Posted on 04/29/2014 4:53:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
Please explain this: Obama is incredibly unpopular, and Obamacare is one of the main reasons, yet some Republicans are now saying it's here to stay. That is flat-out unacceptable. GOP -- heal thyself.
You don't have to be a radical to understand that the GOP is afraid of its own shadow half the time, that it is suffering from an identity crisis and that it often lacks the courage of its convictions.
We've learned that it's not enough for Obama to be the worst president in the past billion years. Republicans have to give the voters a reason to vote for them and not just against his party.
Don't assume I'm being inconsistent because I have previously rejected the claim that Republicans don't have any plans to offer on health care, the economy and the rest. They definitely do, and they have offered numerous concrete ideas to reform health care, restructure entitlements, reverse our reckless course on taxing and spending, deregulate our administrative leviathan, and rebuild our national defenses.
What I'm saying -- and I've said this before -- is that they have to start acting as if they passionately believe in their ideas and they believe they must be adopted soon. They must make clear their urgency about our dire national situation and quit downplaying it because they're afraid of looking extreme or afraid of receiving an electoral spanking from a growing percentage of voters who are dependent on government.
Let's have more faith in the electorate. Let's have more faith in Americans. Let's not write everyone off because the Obama economy has placed so many in desperate economic straits and on some kind of government assistance.
Republicans have a duty to sell their ideas and to quit running from them. Those who want to grovel to the voters as a lesser version of the Democratic Party ought to be kicked to the curb. This country will not be saved by liberal lite. We must have a 180-degree reversal of our present course.
It has taken a while, but finally the public is waking up to Obama's destructive effect on this country. Even with a conspiratorially dishonest liberal media downplaying every negative bit of news concerning Obama and his policies, the public is still catching on. Many of Obama's formerly die-hard supporters are obviously grasping that he can no longer credibly blame his predecessor for his litany of policy disasters.
The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll shows Obama's approval at 41 percent, "near the lowest level ever recorded in the 20 Heartland Monitor Polls since April 2009." Also: "Only one in four adults say his actions are increasing economic opportunity for people like them, also among his worst showings in the polls." Obama's numbers are particularly bad "in the seven red-leaning states" where Democrats are trying to defend their Senate seats in November.
Democrats can derive no comfort from polls showing that Congress is even less popular. These generic congressional polls always show Congress in disfavor with the public, but they have little correlation to congressional elections, especially compared with presidential approval ratings.
As I've recently written, Obama is pushing his income inequality meme as the latest iteration of his divide-and-conquer electoral strategy, but this poll suggests it's falling flat. Voters are wising to the disconnect between Obama's rhetoric and his results. They know you don't expand opportunity by beating up the rich. Even if they don't know that, they know that his policies are not remedying the problems of which he constantly complains. This poll shows that Obama's no longer escaping blame for the state of the economy.
Further, the poll reveals that only 27 percent said they believe the country is moving in the right direction, and a whopping 62 percent said it is on the wrong track. Think about that for a moment. Finally, people are awakening to the reality that Obama -- not George W. Bush -- "built this" economy. It's on him.
As such, it's time for Republican members of Congress such as Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers to dispense with this talk about Obamacare's being here to stay. There is no room for fatalism in a party that needs to recapture the imagination and support of the American people.
Obamacare is not here to stay. Thoughts to the contrary are noxious to the republic. Do not let this president succeed in completing his destruction of the best health care system in the history of the world just because it might be difficult to disentangle ourselves from Obamacare's poisonous tentacles.
Republicans, quit looking over your shoulders; believe in yourselves. Rediscover your backbone. Full repeal. Full reversal of Obamanomics. Pro-growth policies. Reinvigoration of the free market. Full restoration of America's strength and greatness.
Liberals don’t suffer from an identity crisis. Liberals exist just to destroy.
The GOP leadership is closer to the Rats than the Tea Party and conservatives in general. They are joining forces with the Left to try and destroy conservatives. Losing the 2014 and 2016 elections are a price they are willing to pay to support their breathern Democrats, pass amnesty and retain Obamacare.
