Posted on 11/17/2012 2:12:38 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Conservative scholar, talk radio host, and former Reagan administration official Mark Levin said conservatives need to first overthrow the Republican establishment to more successfully take on President Barack Obama and the institutional left.
“We cannot get through Obama and the left until we get through the Republican Establishment,” Levin said, railing against establishment consultants who attack the base and politicians who know nothing of “Burkean reform” because they have spent their whole careers “clawing their way to the top.”
In a talk at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday with his mentor, former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, for whom Levin served as Chief of Staff, Levin said the Republican Party is, “devouring the conservative movement,” and the old bulls need to step aside in favor of a new generation of conservatives who are fluent in conservatism.
“It’s time for the old bulls to get out of the way and for the fresh faces who believe in conservatism and liberty and originalist principles to step up,” Levin said, criticizing those like House Speaker John Boehner for “yielding territory” to the left in negotiations.
Levin said the Tea Party consists of constitutionalists, libertarians, Evangelicals, and those who are against the rigged establishment, beltway culture that for too long has not embraced conservatism and, as a consequence, lost national elections (George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney).
“The Tea Party is the only thing that stands between liberty and tyranny,” Levin said. “We have to defeat the Republican establishment mush in Washington, D.C.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Second, to remind you, I mentioned that I had seen this decline for almost a year in attendance at various meetings which was also confirmed but TP leaders.
Third, I don't blame te TP for "not controlling the Republican Party," but then until it does or can, it isn't the force Levin makes it out to be. That is why I said if we are depending on a group that has declined in membership and not done particularly well in this year's election, then we are screwed. I don't take any satisfaction in that observation.
Agree. Glenn Beck’s Restore Honor was an amazing conservative turn out. He promotes the 9/12 groups, which formed from the TPM, and are still a very organized force, nationally. And, he was the first to warn us about the Fabian Socialists, among many other things.
I think you meant to say that the Tea Party wasn't the force in 2012, that it was in 2010.
I won't dispute that observation, but I will comment that I believe the true drop in Tea Party enthusiasm coincided with the general realization that our side was not going to get behind our most dedicated and courageous champion, Sarah Palin, and that for whatever reason, she also decided that 2012 wasn't her 'moment'.
This was an enormous blow to the momentum we all saw in 2010, and should not be discounted.
That isn't to say that Sarah Palin is supported by 100% of the Tea Party, but there's no question that a large majority of those who claim membership in that movement, had also pinned their hopes for 2012 on her running for the presidency. The eight candidates who ran in the Republican primary were widely seen to be also-rans to her potential candidacy.
Choosing a clear front-runner was almost impossible for conservatives during the entire primary season. This would not have been the case, had Palin run. She would have owned the primary contest from the moment she announced, if she'd only done it.
In the end, center-right voters were faced with having to choose between a wide slate of candidates who mostly were indistinguished, and who did not embody the ideals and goals of the burgeoning movement to restore our nation's historic underpinnings quite the way Palin does.
That’s a good premise.
We can’t waste any time. We’ve circled the wagons in many places (There is not a state-wide elected democrat in Kansas) but the battleground states are not the same as 1860!
This is based on two things. First, I think (can't prove) that Palin did polling the whole time her movie (which fell far below expectation---I know Bannon and his original deal), her "Alaska" show, and her bus tour were going on. They didn't move the dials. If she had been polling high teens when the primaries started, I think she would have been in.
Second---and this is anecdotal only, based on speaking to Tea Parties, Rotary (pretty conservative small businessmen), and conservative college kids from Young America's Foundation meetings---there was no enthusiasm for Palin. People here don't want to hear it, but I have found in conversations with all these groups that females (especially younger ones) do not like Palin as a political figure. I don't know the reason college-aged girls don't like her, but I think it has to do with the fact that she's too much like their mothers. As for the Tea Party groups I've spoken to, there is no stated reason, but the unwillingness to support her is obvious, even among very conservative people (especially women) I talk with. Probably the person they liked best was Newt, but none thought he could win. Santorum--- and I'm just repeating what I heard over and over---was viewed as sanctimonious and not a particularly good economics guy.
Part of the reason we got Romney was that there was this expectation that a knight on a white horse would come riding up, and throughout 2011 I kept saying here that there are four elements to a good candidate: 1) personality/appeal, 2) money, 3) organization, and 4) policies. Palin had money at one level, but could she raise the hundreds of millions from the Wall Street guys and the big business/Silicon Valley types? No. They really didn't like her. and the policies, but her organization was horrible. I have heard this from people very close to her who like her, but she's a control freak. This is understandable the way McCain's team messed with her. But it's a serious fault. I'm told that basic decisions a staffer should make in minutes took days, decisions that should take days took weeks. She had to personally approve everything. As for #1, she is extremely popular among a % of conservatives, but it is a very narrow but very deep loyalty.
