Posted on 02/04/2007 1:31:12 AM PST by Jim Robinson
I've long assumed that the Republican Party platform included pro-life, pro-family and pro 1st and 2nd amendment planks. Is this true or false? Or is the platform amended each election cycle to conform to the positions of the top polling potential presidential nominee (ie, the one with the most money or star billing and the MSM eye)?
If these planks are based on longstanding, sound conservative principles and are sincerely respected and upheld by the majority of the members, then I'd like to propose a motion that before being seriously considered by the official party powers that be, prospective nominees for the office of President of the United States must in the least demonstrate a solid history of being pro-life, pro-family and pro 1st and 2nd amendments, in addition to a solid history of abiding by and fighting for the other basic Republican planks, ie, national security, national defense, limited government, conservative spending, lower taxes, strict constructionist judges, local control of health, education and welfare, etc, etc.
Or is it too much to ask of the politician asking for our support for the highest office in the land to respect and abide by conservative principles and the basic planks of the party platform?
Or is there a movement underfoot to remove these planks from the platform?
LOL Paybacks are hell. Arlen Spector went to bat for Bush on Roberts and Alito. Spector also torpedoing Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork and did a good job of undermining the Clarence Thomas nomination under Bush41. Giuliani has called both CJ Roberts and J Ginsberg two well qualified Supreme Court jurists. That leaves me with the impression that Rudy is talking out both sides of his mouth. Rudy`s lifelong record of supporting liberal issues and leftwing causes, makes me adamantly oppose his candidacy for POTUS. I'm more confident Rudy would nominate liberals like Lawrence Tribe, George Mitchell and Alan Dershowitz to the SCOTUS, then he would to nominate conservatives like J Scalia, J Thomas and CJ Rehnquist.
first you must examine how the merit appointment system of judicial picks in NYC works to understand this. the mayor does not act unilaterally in making these picks, he chooses from a slate that an advisory board generates. NYC has a 9:1 Dem registration, you can imagine what decades of Dem rule means to the composition of these panels. The idea that some republican mayor could just get elected and sweep all that away, and start appointing Scalia clones to NYC judgeships - its just can't happen.
I'll offer up, I won't vote for Rudy if he is the Republican primary winner (which he won't be).
What will you do if Rudy runs as an independent?
I still don't see an answer there - why did Spector support two pro-life (likely) constructionist SCOTUS picks? Because the white house had some leverage on him? no way. where was this "fear of payback" on all the other issues Spector has thwarted the white house on?
Spector is liberal on all the social issues, he should have been the first person to be against them, but wasn't.
Great question!!
I'd have to weigh the odds. Where would my vote be best spent? I'd vote for the candidate with the best chance. It would not be personal but cold blooded math.
Beating Hillary would be the most important issue to me.
Bill and Hillary cannot be allowed in the Whitehouse again.
RM -
You neglected to mention the real reason Specter supported Roberts and Alito.
He had to - otherwise he would not have been in that position.
After the poisonous Specter-Toomey primary in '04, and one day after Arlen dispatched of "Awful" Joe Hoeffel in the general, he did an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that was basically a shot across Bush's bow, in effect warning him not to send anyone to the committee that would support overturning RvW. He inferred that he would give any such candidate the Bork treatment.
Conservatives everywhere, but especially in PA feeling the sting of Toomey's loss, went bananas. Every member of the Senate judiciary committee was flooded with faxes, call and emails, urging them to deny Specter the chair (which he was in line for) and give it instead to Jon Kyl from Arizona, #2 in line and an ardent pro-lifer.
In the end, Specter cut a deal - a very quiet one - with Bill Frist. He would keep the SJC chair only on the condition of pushing through any BUSH SC nominations.
It's a good example of how the conservative grassroots can positively affect public policy through old-fashioned activism. The same thing happened after the Miers debacle - RINOs of FR swore up and down we could never get a true conservative like Alito on the court - you saw how good their advice was then.
The same thing is happening now, but the difference is there is a definite preemptive strike by the liberal RINO contingent, including here on FR, to throw the social cons to the curb and prevent them having the veto power they had over Bush.
