Posted on 04/10/2012 4:52:33 PM PDT by Cato in PA
So it’s come to this.
Rick Santorum dropped out of the race earlier today, which leaves Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul in the running. By any reasonable estimate, Paul still doesn’t stand a chance and Newt won’t mount a serious challenge barring divine intervention.
We’re left with Willard Romney the open socialist, who stands against everything we believe in as conservatives. There are many among us who refuse to vote for him. We who feel this way must unite behind a third party if we’re going to accomplish anything. If we don’t, we’re no better than the party-line Republicans who cry about the need for change but do nothing about it.
JimRob hasn't called for a third party, and that's fine. I'm certainly not criticizing him. But if he won't, I will.
I’d like to take a moment now to quash any lingering doubts you may have about the necessity or wisdom of doing this in case you've somehow missed my other posts.
1) We know Obama is a Marxist. He’ll do bad stuff. Romney is a political weatherwane! There’s a *chance* that he might do good.
Wrong. Romney’s conservatism is 100% rhetoric. If you want to know what the man stands for, look at his record. He ran to the left of Ted Kennedy in 1994 and lost. He governed Massachusetts as a far-left radical, even going so far as to sign socialized medicine into law, a decision he defends to this day. He also defends the bailouts.
HE ADMITTED THAT HE IS A PROGRESSIVE. The vast majority of his judicial picks were far-left judicial activists. He lobbied Obama to adopt the individual mandate on a national level as late as 2009.
Nothing about Romney’s record could even cast him as a moderate. He'll do nothing to stop our economic collapse, and with him at the helm, the Republicans will take the blame. You thought 2008 was bad? Just wait until 2014. How do you think President Jellyfish would stand up to a Democrat-controlled Congress?
2) Okay, so Romney is a liberal. But he and the other Repubs will HAVE to listen if we elect a Republican president!
Wrong. We’ve fallen for this ruse time and time again. Even the historic Republican victory in 2010 didn’t work in our favor; we got Crybaby Boehner and Moderate McConnell, who refuse to listen to us even when a Democrat president is in the White House.
Why would they suddenly toughen up on liberalism if we replaced a liberal Democrat with a liberal Republican?
3) No, no, we have to change the Republican party from within!
How many years have we heard this? How well has it worked out? Will it EVER work out? No, because the Rockefeller wing holds the reins of power and will never let them go.
Even after a historic “Tea Party” victory in 2010, nothing has changed. If that won’t change anything, then how else can we achieve change at the voting booth?
4) But this is an election year, the WORST time to start a third party.
There will never be a ‘good time’. Most people don’t pay attention to politics in off-years, so we’d probably be ignored if we waited. If we do it during an election year, yes, we’re going to split the vote in certain cases.
Nobody ever said that change would be easy, but it’s necessary. If we do nothing, we’ll be no better than the Mittwits.
We need to strike while the iron is hot so we’ll get exposure. If we can get exposure, we can make progress. As difficult a fight as this will be, the only other option, trying to change the GOP from within, is a proven failure.
5) I think you’re just a sore loser. You need to compromise and accept Romney even if he’s not your perfect pick!
This isn’t about purity; this is about principle. Part of politics involves compromise, which is why I’ve said over and over again that I’d vote for Santorum or Gingrich. Paul never really had a chance, so the question doesn’t apply to him.
But part of compromise is having enough -principle- to know compromise becomes caving. And you know what? There are certain things that aren’t worth compromising over, like supporting an open socialist. These are the sort of distinctions that party-line Republicans are incapable of making. They’ve pulled the GOP lever all their lives, and they just can’t imagine doing otherwise.
6) A vote against Romney is a vote for Obama.
Wrong. A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for change in the only means still available to us: rebellion. We’ve tried to get the establishment to listen to us for so many years, but our concerns have fallen on deaf ears.
Your continued support will only result in more of the same. You don’t stop someone from abusing you in a relationship by staying with them if you can't resolve your differences; you leave.
7) It will be YOUR fault if we have another 4 years of Obama!
Dead wrong. If you want to blame someone for Obama’s re-election, blame the establishment for backing a far-left radical who has sharply divided the GOP and destroyed voter enthusiasm nationwide. Turnout is abysmal and Willard looks even worse in the polls than John McCain did.
The GOP base has basically already given up. It’s like 2008 but worse. If you want to vote for the person responsible for that, be my guest.
Now...we can talk about how angry we are, or we can do something about it. Let’s start throwing some ideas around for how to proceed if the inevitable turns out to be true and Romney is the GOP nominee.
Should we try to create a new third party? Would an existing third party suffice? Let’s discuss.
In any case, if Romney wins, we're in no better shape than we are now, the decline only slows its pace. Romney will never pick a conservative for the Supreme Court, so that rationale is pointless, IMO.
I stated this a long while back, it is time to start a new party that reflects the values and principle of conservatives. It will not be a quick fix, and it will not have much of an effect on this election, but you have to start somewhere, and since the GOP is simply now the moderate arm of the DNC, it needs to be replaced, period.
Considering the current makeup of our electorate, I do not believe that the ballot box will ever again be useful in returning this country to a prosperous path, so this discussion is pretty much moot at this point, IMO.
The problem with that is that very few people are willing to commit to the prospect of not voting for Romney. People who don’t go nearly as far as I do have already been mocked and attacked for even suggesting it.
How do you - we - get Republicans to change their minds?
I remember the 1992 run by Perot very clearly and I attended a Perot rally in June of that year in Boston. At that time, Perot had incredible momentum and actually led the Republican and Democrat candidates in national polls.
I do not think Ross Perot was insane or a "crazy uncle". Somebody got to him. I'm not normally into conspiracies but I think there is some validity to the notion that there is a "shadow" government that dictates who can and can't reach positions of power at the national level and that they have the ability to destroy those who seek such power without their backing.