I am beginning to hate Republicans as much as I do Democrats.
That's easy. Because some parts of it are popular.
And what made Obama really unpopular was that it was seen as taking away Americans health care, not the personal mandate.
I am sure the author knows this.
Their backbone is fine. They’re using all their strength to destroy their enemies.
Sad to say, Obama is NOT “incredibly unpopular”. Wishing doesn’t make it so.
He has a 41% approval rating, and at least some of the “disapproves” are in that camp because he has not yet replaced Congress with regional workers and peasants soviets.
The Republicans haven’t proposed an alternative to Obamacare because if they discover that the ONLY alternatives are to repeal Medicare or to nationalize the health professions they will become even more unpopular than they are now.
We are in deep, deep s*** and pretending that Obama is “incredibly unpopular” is not helping.
i am so sick and tired of reading and hearing all this happy horseshit about how the Republican elite “lacks backbone” and that’s why they don’t stand up to the Obama administration.
The GOPe and its Chamber of Commerce and Corporate donors stand to make a fortune from Obamacare and other massive Federal Government overreaches. This is a matter of money and lots of it, not a lack of courage.
Boehner and his minions have plenty of courage and backbone when it comes to suppressing the conservative base of the Republican party.
There is NO political, electoral solution to this. We need to realize that and go from there.
David Limbaugh, if he could figure this out, has a platform to support a movement that would really bring back liberty. That there are no popular commentators that have figured this out smacks of conspiracy. They craft a facade that makes us think we’re still in the game. I’ve already figured out that’s what the GOP has been doing for a long time. I’m beyond “Stupid Party”. Are the commentators, even the most conservative, in on it?
Agreed. Someone said that if voting could change anything voting would be illegal.
I saw that quote attributed to Mark Twain just recently.
95 PERCENT OF ELECTED REPUBLICANS AT ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT EITHER REPUDIATE CONSERVATISM OR FAKE CONSERVATISM.
We need a thorough housecleaning of all elected Republicans ASAP...
I will not vote for any of the non-conservatives with an R next to their name in any election period.
In the sense that the official leadership of the GOP is the GOP-E, the GOP is being exactly who it wants to be. My entire adult life with the exception of Ronald Reagan the GOP has been liberal, big-spending Keynesians who like to balance the budget, through higher taxes if necessary, and who like a strong, world defense posture. GW Bush was an on-again-off-again, reaganesque leader, so he was better than many, but he was still a big spender.
It should be clear to us all that the George Bush presidency, when we had Senate, House, and Presidency, is the best definition of who Republicans are. During that time, they increased spending beyond the benefit they received from the Bush temporary tax reductions. They seriously increased entitlements through their Medicare additional coverages, and despite there being a war, they did not enlist the people of America in sacrificing-level frugality to bring that war to an end. (What a great time to have reduced expectations for entitlements if they had had a full-blown WWII level, all-out, 100% push to defeat our enemies.) By now we would have won that war in reality, and we would be looking at lesser entitlements instead of greater.
So, we know who the GOP is. What we really don't know is who the conservatives are. Are we revolutionaries or are we talkers only?
And if we are revolutionaries, then what is our plan to either take over the GOP or to launch out on our own?
Agreed cc. Have we not reached the point where it makes more sense economically to re-allocate money from health insurance to health care? Obamacare is a great example IMO: it's more focused on health insurance than health care, with a new bureaucracy to boot.
They never HAD one.
Reagan had to drag them kicking and screaming to something that vaguely resembled Conservatism.
I know medical care was far less expensive before the days of widespread health insurance. When I was born in 1964 the cost of my birth and hospital stay was less than 2 weeks pay for my dad on a garbageman’s salary (right around $85)
On the other hand, insurance was cheaper for those who had it.
I would throw the insurance industry wide open to competition. People should be able to pay for their precise insurance needs. For instance my teeth and general health are good so I shouldn’t have to pay to insure for those things right now. On the other hand my eyes are going to crap and I have some pretty severe joint issues. While I can’t afford to pay for the whole package, I can afford to insure for my immediate needs.
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