatest crisis in a generation—not, as we might have supposed, by our ongoing, desperate unemployment levels, but by spending on social programs. No sane person will deny the necessity of finding ways to cut the costs of these programs. But it's impossible not to hear in the clamor for boldness—for massive cuts in entitlements—a distinctly fevered tone, and one with an unmistakable ideological tinge. Not the sort of pragmatism that inspires voter confidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
DOROTHY YOU ARE A DEMOCRAT.
You are in some other world that does not understand business.
Or most Americans and how they live.
You need to get out of NYC once in a while.
Translation: “The Republican who can win can only be one who does not the truth”
That should read “tell the truth”
Anyone who doesn't understand the connection between the former and the latter shouldn't be allowed to vote.
In other words a demagogue might win. Good insight Dorthy. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.
Sorry, but I call FAIL.
To win the presidency in 2012, the Republican candidate will have to place cost-cutting and small government as their first priority.
That is the monster that is killing America, and has been for over 70 years.
He’s right. Americans are more worried abou their jobs than “abstract” things like Big Government. But they are also smart enough to know that Big Government demands more of our paycheck than anything else.
So, we can keep Big Government if Big Government is willing to hold a lot of Bake Sales to pay for entitlements.
Otherwise, it can stay out of my wallet and perhaps it could start telling the welfare class to make do with less, and to do some belt-tightening, as it continuously tells the working class.
Translation: Americans are stupid.
But they do vote and the Republican candidate will have to find a way to appeal to them as Reagan did.
It is all the more CRITICAL IN 2012 that we have a TRUTH-TELLING candidate. I’d rather lose than lie, and not just for ethical reasons. Also, there’s this:
IF OBAMA WINS BECAUSE HE LIES AND THE CONSERVATIVE WON’T, then history and the voters are much more likely to blame Obama — and voters are more likely to vote for conservative reforms in the future (if it’s not too late by then ...).
Bullshit. Big government ain't no abstraction. Big government is what's driving our economy into the ground.
The GOP candidate who can tap into this sentiment against big government will gain enormous traction.
The economy will begin to turn around ONLY when people are buoyed by the knowledge that runaway government spending, and its associated Tyrannies, has been stopped dead in its tracks.
Actually, one poster above said it right...
To the author of this article, The Republican who can win can only be someone who does not/is afraid to tell the truth regarding the REAL state of our country and economy.
If this is true, no wonder this country is in trouble. Americans prefer to be in denial and vote for those who will KEEP us in denial.
That this article will validate this kind of attitude only serves to confirms that fact.
Dorothy is not talking to us or about us, but of voters who are actually as she described. There are exactly those out there who could be Republican voters in 2012, but they are not us. They are but culturally religious, or not at all, and react only to their own benefit, not patriotism, not philosphy.
The question is do we want this block of votes if it takes them to actually WIN?
Ergo, all Democrats are insane but because not a one of them will talk about cuts to entitlements and several Republicans will not go there either. But, Dorothy. It gets no simpler than this. J-O-B-S. If I was running for President I would tell the voters if they elect me and give me Republican control of both Houses I would guarantee unemployment below 7% by the end of my first term or I would not run for a second.
“After all the years of instruction, all the textbooks on U.S. rapacity and greed, all the college lectures on the evil and injustice the U.S. had supposedly visited on the world, something inside these young rose up to tell them they were Americans. That something lies in the hearts of Americans across the land and it is those hearts to which the candidate will have to speak.”
I think the author’s point is that being AGAINST something is NOT ENOUGH.
You have to be FOR something else - something better.
I think some of the commentors are missing the point of this piece - or I could be wrong.
Other than hiring people the only things the government can do about jobs is indirect - the government can remove the barriers to enterprise that various organizations have erected.
That’s smaller government...
THE SYSTEM HAS TO BE CHANGED!!
It means cutting back government jobs and promoting the private sector.
It means a reality check on future pensions. NO COLLECTING UNTIL YOU'RE 62!!!!
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