Posted on 03/01/2013 4:58:38 AM PST by Kaslin
What can you do with a man like Chris Christie?
The answer, according to many with the conservative movement: Throw him overboard. And while we're at it, let's toss the gays over the side too.
The popular governor of New Jersey has certainly angered many conservatives, including this humble scribe. During the crucial final days of the presidential election, Christie didn't merely embrace President Obama, he all but endorsed him.
Then, during the congressional fight over the disaster-relief bill for victims of superstorm Sandy -- a bill with more pork in it than a Jimmy Dean factory -- Christie denounced Republicans who wanted to move the legislation a few micrometers closer to kosher. Christie, who built a reputation as a fiscal conservative, not only didn't care that the relief bill contained, among many other porcine baubles, millions for Alaskan fisheries (which are roughly 4,000 miles out of Sandy's path), he acted as if Capitol Hill Republicans should be ashamed for even mentioning it.
Oh, and he parroted the gun-control line and flip-flopped on accepting a federal bribe to accept Obamacare funding to expand Medicaid.
Now, in fairness, Christie has his reasons for doing all of these things. Some are pretty defensible, others far less so.
But whatever the strengths of his positions, no one attending this month's Conservative Political Action Conference will hear them.
The sociology of CPAC is hard to describe to people outside the conservative movement. In a sense, it's the Comic-Con of conservatism, overflowing with stalls and barkers like a Middle Eastern bazaar. It also serves as a de facto political convention for the ideological base of the Republican Party.
And that's why CPAC's decision to not invite Christie was probably a mistake. I've enjoyed my visits to CPAC. (Heck, I was named its conservative journalist of the year in 2011.)
The problem is that CPAC is the first bottleneck in the Republican presidential pipeline, and at precisely the moment the party should be making every effort to be -- or at least seem! -- as open as possible to differing points of view, it's chosen to exclude the most popular governor in the country. (He has a 74 percent approval rating in deep-blue New Jersey.) Why? Because, a source familiar with CPAC's internal deliberations told National Review Online, Christie has a "limited future" in the Republican Party due to his position on gun control.
C'mon, really? The man is going to be re-elected as a Republican. That's a little future right there. Also, CPAC is chockablock with speakers who have a limited future -- or even a limited past -- in the Republican Party.
But most important, since when is CPAC an organ of the Republican Party? Christie's future in the GOP is up to Republican voters. I happen to hew closer to CPAC's apparently official position on gun control than to Christie's. But I'd love to hear him talk about school reform and his battle with public-sector unions. I'd love to see him debate someone on gun control or on how to cut government spending in a climate where people like Christie are so quick to demagogue crisis-exploiting spending.
Heck, I'd like to hear debates on pretty much any and every issue dividing factions on the right, including gay rights. But CPAC has declared that gay groups can't even set up a booth this year. It's one thing to hold firm to your principles on traditional marriage; it's quite another to say that dissenting gay groups -- that is, conservative gay groups -- can't officially hand out fliers on the premises (as they were allowed to in the past).
Some will no doubt see this as CPAC bravely holding the line. But it reads to many in the public as a knee-jerk and insecure retreat at precisely the moment conservatives should be sending the opposite message. Maybe the near third of young Republicans who support gay marriage are wrong, but CPAC won't convince them -- never mind other young voters -- of that by fueling the storyline that conservatives are scared of gays.
It's not CPAC's fault that the borders of conservatism are shrinking, but it would be nice if at this moment it acted less like a border guard keeping all but the exquisitely credentialed out and more like a tourist board, explaining why it's such a great place to visit -- and live.
And another thing...
Rush keeps talking about the ‘low-information voter’ and with good cause.
But do you know the principle reason why we have so many low-information voters that hardcore socialists who hate America and most Americans keep getting elected?
It’s not just our socialist indoctrination system (AKA public schools and colleges/universities). And it’s not just the leftist media and other opinion-makers. That is just the set up.
There are so many low-information voters because the “opposition” which used to be and should be the Republican party, does not offer an alternative view of the propaganda that is being spewed by the leftists.
The Republican party (the RINOs, the GOPErs,the limousine and country-club liberals) are so afraid of being attacked by pop culture and the state-run media and are so particularly terrified of being called a racist by opposing the policies of the ‘first African-American president,’ that instead of presenting an opposing argument, they simply present a ‘kinder, gentler’ version of hardcore socialism.
That has proven a dismal failure for the GOP at the polls.
Now they are compounding that failure by trying to appeal to the same voting blocs that typically vote for the Democrats, and by presenting the same socialist-lite program.
This will also prove to be a dismal failure.
What the Republican party needs to do (or any party that wants to win elections and represent the true majority of Americans) is simplify their message and focus on those policies that nearly all Americans can identify with.
The TEA party had a program that rose so quickly in popularity that George Soros rushed into action to create Occupy Wall Street to counter and destroy their gaining strength.
What are some of those core, conservative principles?
1. Do you support private property? Remember, money is a form of private property. When the government confiscates your income, they are confiscating your private property.
2. Do you want Americans to be as prosperous as they are willing to work to become?
3. Do you agree that the government should not spend money it does not have? That it should not borrow that money to spend today and thereby force our children to pay off that massive debt?
4. Do you agree that the federal government has grown so big and powerful and ominous that it is a mutated monster of what the United States Constitution envisioned and proscribed?
