Posted on 01/02/2015 7:30:06 AM PST by Maceman
That is what the primary is for. Vote in the most conservative candidate possible. We didn’t do that in 2012 because most didn’t vote for the right conservative so they all lost. Plus each week we had a front runner and never got any traction. It was way too messy. One conservative Governor is all we need to run. No senators need to run because they are not good at being President. Until we remember that Governors are the ones to support, we will not get a conservative candidate. It is in our hands.
Oh, the GOPe has high motivation for open primaries, and they have a joyfully optimistic outlook of having their guy(s) elected. I know that.
My disagreement with you about the general is that there are millions of low info, or, less insultingly, busy R voters. They might be breastfeeding twins, working three jobs, fighting cancer, whatever. They aren’t tuned in to hot news about politics. They believe in the country but don’t know the details. They would probably vote for Ted Cruz if they had ever heard good things about him. But if a conservative doesn’t make it to nomination, these millions will proudly make their way to the polls, some with oxygen in their noses, some knowing the boss will get pissed if it makes them late to their job, but they will all vote for the non-democrat. NOTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT THAT. They aren’t playing chess with “we’ll kill the GOP in this election, suffer for eight more years, and then we will have our new party.” They just will vote against Hillary.
Also, I am personally angry at my long term thinking, intellectual purity FReepers because my life has been PROFOUNDLY affected by Obama in these latter four years. I’d like to think Romney wouldn’t have doubled down on everything Obama wanted to do. So sue me. FReepers were wrong to stay home, even if I am smart enough to understand their long term strategy. Thinking long term about bullet wounds might just kill the patient.
Your thought process escapes my logic meter. If others have your logic, we'll continue to lose the presidency to the likes of Obama, Warren, etc. I don't think our country would survive as we know it with back to back presidencies the likes of Obama. Nice job.
Yeah. Governor FDR was a wonderful president. So was Governor Carter, who was a great president, as was Governor Clinton, as was Governor Bush, who advanced the big government agenda and failed to defend conservative principles, thus clearing the path for President Obama.
OK, Governor Reagan was a great president. But one does NOT make a trend.
Mitt Romney, also a governor, was a great president. OK, he lost. But his governorship made him a great candidate, and he he WOULD have been a great president if only he had been able to beat the worst incumbent president in the history of our country. Which he wasn't.
Lets look at all our GREAT prospective 2016 GOP candidates who are or were governors: Huckabee? Jeb? Christie? Sorree. I don't think so.
Scott Walker? Much to admire about him, but his being pro-amnesty is a deal-killer as far as I'm concerned.
Truth is: the most important quality for a presidential candidate -- especially in the upcoming election cycle -- is that he be able to articulate conservative principles and have a history of fighting for and working to enact a conservative agenda.
The only one that I see who fits that bill is Ted Cruz.
Count me in. Down with the RINOs and GOP-e!
“I just voted for Goode (Constitution Party)
11-6-2012 | fishtank “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2955774/posts
Look how much love I got that day....
Do you remember how Carter helped bring Reagan?
If we vote for phony conservatives, we put on display a dishonest representation of out philosophy...and it harms the brand.
When a true liberal is in office, their policies and fallacies are on display for all to see.
When a liberal in conservative clothing is in office, their liberal polices and fallacies are wrongly attributed to conservatives.
I hate this—a vote for ______ is a vote for an evil democrat. Thats how the Democrat Progressives act—that not how Republicans act! Lets hear what Jeb, Mittens and the Fat man have to say—then reject them or support them! Mitt might have come up with some new thoughts—And there may well be a dark house out there we do not see. It is up to US—The right wings of the Republican party to select out presidental candidate—Not the media, snarky trolls, Liberal Pundits, Think Tanks or Vichy Republicans.
When a true liberal is in office, their policies and fallacies are on display for all to see.
When a liberal in conservative clothing is in office, their liberal polices and fallacies are wrongly attributed to conservatives.
