Posted on 12/16/2012 4:30:40 PM PST by dirtboy
Steve Welch
was a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate this year
The Sunday morning before the election, my daughter and I attended a candidates' breakfast in Chester County. The room was packed with passionate Republican volunteers. The energy level bordered on exuberance, as people believed Pennsylvania was in play in the presidential race. In fact, one ardent political operative for the Pennsylvania Pastors Network told me he believed Mitt Romney would likely win Pennsylvania by 10 points.
That night, my three children, my wife, and I trekked out to Bucks County to attend a Romney rally. We arrived over an hour early, with tickets in hand, and were unable to get into the event. More than 30,000 people attended the rally, and to say the place was electric would be an understatement. As I stood in a mob in the cold, dark night holding on tight to my 3-year-old son for fear that I would lose him in the crowd, I heard nothing but absolute confidence that Romney would win Pennsylvania and the presidency.
Romney lost by five points. What happened?
The loss is a complicated story, but the cause of the misguided optimism can be found in a single word: Facebook.
Facebook is not only responsible for creating unwarranted expectations, it is killing the Republican Party. Facebook pushes combative tones, extreme views, and single-issue agendas to the forefront, while even-tempered discussions about comprehensive reforms are buried and rarely seen at all.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Redstate’s take on Welch:
http://www.redstate.com/susananne/2010/01/08/pa-6-alert-steve-welch-was-a-republican/
PA-6 Alert: PROOF Steve Welch Was a Republican, Then a Democrat, Then a Republican and is Now a RINO
Because Congressman Gerlach is running for re-election, I’m reposting this article as there has been so much talk of the NRCC Young Guns program.
I can now confidently confirm that PA-6 Congressional candidate, Steve Welch, is indeed a RINO. Welch’s voter history shows dates and party affliliation. On 11/02/2004 he was a Republican, but changed on on 11/07/2006 to the Democrat party until he decided to run for the PA-7 House seat in 2009. He was chased out of the PA-7 race and switched to the PA-6 House race for Congressman Jim Gerlach’s seat against conservative Republican State Representative Curt Schroder.
On May 19, 2009, it shows Welch as a Republican.
The image of Welch’s voting history can be found here.
Now that we have our facts straight, I can confidently say that Welch is a RINO and would have to prove me wrong. He is whitewashing his donations to Sestak as buyer’s remorse. But in today’s political climate, a third grader could conclude the Democrat party has been hijacked by the far left and once in office Sestak would vote with his party–and he does.
You have to be living under a rock not to know what the Pelosi-led Democrats have been up to the past several years. By saying it happened three years ago, doesn’t make sense. If he was that fed up with the Democrats, he would have changed his voter registration well before 2009.
Welch remained a registered Democrat through the 2008 election. Is he going to tell us that Sestak was a kid in the neighborhood, too?
Welch touts himself as a sharp businessman, and yet was duped by Sestak. Again, he remained a registered Democrat through the primary and general elections of 2008. Who did he vote for in 2008? His political astuteness is questionable, he party hops, and voters in PA-6 will not tolerate that.
The fact that Welch bought into Sestak’s rhetoric is alarming. You can cut the campaign rhetoric with a knife these days.
[more at link]
FB = An Eighth Commandment-free zone dominated by codependent narcissists and voyeurs.
I can no longer trust my government.
This is bullshiola I saw just as much Dem bs on facebook than GOP, please
This is bullshiola I saw just as much Dem bs on facebook than GOP, please
Electronic voting machines. The fix is in. If people can’t see that then they are truly sheep.
I can no longer trust my government.
&&&
Yep!
I’m not sure how FB pushes agendas into the little circle of my FB friends.
It’s a code word. ‘extreme’ means ‘prolife’, ‘pro traditional marriage’. We can’t have that, can we?
Uhhh! Flawed argument. If Facebook is an “echo chamber” - and it probably is - it is a politically neutral. It also elevates extreme liberal views and they won.
What’s this thing called “Facebook?”
Oldplayer
What? Two paragraphs about the amazing turnout for Romney, then the author blames Romney’s loss on Facebook????
It was FRAUD, not FACEBOOK.
Steve Welch backed Obama in 2008 when it was cool to do so, and then turned back Republican so that he could run for higher office, but fooled no one. Who cares what he says?
B U L L _______.
Facebook? Really? Like that is a singular news source/ Give me a break.
And note the not so subtle slaps at the Pennsylvania Pastor Network that his onetime opponent, Sam Rohrer is now President of. (I voted for Sam in the primary). Sour grapes much?
After Welch told me he worked for the Sestak campaign, I cut him off right there. I wish him well in his business but don’t ever want to see him again in politics.
It’s a place on the inter web that now sells your personal info due to their b/s
“global Governance vote” For all of you fb users Big Brother is truly watching you if you have an acct
Hmmm. if figures.
The commentary is pure fallacious thinking and poor logic.
Of *course* at a rally you will hear and see confidence. Who wants to go to a rally and not have that?
And frankly outside of Philly, Romney did have the majority of the vote. But PA goes Dem because the Dems rack up several hundred thousand margins in Philly.
So how does facebook ruin politics? It doesnt. You just have to be smart enough t know that just because it is the ‘consensus’ among your group, its not the view of everyone.
If a *CANDIDATE* cant get that, he’s a moron.
that said, a lot of Republicans were blindsided, I think mainly by the fact that we felt our ground game would be better and Obama’s ground game not as good as it was.
Worse, we did not understand why and how so many stupid people came out to vote for such a terrible and failed president. Now, maybe facebook is to blame for that shallow thinking ... but I doubt it. There was plenty of that in all the media, and the real shame was the failure of Romney and GOP to rebut was is really the worst kind of blame-passing possible.
And apparently a RINO too. “His political astuteness is questionable... ,” Apparently so!!!
Acapesket,
Whew! I’m Safe! (At least until the Ubamugabe Brownshirts break through Mr. Robinson’s firewalls and track me down!)
Oldplayer
Look, from turnout reports it seems the Rats packed the polls the old fashioned way: by scaring up any warm body they could on Election Day, without caring much even if they were delivering said body to the correct poll. Touch screen ballots have their own particular glitches, but so do punch ballots with their chads and the old fashioned lever machine.
The problem is the assumption that having the facts available and well presented will result in support for the truth.
Liberals are blind to the truth and incapable of assimilating facts, inconsistent with their warped ideology.
Too bad “somebody” threw out the “Book of Wisdom”.
This problem is well explained there.
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