Posted on 01/23/2013 8:16:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
While the usual wishful thinking about the Tea Party's demise is being bantered about in the left-wing blogosphere, one of our own -- California Republican political consultant Tony Quinn -- recently joined the chorus of prognosticators. His premise is that because the Tea Party fielded "idiot" candidates like Angle and O'Donnell in 2010 and Akin and Mourdock in 2012, Republicans lost the Senate, and their strident calls for fiscal sanity, limited government, and lower taxes caused all manner of mayhem for Boehner in the House, ultimately empowering Obama and the Democrats.
Support for Christine O'Donnell was misplaced, even though her opponent, Mike Castle, did not vote with Republicans 100% of the time. His seat was a guaranteed win that we needed. If Republicans and the grassroots had any kind of unified strategy or means of communication, the Delaware senate seat would have been a strategic gain even if it wasn't a principled one.
This battle between candidates whose conservative principles jive 100% with the Tea Party and those who have some differences but could win their liberal states is nothing new. Some of us hold tight to our conservative principles but recognize the importance of strategic alliances to gain a seat in a liberal district -- there's no sense riding your principles over the cliff. Others don't, and so we often find ourselves at odds in primaries.
Tea Party and Republican support for Todd Akin and Mourdock plunged after their absurd remarks (even though they remained on the ticket). But Akin was no more a Tea Party candidate than his primary competitors. He won because of a three-way conservative race that split the votes.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Do you grasp how idiotic you sound? I mean, you're just leaking out pure nonsensical drivel.
Romney was not a strong nominee and certainly had liberal social positions in the past, but he most certainly was not running against Christians. I mean, that's just dumb. Nor was running on things like abortion considering he won the endorsement of the National Right to Life and most other pro-life groups.
ansel, trading comments with you here is like trying to communicate with a child. You don't make sense much of the time, you think shouting "rino" somehow helps make your points, you think insulting the Mormon faith (a very conservative voting block) gets us anywhere, etc. In short, you don't further the cause of conservatism. In fact when you post dumb stuff like this, you probably do conservatives more harm than good. We could use your vote ansel, but other than that you are a liability.
How can you not know the simple facts about your party’s presidential candidate?
Mitt Romney was anti-Christian in his agenda, without even getting into his leadership in an anti-Christian cult.
Romney ran pro-abortion television ads, on protecting abortion options, he also in a televised CBS interview rejected the GOp pro-life platform, and returned to his pro-abortion position, this was just after locking up the nomination.
Romney restated that he would do nothing about the success of the implementation of his 20 year goal of homosexualizing the military, nor changing his mind about supporting homosexual Scout leaders.
Idiotic would be not knowing those facts, being rino would be knowing those facts and lying to pretend they don’t exist, while attacking the tea party and conservatives.
ansel, you just sound stupid. This is exactly the kind of idiocy that comes through in most of your comments here. Your statements are absurd.
Romney was a lackluster nominee with a liberal record on social issues in his past, but he most certainly was not anti-Christian and most definitely wasn't running against Christians. Additionally he was absolutely NOT running as a pro-abortion candidate and he had the support of major pro-life organizations including National Right to Life and Susan B Anthony List. Your continued Mormon bashing is just childish and sad. Like I said, you're a liability to conservatism.
You sure are a nasty worded poster, but you don’t know much about Mitt Romney and his campaign.
After winning the nomination, your man was running pro-abortion television ads in Ohio and Virginia, Romney pointedly rejected the republican pro-life platform when asked if he supported it, and came out for abortion on demand, with “health” of the mother.
Are you denying those facts?
Yep and I’d take RINO GOP majorities here in IL any day. The GOP needs to find and develop Giulianis in every major city in America. It’s stupid to quit the cities when that’s where people are living and moving to. Small gains in urban environments give us governorships, state houses and build our bench. We need to be high profile and when we win aggressive in moving our agenda forward. Federalism works and we need to practice it and publicize the victories.
Patton was right - Americans like a winner.
The trouble is that O’Donnell is a dingbat and Akin and Mourdock ran like amateurs. Do they really think the media is their friend? We cannot afford to lose winnable races.
In politics it’s a zero-sum game. We need majorities to move our agenda forward. Without a majority it’s a tough slog, trust me I know first hand. So given that we’re a reality-based community what should we do?
In Illinois the best we’ll get is a Mark Kirk-type Republican. Is he better than Dick Durbin? Absolutely. Is Mark Kirk my type of conservative? Not at all and barely close. Would the nation be better off with two Kirks from Illinois or two Durbins? That’s the question to ask/answer.