I guess I'm more of a realist. I realize that the media is in the bag for liberals/socialists/communists. There will never be an honest national dialog about conservatism, as long as the media remains in the bag. What we really need, is for rich conservatives to buy NBC, ABC and CBS, and change the narrative. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Can you imagine how pitifully small the democratic party would be if conservatives had equal representation in the school system and the media? Without those changes, we will not get another hardcore conservative elected. By not supporting the republican candidate in the general election, regardless of the primary results, we have elected Clinton twice and Obama twice.
Under Obama, the EPA has run amuck, the IRS has run roughshod over our citizens, the state department is littered with muslims who support the muslim brotherhood, al quaeda and ISIS, and judgeships have been given to self-proclaimed socialists. Even the supreme court is being filled with incompetent liberal pieces of crap (Kagan and Sotomayor). So while some people want to trash the republican candidate in the general election if they aren't conservative enough for them, the factual result of not supporting the republican candidate, most recently, is President Obama.
At least under Bush, barely a bastion of hardcore conservatism, fired all the federal prosecutors because they would do their jobs. Chaney helped clean up the state department. Militarily, we invested in our forces and technology. Additional regulatory strangleholds on our economy were kept to a minimum, and existing ones were repealed. Tax rates were reduced. The death tax threshold was hiked up tremendously. Capital gains were reduced. God knows how W would have done if he didn't have to deal with the aftermath of 9/11, because Clinton failed to deal with the radicals when the towers were bombed in 1993, the USS Cole, TWA Flight 800, etc.
The bottom line is, although not as hardcore conservative ass you and I would like, I would much rather have another W, than throw my vote away for a third party that has no chance of winning, and in the process, allowing Hillary or Warren to be president for the next 8 years. How do you think New Yorkers are thinking now, about not showing up to the polls when it elected its last mayor? Just curious.
Lets do what we can during the primaries, but lets not throw away the general election just because we didn't get our favorite candidate.
I have advocated the pragmatic approach in the past. I am a principled Conservative. I always want Democrats to lose. However, I do agree with the other Conservatives on FR and want to be rid of the Rinos. There is only one problem, we have to agree on the profile of candidate who is Conservative enough to earn our support. And there is the rub, because up to this point we have not. Just because a candidate does not agree with you on every issue does not make him a Rino worthy of being ousted from the party.
I am just saying that we Conservatives need to decide what the acceptable candidate will look like and how much deviation from perfection we will allow. Once we do this, and it becomes standard operating procedure, then we can effectively work against all others.
I will never vote for a Democrat, not under ANY circumstance. I would sooner vote Libertarian or Constitution Party. I have always chosen the GOP over those two parties in the past, but if we cannot change the GOP that will change in the future.
You misunderstand me. I am not advocating throwing my vote away on a 3rd party candidate. I will use the full power of my vote AGAINST the RINO by voting FOR the dim. I have thrown my vote away on RINOs enough, I have never voted 3rd party for president, and don’t intend to.
If the gop insists on giving us more Jebs and Christies and Romneys and McCains, then I will vote dim.
The folks don’t need the media to tell them we have a lousy president - look at Obama’s numbers; the media has been flacking him harder than they have anyone in my memory.
We did not get Clinton and Obama because people voted third party or didn’t vote - people voted third party because the stupid gop urged Bush to renege on his tax pledge, then gave us Dole, McCain and Romney. Get it straight - I am not here to serve the gop. If the gop wants my vote, then they darn well better give me someone and something to vote for. I am not their lackey to trudge to the booth every four years and dutifully vote for whatever hack they toss against the wall.
If they want my vote, they’d better quit scoffing at my values, and the Tea Party base, and Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, and quit propping up cadavers like Thad Cochran with unethical and illegal voting scams.
If they want my vote, then they’d better tell Boehner and McConnell to break suction from Barry’s backside and start standing for what is right!