I thought it was rather odd that the Perot candidacy imploded that summer in such a bizarre manner. That was not the Ross Perot that built billion dollar companies and paid commandos to rescue his employees who were taken hostage in Iran. I also thought it odd that Sarah Palin did not seek the presidency this go-around even though the GOP nomination was apparently hers for the taking.
If I were a liberal Democrat, I’d be hoping conservatives would follow your plan.
Wouldn’t we have rejoiced if the Hilary supporters had gone third party and split the liberal vote? It would have been McCain in a landslide.
They were smart; they didn’t do it. Will we be stupid?
Are you saying that the people who became Republican weren't Whigs previously? Were there not two main parties, the Whigs and Democrats, before the Republicans? Some of the Whigs probably went to the Democrats, sure, but since the Whigs were mainly in the north, and the Republicans came to dominate in the north, wouldn't it make sense to conjecture that the base of the Whig party became Republican?
And although the Democrats split into several factions, Lincoln would have had enough electoral college votes to win the Presidency even if the Democrats only had one candidate. He swept the northern states, and in those states, even if you combined the Democrat votes, he still would have won.
What a third party would have to do is defeat Obama in states with 270 electoral votes. Take Texas for example. If Obama gets 38 percent in Texas, the Tea Party candidate would just have to carry 39 percent to win the electoral votes. Mitt could have the rest.
What tends to happen in these races is that the party that is in third place fades a lot at the very end, as people want to vote for one of the 2 candidates with a chance to win. If it is 33 to 20 between Tea Party and Mittens on October 15, you might see a lot of movement to Tea Party, and Mittens fade to 10. If it's the other way around, the opposite would occur. Either way, it can be enough to defeat Obama.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is always the choice in elections. Who did you think the GOP was going to nominate? Reagan? Dream on. The fact of the matter is, Romney looks to be our only choice because he’s the last one standing.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Voting for a third party candidate or nor voting at all because you’ve got your knickers in a twist about the GOP candidate, is a certain formula for re-electing Obama. Use your head and support our guy. Focus on the target and goal in November....to get Obama out of office. Worry about you ego some other time.
FR is still having trouble facing the fact that the GOP is dead...and hates them with a passion...so much so that the Republican party actively WORKS with Dems to marginalize, defeat, and destroy the reputations of conservative candidates AND their families.
I thinks it is a pathology called “battered wife syndrome”.
I have been saying this since October 5.
The country is split - 40% conservative, 30% communist, 30% moderate.
Due to skillful propaganda by he communists, it is hard to get the moderates we need to go from 40 to 51.
Let Romney and Obama split he moderates and communists, while a real conservative takes the White House with 40%. Most states allow plurality awards of electoral votes.
If you have a cunning plan to take over the country, then demonstrate first how well it works by taking over one of the two main parties.
Until then, I will doubt.
I am saying that the Whigs died first. The Anti-Nebraska party came next, eventually to be renamed the Republican Party.
If the Democratic party had something like a message, they might have won a few northern or western states. They didn’t, so they didn’t.
My limited understanding is the Tea Parties got significant gains against the Democrats because they focused on Taxed Enough Already, and didn’t raise the social conservative issues as a litmus test for candidates. People agreed with them, and voted for them, and refused to get distracted.
They won because of that.
I am sure the social conservatives have a different view of things.
Way to get lost in tangents.
How many years have we heard this? How well has it worked out? Will it EVER work out? No, because the Rockefeller wing holds the reins of power and will never let them go.
Well, then take the power from them. I don't know how it is in PA, but here our republican party committees are elected through precinct delegates. They vote for the party leadership at the county level and vote for the state delegates who choose the state leadership. It takes hard work, patience, and organization to change the party. If everyone who complained about GOP-E actually worked hard and worked smart to change GOP-E, we'd get somewhere, slowly and surely. Instant gratification doesn't work in politics.
3rd parties haven't won much of anything in 150 years. They don't have the organization or support to do anything. Even dissident elected officials failed to do anything as a 3rd party. Teddy Roosevelt is on Mt Rushmore and he failed as a 3rd party candidate. George Wallace and Strom Thurmond couldn't even contend. Ross Perot didn't win a single state with his millions. Pat Buchanan and Bob Barr got nowhere. John Anderson got nowhere.
It takes more than one election cycle and party leadership cycle to change the GOP, which is much bigger than one lousy presidential candidate.
How's it going to do that? How is it going to get on the ballot in 50 states, get a plurality of house seats, senate seats, state legislatures, county offices, not to mention a majority of the electoral votes to win the presidency?
There is, but it takes vision to recognize that, and it will take serendipity and a great person or persons to bring it about.
Which is why it hasn't been done, isn't done, and won't be done in the future. It's the problem with most people in politics in the first place. Impatient, lazy people who want others to do all the work.
I remember when Pat Buchanan was very popular at FR and got 0.5% and could have cost GW Bush the 2000 election.
The way I sees it—If Mittens blows it and falls to Obama—the guts should be ripped out of the GOP and a new party formed. We have 3 choices:
1. Take over the Republican Party from within and change it to something we want. This can be done with an inside group within the party. The George Washington Club or the Sons of Liberty Club.
2. Abandon the GOP and take over an established 3rd Party—like Reform, Constitution Party, or Conservative Party, etc...
So many joining could make them a national party with clout.
3. Start our own party—with our own standards emblems, goals and mascot—Suggested symbols? The Grizzle Bear as a Mascot, Name The American Tea Party, or Liberty Free Party. Goals: Ban partial Birth Abortion, Repeal the 13th Amendment, and a balanced budget. Any other thoughts?
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