If I understand Longbow correctly, he’s arguing the same thing. Not that we should reject conservatism, but that we need electable candidates. Given our interests we need to find the most conservative, electable candidate.
Thompson from WI didn’t meet the above criteria. So this doesn’t mean we have to acquiesce to RINOs. It just means that we cannot have O’Donnells in 2014 or Akins and Mourdocks shooting themselves in the foot. Romney won both states. They didn’t. Had they won things would be much sourer for the One.
We need to look at each race/state independently. America isn’t monolithic and kids don’t learn conservatism until reality strikes...and sometimes even then it doesn’t take effect.
The Tea Party is demonuzed by the Left because they are patriots who will stand, fight against, and expose the lies and deception they disseminate. The Tea Party is nowhere near close to dead. In fact they are gathering even larger numbers and solidifying their base and learning to change their tactics by taking the time to study the enemy to see what makes him tick and the strategies they employ. One thing has become clear - Intellectualism is one of the Achilles Heels of the Left. It is not the advantage they believe it to be. In fact it can be used as a weapon against them.
I know exactly what Mitt Romney was. It's why I didn't support him in the primaries. Once it became clear he was going to be the nominee though, I supported him like most other conservatives did - as the only vote that had any chance of stopping Obama.
After winning the nomination, your man
Do you really want to keep up with the childishness? As Mark Levin said, I'd vote for a soup can over Obama. Once it was clear Mitt was the nominee, it was time to support him. If you voted 3rd party or for some vanity candidate, you were a fool.
Romney ran on a pro-life platform. He had the support from pro-life groups once he became the nominee. He claimed one of his first actions would be to defund Planned Parenthood in his budget. He also declared that he would reinstate the so called "gag rule" which would stop US funded NGO's from doing abortion counseling. You may think Romney was not pure enough on the issue, but he ran as a pro-life candidate. Period. You're claims otherwise are BS.
Personally I don't believe Romney cared one way or the other about abortion or many other social issues. He was a chameleon, which is why I didn't support him in the primaries - because I never really trusted him. Still, he ran as a pro-life candidate and he had the support of pro-life groups. You can fight with National Right to Life, Family Research Council, and Susan B Anthony List, etc, and other pro-life groups if you want because they all supported him through the election in November.
ansel, you're just full of crap. You don't don't know what your are talking about, you resort to childish tactics and namecalling, and you add nothing to the debate.
We need to look at each race/state independently. America isn’t monolithic and kids don’t learn conservatism until reality strikes...and sometimes even then it doesn’t take effect.
Exactly correct. This is precisely what I am trying to get across at every opportunity. And yeah, it runs afoul of the impatient purist types who think running a Pat Robertson clone for Governor of some socially liberal blue state is a worthwhile endeavor. Some of these people just don't want to hear that their purist firebrand candidates who spout silly conspiracy theories aren't up to the task of winning elections.
The lesson is simple, nominate the MOST conservative candidate that CAN win. That means our candidates have to be more than just right on the issues, they have to have good political instincts and skills as well - AND they have to be able to stand up to intense scrutiny since conservatives are always attacked by the media.
Republicans lose many races, and until recently, that was the norm, and now these rinos memorize every loss that wasn’t fully approved by the GOPe and pretend that it is because conservatism is wrong.
In the meantime rinos keep losing election after election, sure incumbent rino Senator Scott Brown lost his Senate seat, but rinos want to talk about Angle not taking the seat of the Senate majority leader, but the biggest rino of all, the most important race in America, a race that was impossible to lose, the presidency, was a rino disaster, so what do the rinos want to talk about? Christine O’Odonnell’s failure to take Joe Biden’s senate seat back in 2010.
Palin’s judgement seems vastly superior to anything that we have ever seen in identifying conservative breakthroughs, her involvement in about 80 races has proven her the greatest endorser in history.
Don’t listen to the anti-tea party rinos. Karl Rove for instance spent 100s of millions of dollars on zilch, in 2012, while Palin gave us Cruz and our only Senate seat pickup, and success in other races, too bad her efforts against Akin didn’t pay off.
Your posts are just far too long because of the mass of personal insults and gibberish and lies.
Romney did not run on the GOP’s pro-life platform, he publicly rejected it, and announced a list of exceptions which amount to abortion on demand (health), and started running pro-abortion TV ads on preserving abortion “options”.
Romney restated that he would do nothing about the success of the implementation of his 20 year goal of homosexualizing the military, nor changing his mind about supporting homosexual Scout leaders.
You are denying the facts, but we have the video.