I’ve tried your way - but the stupid gop doesn’t want me to have a say in their party. They want to “destroy the Tea Party” (Mitch McConnell’s words.)
I MIGHT consider being loyal to the party, if the party was loyal to me. But when their little favorite crony-boy is beaten in the primaries, what do they do? What did they do in the Virginia governor’s race? They actually supported Terry McCauliff! In the Mississippi senate race they pulled the Thad Cochran stink-pile...it’s not as if they needed to do that to save the seat for the gop, the gop candidate was going to win the seat....but they HAD to have their butt-buddy in there, so they happily screwed the base, the Tea Party, the grassroots voters.
I’ve had it. They keep whining to me to vote for their candidate when the conservative loses the primary....but they refuse to support the conservative candidate when their fancy-pants golden boys go down. Nossir! Not again. Until the gop antes up and practices their own preaching, they’ve seen the last of me holding my nose to vote for their stinking candidates. They have betrayed the base so egregiously, they deserve to be destroyed - and I will, by golly, help destroy them in any way I can!
Bushes, Clintons, Romney-ExtortCare, Fairfax, Va. are all on the same ticket, the Exempt ticket.
Jeb, Romney, Christie -- ALL are EQUALLY BAD. I will vote FOR a plurality by voting third party in the general if ANY of them are nominated. All three are fundamental amoral Democrats registered as Republicans. My vote will go elsewhere.
Maceman, I stand with you.
I did it myself for years.
*sigh*
I'm a little confused. If you vote for a leftist Republican such as Romney, Jeb, Christie, it is a vote for the Republican party to embrace the Democrat agenda. That is what it is a vote FOR achieving. Obviously. That is a plain simple TRUTH
I say, SNUB the leftists with the vote, Republican or not. I know that voting "against" is a fairy tale.
Put it on a third party independent limited government Christian.
Just ... wow. Somebody needs to buy a clue.
There are no "lessons" to be learned. There are only votes FOR directions to go. Most people get that. It's why Romney lost. You can go on taking the sucker's bet of being manipulated into voting for a functional leftist in order to vote "against" Democrats. That's a losers' game.
Most folks know a sucker's bet when they see one.
In 1992, I was stupid enough to vote for Dole/Bush both times. In retrospect, I'd have voted for Perot and proudly. Thanks to you, Gordon, Clinton only got a plurality and it hurt him. That he went into office with a clear majority opposed to him in how they voted, made him weak.
With Clinton, the Republican revolution had real strength, and Clinton was eventually impeached! Thanks to you, Gordon! :^)
Hey, I voted for a plurality in 2012; I voted third party. Either way, a big government leftist was going to end up in the White House -- Obama or Romney -- like Coke and Pepsi. I'll leave that choice to others; my vote will speak that it went to an opposition. The media myth is that Clinton was a "popular" president. Yet most Americans voted opposed to him both times he was elected. Clinton's standing with the media was different than his standing with real American voters. He was a fraud, as Obama is a fraud.
If a Romney ever wins, God willing it only be with a weak plurality, a clear majority of Americans opposed to amoral tyranny. To make it "Republican" seems an abomination. Personally, I think third party plurality is a great way to go strategically to help conservatives in government. If the conservative third party candidate actually wins, so much the better, best (and most unlikely) if they win with a majority instead of a plurality.
Hey, I can dream, can't I? {^)
Romney wasn't a muslim intent on destroying the United States - crappy military rules of engagement; Iraq pullout; degrading our military, providing money and support for muslim brotherhood, ISIS and al quaeda; abused the American people with the heavy handed IRS; destroyed various industries with excessive and targeted EPA regulations; abused the NSA; releasing terrorists and trying to close GITMO, refusing to approve the Keystone pipeline. I could go on and on.
Look, each candidate is going to have his/her own core beliefs. They aren't going to match up exactly to mine or yours. But to throw away a vote to ensure that someone like Obama gets elected, is, in my opinion, the worst of all outcomes.
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