5. Do you want Americans to be as free as possible?
6. Do you want to defend America from foreign attack and foreign invasion?
7. Do you agree that America does have its own unique culture and that our culture is worth defending?
8. Do you agree that traditional Judeo-Christian morality and principles provide the best framework for ensuring the protection of all these principles?
9. Do you want your children to inherit this same view of America that you cherish?
If the GOP wants to win and they want to educate those low-information voters, they need to present a clear, alternative message...the conservative viewpoint, which is the viewpoint of the true majority of Americans.
It is not a majority but a coalition of minority, special-interest groups are bashing our heads into the sidewalk because we are not unifying behind a simple, alternative message and we are not presenting that message boldly.
Some seem to not be able to parse the acronym CPAC.
It is not the GOPAC. In fact, the two words "Republican" and "Action" would seem to be mutually exclusive these days.
Agreed. They are always looking for an accommodation, which eventually leads to becoming a libtard.
Most of us Freepers were warned about him, by other Freepers who actually have to deal with this character, when he first started coming into the spotlight. Realization comes slowly when we are searching for someone, anyone, to take on the libtard administration.
At any minute of the day Chrispy Kreme is one powdered donut away from changing over to a Democrat. I look for that to happen in the next 4 years. He has no business at CPAC which stands for Conservative Political Action Committee.
And the GOP continues to slide leftward. Eventually Republicans will openly advocate sodomite marriage and abortion. I’ve seen a couple of posters here opine that we need to shut up about abortion if we’re going to win elections.
This is the tip of the iceberg, IMO.
I've given up on CPAC some time ago. FR was right to boycott them in 2011 over the gay flap, I'm not sure why they got favorable coverage here in 2012 because the issue hadn't gone away.
CPAC overall has become too libertarian and Ron Paul friendly for my tastes. They're supposed to be CPAC, not LPAC. As someone else noted, I don't have a problem with "gays", if a "gay conservative" wants to attend CPAC, more the power to him. I DO have a problem with "gay activists", however. If your organization wants to push for gay marriage, gays in the military, etc., find another venue to do it. I'm not drinking the kool-aid that that's a "true conservative" position.
Jonah Goldberg has had an annoying habit of piking conservatives in the back over the Sodomy and Pederasty Agenda -- and his word choice in the above quote shows him doing it again: "scared of gays"? Notice the bandwagon appeal: "near third of young Republicans". (Notice he didn't say "young 'conservatives'" because nobody can be pro-gay and conservative at the same time.)
And notice that neither is a proper argument: ad hominem and ad populum appeals to motive in lieu of support in the same sentence. That's demagoguing the issue, all right.
Knock it off, Goldberg. Go have a watercress sandwich with your pal Grover Norquist or something.
Reading this guy is becoming a little more tedious, because less authoritative, than reading Karl Rove, his boss.
RP isn't the problem. Rove is. And whoever runs him.
Its a conservative thing right?
Why should they pander to non-conservative fringes?
Good points, Mr. Gracchus.
Jonah Goldberg is agnostic, pro-abort, pro-homosexual marriage and generally condescending toward social conservatives. Just like Charles Krauthammer. Many conservatives never notice that.
There is one self identified libertarian babe I love watching,
Michelle Fields is guest on Cavuto every Friday for segment on government spending stories,
Today they were on the Chicago public schools teaching sex Ed to kids.
She really ripped the public schools pointing out how
they are wasting taxpayers money on sex ed when the kids reading and math proficiency is only about 17%.
She said the purpose of public schools is to make public school teacher’s lives better while ruining the kids lives by making them useless, WOW.
Her being young and cute helps too, she is far better looking than the Paul’s.
I am sympathetic to libertarianism in one respect.
No more costly useless land wars. Bush/McCain/Cheney cured me of that foolishness.
The Paulbots are definitely a problem.
Unless you hate Israel and winning elections.
I’m going to bother.
Goldberg is a fricking idiot. He admits Christie helped Obama, which is treason to the party let alone to conservatism (not to mention the country), but thinks he should be invited anyway? Invite some fat piece of crap who basically kissed Obama’s ring? He’s not a conservative Jonah.
And gays? That’s just as dumb Jonah. Truly conservative gays don’t form gay groups, they live their damn lives in private as they should, they don’t wear being gay as a political identity. These GOProud people are *mostly* conservative gays who support gay marriage and a few other liberal polices, the point of their group is to push conservatives to be pro gay. No liberal advocacy at “CPAC”. Would you let “Republicans for tax hikes” hand out flyers?
You are right those other people shouldn’t have been invited either. Newt? Mitt? 2 more non conservatives and feckless losers to boot. Both of them should be buried alive never to be heard from again.
Good is losing to evil because of the ever increasing amount of stupid people voting.
These people have been enfranchised over the last 100 years and now are automatically registerrd to vote when they get a drivers licence.
Collapse is inevitable and the situation untenable because the true majority of Americans are morons
The Founders didn’t put a right to vote in the Constitution for a REASON.
The GOP/conservatives have already lost a huge number of younger voters because of the perception that we are anti-gay. It’s getting so I hardly know anyone in my own life who’s 30 and under who isn’t sympathetic to the whole ‘gay marriage’ business. They otherwise would be ‘conservative’ but to them the gays agenda is the civil right issue of the new millennium.
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