Rudy is to be no more trusted than Arlen - just another Northeast liberal RINO who will do or say anything to acquire and maintain power. Believe nothing he says, and put no trust in "conservative" FReepers who claim we must sacrifice principle for victory.
They were wrong before, and they are even more wrong now.
easy answer - I'll look at the polls. I live in NY, if the polls in a 3 way race showed the republican with 10% of the vote, and Hillary or Rudy evenly split 45/45, you bet I'd vote for Rudy. What's my choice, vote with the 10% and give the state to Hillary?
this is what all you "litmus test" folks never take from the debate on these threads - I (and the others who express the same sentiment) am not signing up for any plan that helps to put Hillary Clinton in the white house. period, end of story.
Excellent post Melas, and I agree.
I've kept a low profile on the candidate threads so far, because they've gotten far too heated, far too soon, and I don't want to spend the next 21 months mudslinging with other FReepers.
As far as what matters to me this election cycle, electing someone who will not throw the WOT to the dogs is very high on my list. After that, the 'minor' issues are gravy. There is no candidate today, Democrat or Republican, who will win on a 'gun grabbing' platform, 'abortion-centric' platform or a 'gay marriage' platform for that matter, and I am tired of it being used as a red herring to disrupt the debate about Rudy Giuliani. None of them are issues that should be National Policy issues. They are precisely the kind of social policy Conservatives would be wise to argue should be decided locally.
Neither liberal would give me close to what I'm looking for as a conservative Republican. With Bush43 I've gotten maybe 60% of what I was looking for. With Hillary or Rudy I might get 20%, at best.
As Ronald Reagan wrote in his autobiography, "An American Life":
"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later ....."
I'd rather fight for a conservative to be the GOP nominee, then accept 20% and have to fight for 80% I'll never see. I doubt that will convince you of anything, but it should at least further expose Rudy for the liberal he is. To see conservatives sell out their principles and integrity is quite appalling. It serves no good purpose.
You think maybe he could have found ONE?
Spector could have flipped on that deal. And I guarantee you, if Bush had sent janice rogers brown up for SCOTUS - he would have.
he supported Alito because he was the type of quiet candidate that republicans can get confirmed. not openly anti-Roe (no writings or other public statements), supports the law on the lower courts through stare decisis (as he should), a constitutionalist mindset.
You answered you're own rhetorical questions. Bush handed Spector the Senate's Judicial Committee chairmanship. No doubt about it. Spector supporting Roberts and Alito was a foregone conclsuion. If you look back to Bork and Thomas, you'll see the REAL Arlen Spector. As a liberal Spector wasn't about to roll over on each and every issue that came his way. Example. Look at the Iraq deal today. Isn't Spector siding with the anti-Bush resolution in the Senate? I think so.
I would like to see the data, because staten island is a republican borough - any appointed judge within the structure of the staten island political machine, would have been a republican.
Oh, joy.
What will you do if Rudy is the nominee against Hillary?
Work and vote against liberals, like always.
What do you think FR's policies should be?
Same as it says on the front page and in our host's many comments, especially in recent days: A place to promote conservatism, not liberalism like you're doing.
Should Rudy be listened too or should all backs be turned on him.
As I told you before, I've "listened to" him in detail. And what I hear is radical leftism. BTW, I never turn my back on a liberal. Don't trust 'em.
Should the social right try to undermine a Repub nominee in a time of war because he's what some would consider a "cancer within" ?
If the party picks a candidate that would be left even in the Democrat Party, it won't matter. The GOP coalition will be dead. It might take a while for the funeral services to be held, but it will be dead nonetheless.
as I said below - had janice rogers brown been sent up, no way Spector would have been as agreeable.
Alito was vetted perfectly, and you can get pro-choice politicians to support those kind of judicial picks. that's my only point.
Well, then go on a hunt for a Republican that Giuliani picked for the bench. I can't find one. And, while you're doing so, think about the fact that your support of Giuliani has you looking for such needles in a haystack.
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