Posted on 06/18/2011 8:00:35 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
From dynamic presidential hopefuls such as Rep. Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain to rank-and-file party activists from across the country, Republicans who gathered in New Orleans Friday all pledged their fealty to the cause of defeating President Barack Obama in 2012.
But Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national party chairman, delivered a stern warning to Republican Leadership Conference delegates: Don't look for perfection in the potential nominees and don't even think about drafting a third-party candidate when the nomination fight is done.
"Don't get hung up on purity," he said. "In politics, purity is a loser. ... In this business, it is unity that wins elections. ... Barack Obama has worn out three sets of knee pads down his knees praying for the tea party to become a third party, because he can't lose."
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
It’s amazing how early they’re attempting to club conservatives into submission this time.
"When, in the course of human events. . . ," as our Declaration of Independence asserts, coercive, oppressive government power has exceeded its limits, "We, the People" need statesmen, not "politicians," to articulate, explain, and defend us against the "politicians" of both Parties who have "betrayed the trust committed to them" (See John Adams)
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." - Samuel Adams
"The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty." - Justice William Douglas
"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down." - Frederick Douglass
"Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the people.' 'We the people' tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. 'We the people' are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the people' are free." - Ronald Reagan
"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Justice Joseph Story
"No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and Constitution of his country." - Daniel Webster
"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world. - Daniel Webster
" "America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within." - Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin
Of the three, only Rep. Paul has any level of respect from me politically, and I’d never be able to envision him as President due to a certain naiveté on foreign affairs despite being spot on domestically, so you’re rather wide of the mark, Psycho.
How did “it’s his turn” work out with McCain and Dole, speaking of a “winning strategy?” McCain’s best little buddy Lindsey Graham really helped you guys out with La Raza, just blew it out with the Hispanic vote didn’t he, lol. Yep, calling your most active core voters, volunteers and precinct workers racist, nativist xenophobes and fringers really made the difference.
If you somehow manage to not just agree with those spouters of leftist propaganda buzzwords, but in turn spout them yourself, you are no conservative. You are just a Republican. There is no longer any automatic linkage between conservatism and the Republican Party, if indeed there ever really was.
You people brought this upon yourselves. So, stop whining and get to work rebuilding the coalition you destroyed. You can start by not going out of your way to offend those who are historically your staunchest and most reliable voters, and by actually living up to the party platform.
Is it really so alien to you?
He has a very good chance. There are too many conservatives in the race. Our votes will be split. I know it is early, heck it hasn't even started really, but things are shaping up like they did with McCain. We'll have more votes but they will be split up among 4-5 candidates and Romney will get through. We need to coalesce early around a couple of candidates to prevent Romney from winning.
The Tea Party owns the GOP now.
The ruling-class RINOs just haven't figured it out yet.
The more likely scenario is the RINOs forming a third-party of RINOs.
Does he mean he wants the party to get behind Sarah when she wins the nomination?
Philosophically, but not monetarily. That's the rub.
Correct. I'll take an inexperienced honest individual over an experienced politician any day.
They "they" I speak of are the insider Republicans who would (apparently) rather see a Democrat win than support a Conservative as happened in NY, or who always seem to push the "reach across the aisle" McCainaic candidate. I know the "conservative" base is fragmented in many ways and this doesn't help against Democrats who basically have abortion and 'YES to everything government' as the main planks.
The biggest third party effort since Theodore Roosevelt, was Ross Perot. He won 18.9% of the popular vote and allowed Clinton to win with 43% of the vote.
But always remember, it's not a matter of winning, it's the principle that counts most. (Keep repeating that to yourself while Obama takes the oath for a second term.)
But comparing any one of the candidates this election, (And that includes potential candidates.) the size and scope of Teddy Roosevelt cannot be compared to them in any way.
“You have real roots, baby.”
My point was that we, in effect, have only one party now. Since neither R or D has any room for conservatives.
In reality, the majority of even rank and file democrats are conservative. Who is to say that a third party would just draw from the republicans.
What does that mean? If Obama came to your house and personally asked you for your vote I am assuming he would get it, right? Anyone who pays personal attention to you, to campaign for your vote, will get it. Wow. what a rock of conservatism you are!
No, that would be too “purist.” Deciphering the codewords spoken by party insiders will lead to party insider favorites, always.
Little Mitch Daniels fell off his pedestal, so that leaves Romney with T-paw bringing up the rear. These are the impure candidates that Barbour wants.
Bachmann is “purity” on crack and so she’s being pushed to A) siphon off tea party conservatives into a dead end, and B) discredit the same as shallow, Bible-thumping neophytes.
But, despite her usefulness in these regards, there are desirable numbers in the much-derided-in-establishment-circles tea partiers, so she’s the perfect foil as veep to try and pull it back together.
McCain/Palin all over again, but they’re ready for “a” Palin when they weren’t before, with a much more manageable yet flawed candidate who will stay on the plantation.
And, I’ll do my very best to derail this little backroom scheme. This very thing is what has alienated so many conservative voters.
With the number of disgruntled democrat voters rising, you may have a point there! But sadly, the democrat mind has already been poisoned toward a genuinely good person like Sarah Palin, so any third party candidate will have to be new enough that the democrat rut is not enjoined. Would a Rick Perry fit that mold? I dunno
So, tell me, does that small group of secret “insiders” pull the lever for all the candidates? Or do you think that elections turn out the way they do because the majority of voters themselves do not agree with the principles of the Conservative base?
The tea party becoming a genuine political party would be the end of the Republican Party. The Republicans would be the third party. If tea party support were removed, there wouldn’t be the Republicans in Congress that there are, and there wouldn’t be the contention these statements represent, because the Republicans would be even deader than they were just prior to November of 2010. They wouldn’t even be in the position they are to potentially betray tea party support, without tea party support.
“The fiscal conservatives and the RINO elites need to accept the real conservative candidates. They need to stop insisting on pure candidates.”
Oh my....where to start?
We will elect a fiscal conservative in 2012 who cuts federal spending in a big way, or fiscal conservatism will be forced upon us.
It may be too late anyway.
There is no other issue except fiscal conservatism and reducing federal spending significantly. Nothing else matters.
So, you want to elect a GOP bus driver to drive off the cliff, that’s fine. I want to try to stop the bus from driving over the cliff.
I want to elect a leader that matters. If it’s not a fiscal conservative, then we all lose.
When it comes to what we face in the near future, we cannot afford another status-quo political pragmatist from either party.
What Barbour is saying is for conservatives to go screw themselves - they aren’t going to get anything out of the GOP this election, same as the last one, and the one before that.
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