Bottom line, I thought in 2011 Elmer Fudd could beat Obama, but as Romney's organizational failings showed ( and he was light years ahead of Cain or Gingrich or Santorum), you need people who know how to win and who will be ruthless. I thought at least Romney had the latter characteristic but I was wrong. His organization also proved little better than McCain's.
So, IMHO he are back to my original observations that the TP was losing momentum long before the primaries, and that above all it is too old to be a revolutionary force. No revolution in history has been led by the old. (likewise, no revolution in history has been SUSTAINED by the young). We must find a way, as Reagan did, to make conservatism appeal to the 25-40 year olds.
I've seen statements like yours made many times on this website, and every time the string is pulled, it turns out the poster is relating their experience with an exceedingly small number of non-Tea Party, establishment Republicans, who are mostly informed by the MSM.
Also, in most cases I've seen, the poster themselves isn't, and never was a Palin fan, and usually turns out to be strongly supportive of some establishment party figure.
Right after the election, Greta VanSusteren ran a poll on her Fox blog which asked, "After the election, who do you consider the leader of the Republican party?" There were perhaps a dozen high profile Republican politicians' names on that list. Sarah Palin won it hands down, with over 40% of the total votes.
That result mirrors those of nearly every poll that has asked a similar question in the last four years. As an example, here's a graphic pie chart that was posted on the CafePress website in the early months of the 2012 Republican primary campaign. It details the percentages of campaign gear sales for various candidates on their site:
As the chart shows, Palin was far and away the most popular of the potential candidates in the race at that time. She didn't run, but I assure you it wasn't because she didn't poll well enough with voters. She consistently out-polled every other contender in the years leading up to 2012.
Funny how those polls never seem to be valid when it comes to actual votes. Funny how Palin's OWN polls told her something different.
Produce the polls that back up your assertion that Palin's support was too weak to run for office. "Palin's OWN polls", as you claim.
And I'm sorry, but it's you who are flat-out wrong about the level of grass roots support for Palin leading up to the 2012 primary. I saw it with my own eyes, everywhere I looked.
So YOUR “own eyes” ar correct bu my own eyes re not? How many different Tea Parties in how many different state did you meet with?
Not so fast.
You made the claim that "Palin's OWN polls" indicated her support was too weak to make a run for the nomination. I challenged you to prove it. Now where is it?
If you go back to the first posting, I said it is my suspicion that Palin’s own polls showed her . . .” Now, answer MY question. (BTW, if you think Palin didn’t poll, then she is a stupid candidate. And if you think her polls showed she’d clean up, and she STILL didn’t run, then she would be stupider still. So that leads only one conclusion: that her polls showed she wasn’t doing well).
Listen, Mr. Slippery, you made an assertion that you have failed to back up with actual proof. This is what you said downthread from your earlier allegation about Palin's supposed polls:
Funny how those polls never seem to be valid when it comes to actual votes. Funny how Palin's OWN polls told her something different.
Now, in this conversation, I'm the only one who's offered any kind of stats to back up my argument. You're supposed to be the all-seeing, all-knowing swami of polling analysis around here. Why haven't you offered a single poll to prove your point?
It's because you can't find a single bit of documentary evidence to support your threadbare, shopworn argument.
Just admit that you're an establishment Republican and be done with it. You don't like Sarah Palin because....well...you just don't. I've been hearing the same empty-headed arguments about her for four years now.
Finis.
Tell me oh wizard, why if Palin was such a great candidate did she not run? Hmmmmm HMMMMMM HMMMMM
And yes, she polled.
More hearsay, huh? Put up or shut up, oh great and powerful swami of the polls. Produce the evidence, or walk away.
I've already given you a couple of documentary items to bolster my point, and I can pull up dozens of polls on Palin's approval/popularity ratings on Google in a snap. Nearly every one of them was likely posted here on FR over the years they were taken, and every one of them will show Palin beating the pants off any competitor.
I find it just a bit insulting that you would even try to convince me of a lie so big. I'm a well-informed person who's been reading this website daily for eight years, and have seen everything under the sun moon and stars about Palin. You think you can sweep history under the rug because you don't personally like her? What a hoot.
I put up idiot. There is such a thing a confidentiality. But no amount of evidence will convince you, even I suspect Palin herself. You’d just say she was covering up. So buzz off.
Not only are you lying that you "put up", but now you're resorting to ad hominem and giving me the finger.
I asked you to produce a poll - any poll - that backs up your contention that Palin's popularity/approval index among voters was too low for her to consider a run at the Republican nomination.
You didn't provide a single one, though I asked you at least three times to do so. I, at least, provided you with two items of documentary evidence to support my contention, and told you that I could easily produce more.
How did you respond? With hearsay which I can't possibly check or validate. I'd think that someone who gained a reputation in the last election as an astute poll watcher/analyst, would be able to back up such a strong assertion with concrete numbers. The fact that you can't puts the lie to your statement.
To then get pissy with me, and flip me the bird when you've lost the match, is mighty small of you. I expect better of a Freeper and author of patriotic books.
Good night.
What are their names and when and where did you have contact with them?
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