Romney ran as a pro-life candidate. Period. He was endorsed by most, if not all, of the major pro-life organizations. Even when Romney tried to avoid talking about abortion, the pro-life groups publicly stuck by him. You may think he's lying, you may think he isn't pure enough on the issue, you may not like that he didn't adhere to the exact GOP platform position, but he did run as a pro-life candidate and won the backing of pro-life organizations. You are flat out lying when you claim he ran on a pro-abortion platform.
Romney restated that he would do nothing about the success of the implementation of his 20 year goal of homosexualizing the military,
The ban on open homo's in the military isn't going to come back. That train has left the station. The public seems to support the abolition of DADT and no Republican will run in a general election for the reinstatement of it. We've lost that fight. Elections have consequences, that's why defeating Obama was so important in 2008 and 2012 - even if that meant the Republican alternative would have been a mushy moderate on many issues.
And this nonsense you spout about Romney running against Christianity is just foul and stupid. You may disagree with him on issues, but to accuse him of running against Christianity is low even for you.
So you are claiming that Romney did not run TV ads supporting some abortions?
You are claiming that Romney did not reject the republican pro-life platform and announce his support for some abortions, including “health”?
I notice that you don’t try to deny his 20 year goal of homosexualizing the military, and supporting homosexual Boy Scout leaders.
Your just wasting time ansel. You lied. You said Romney ran as a pro-abortion candidate and he didn't. You said Romney ran against Christianity and he most certainly didn't. In fact, overwhelmingly more church going Christians voted for Romney than Obama. They certainly didn't vote this way because they thought Mitt was running against Christianity.
And the mormon bashing thing you continue doing is just foul. It's one thing to disagree with Romney, but to accuse him of being some Christian bashing cult leader is just low rent. I mean, it's typical of your posts and I'm not surprised, but it's just classless.
ansel every time you post some new nonsensical commentary you just prove my point. You're not particular thoughtful, you do not understand political tactics and strategy and, at least at the moment, you are a liability to the conservative movement.
Your just wasting time ansel. You lied. You said Romney ran as a pro-abortion candidate and he didn't.
Romney says that he did. This he said after he locked up the nomination.
PELLEY: Well, the platform as written at this convention for the Republicans does not allow for exceptions on abortion with regard to the health of the mother or rape or incest. Is that where you are?
ROMNEY: No. My position has been clear throughout this campaign. I’m in favor of abortion being legal in the case of rape and incest, and the health and life of the mother.
You need to take this up with National Right to Life, the Susan B Anthony List, CatholicVote, Family Research Council, etc, etc, etc. These are the dominant pro-life organizations in this country and they endorsed Romney as a pro-life candidate. The fact that Romney has a squishier pro-life position on rape/incest and “health” of the mother than the RNC platform does not mean he isn’t running as a pro-life candidate with the support of the major pro-life organizations.
This idiotic idea that your spouting that Romney ran against Christianity is just utter nonsense. It’s a flat out lie. You are absolutely lying when you say Romney ran on a pro-abort platform. Christian and pro-life groups all across the nation supported Romney. Overwhelmingly, religious, church going voters supported Romney over Obama.
ansel, your just trying to change the subject anyway. And you had toss out lies to do it. One of the points of this article was that the Tea Party (and movement conservatives) need to be wiser about who we nominate. As the article points out, nominating Christine O’Donnell and dingbats like her was a mistake. You were wrong to support nominating flakes like her. We argued about this years ago and you were wrong then, and you are wrong now - and you’ve clearly lost this argument and might even be smart enough to know it. We left Senate seats on the table because of a lack of political savvy from yourself and people that think like you - that don’t understand how important it is to nominate the most conservative candidate that CAN win (not just the most conservative candidate).
LOL, when any question arises about your agenda, and your obsession against the tea party, and your unshakable defensive, protective posture on Mitt Romney, this thread will serve as a great record of proof.
Proof that you're dishonest and not very bright, yes. But that's long, long been a matter of record.
I completely agree and I don’t understand the arguments against this cogent and reasonable approach. Akin and Mourdock shot themselves in the foot. They should have won.
You clearly have the political savvy to understand these things. A lot of people simply don't. Their heart is often in the right place, but they confuse realism and pragmatism with weakness and timidity.
Our message on this thread is correct, and I think the Tea Party and movement conservatives will learn from past mistakes and be more mindful of how important electability is. The conservative movement should always be on the offensive, pushing the envelope of what is possible - but there is no point in nominating and backing candidates that have no chance to win. Backing miserable loser candidates is terribly counterproductive and doesn't just cost us the seat they were vying for, it hurts us down ballot and across the country if they wind up saying stupid things about rape, etc.
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