Can a Traditional American Conservative Win the Presidency and Secure the Nation and our Liberty?

Obviously, the biggest issue for the Democrats in 2008 will be the war. They're betting their entire stake on the hopes that America is fed up with the war dragging on so long, and they're convinced that their big wins in 2006 were due primarily to President Bush's determination to stay the course, versus their own antiwar stance. Hillary is furiously back pedaling trying to distance herself from her own pro war votes as her popularity erodes away and shifts to the up and coming antiwar superstar, Barack "Osama" Obama. And most of the lesser Democrat presidential wannabes are falling all over themselves trying to out coward the front runners. Whomever gets the Democrat nod will be running primarily on the "End the War Now, Bring the Troops Home" ticket.

And, naturally, the Republicans are going to run on the "Fight on to Victory and Secure the Nation" platform. All of the Republican front runners are convinced that they can win on this issue. But, they feel they must pickup some percentage of the Democrat vote and or of the liberal leaning swing vote. So, to varying degrees, the front runners are banking on certain liberal mainstay issues. They're saying they're okay with abortion rights, gay rights, gay unions, gays in the military, gun control, global warming, open borders, illegal alien rights, immigration reform (amnesty), big government entitlement programs or other liberal issues. They seem to be falling all over each other competing for their fair share of the mushy middle vote that may make their day.

So we have one side wrapping up the treasonous antiwar vote (probably around 40% of the total vote) while the other side clearly wraps up the patriotic peace through victory vote (another 40% of the vote). The Democrats will naturally pull in their liberal/socialist base (which is largely the antiwar vote) and the broken glass Republican base will be true to the GOP (their 40% of the vote), although the Christian Right and some of the normally true blue right wing conservatives are growing mighty tired of crawling on bloody stumps looking for scraps.

At any rate, what both sides seem to be ignoring in their fight for the mushy middle may be the 2nd most critical issue of all and an overlooked opportunity for the big win. And that is the fact that half or more of all Americans, regardless of party affiliation, are fed up with illegal aliens flooding into our country through our almost non existent border security. And this during time of war.

The borders must be secured. If the war goes on, an insecure border sets us up for terrorists smuggling in weapons that could kill tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Americans. Dirty bombs, chemical or biological weapons, etc.

Even if the Democrats are successful with shutting down our Iraq war efforts, the terrorists are not going to stop. In fact, they'll be emboldened. And freed from fighting over there, they're bound to bring their efforts here. They're going to continue hating us and wanting to wipe us off the face of the planet regardless of what the Democrats may do.

We must defend the nation. We must defend our national security. We must seal the borders now. And we must get control over who and what is coming into our country.

Also, Americans are tired of paying the costs of the growing flood of illegals. The costs are measured in terms of lost American jobs, costs of educating their children, health care costs, housing, welfare, gang violence, crime, costs of capturing, prosecuting and incarcerating illegal alien criminals, overcrowding crumbling cities and towns degrading into slums and barrios, failure of the illegals to assimilate or even to learn our language. Press one for English.

If I'm not mistaken, most if not all of the front runners of both parties are either soft on illegal immigration or are outright in favor of wide open borders and awarding constitutional "rights" to illegals if not immediate full citizenship. This is a national disgrace. And if not stopped will lead to an erosion of our national sovereignty and or to disastrous terrorist attacks of historic proportions. Again, our nation and our borders must be secured!

I sincerely doubt that any Democrat candidate is going to run on a platform of securing the borders and I don't recall any of our front running Republicans declaring that they will seal the borders either, so now what?

Are there any Republican candidates out there who will step forward and not only pledge to win the war, but also to place the nation on a secure war footing? Secure the nation? Seal and secure the borders?

I believe that a qualified Republican candidate with a solid conservative track record, including a record of fighting for full national security has a shot of overtaking the current weak (conservatively speaking) front runners and winning the Republican nod. I also believe this candidate will win over the cowardly antiwar, pro illegal immigration, liberal Democrat whether it be Hillary, Osama Obama or whomever.

By the way, why are we so eager to give up on our traditional American conservative values and principles? I don't know about you, but I'm not about to give up fighting for God, country, family, life, liberty and our traditional American heritage. Those who wish to merge with the liberals on these critical American issues are in for a rude awakening.

For those of you who do not understand what traditional American conservatism means, I'll lay out what it means to me. Others may think differently, and this won't be all inclusive, but here are some major points that are important to me:

Traditional American conservatives are not going to deny our God. Are not going to give up our guns (without using them first). We're not going to surrender to the abortionists or to the gay rights agenda. We're not going to cave to global warming pseudo science. We're not going to surrender our national sovereignty to terrorists, illegals, the United Nations or to Democrats! We're not going to surrender to tax and spend liberal Democrats or to tax and spend moderate country club Republicans.

We will not surrender to the progressives, socialists or moderates who wish to shove their big government socialist wealth transfer and or perverted social programs down our throats.

We're going to continue defending the nation, defending our national sovereignty, defending our national security, defending our borders, defending our families, defending our constitution, our liberty and our American way of life.

We stand for and defend the constitutionally separated and limited government as envisioned and set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution by the Founding Fathers.

We're going to defend our rights. Our rights to free speech, free religion, freedom of assembly, due process, private property, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not negotiable.

We're going to fight against the activist court. We're going to fight for judges that interpret the constitution according to the straightforward words and definitions as used at the time of the writing and ratification of the document, ie, the original intent.

We are going to fight for stripping the government of its usurpations and expansions from the limited powers enumerated in the constitution.

We stand for and defend our traditional Judeo-Christian God centered American conservative society and family values system.

We believe we were all created equal by our Creator and are endowed with certain unalienable rights, including the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, and we intend to defend same.

We believe it is the primary responsibility of the just government empowered by our consent to defend these rights. And that whenever government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

One party has to disintegrate, usually over a major issue, to make way for a new party: the Federalists made way for the Whigs, the Whigs for the Republicans. I don't see anything as contentious as slavery lining up to slay either the Republicans or Democrats.

Lump all the Culture of Life/Culture of Death issues together, and that's what you'll get. If you want to see the GOP dissolve, watch what happens if (God forbid!), Rudy gets the nomination. It will not be pretty. Which is why I'm urging pragmatic, well-intentioned Republicans and conservatives to abandon Team-Rudy now.

Yes, so? Sad to say but there it is. I am done voting for th lessor of two evils.

As previously stated, you don't extend much intellectual effort in either your posts, or your voting preferences. You have immature expectations of politics - which is an inherently dirty business - and your posts are about as valuable as rotten fruit flung by a retarded monkey at a computer monitor. Furthermore, each and every time you post to me, I call you on your aversion to thinking, and you never learn from it. If this is not how you want to be treated, don't post to me.

Bye.

Ivan

So what to do as a conservative. The only thing to do is to fight for the right man during the primaries and fight for him tooth and nail.

You also have to not give up the fight if they lose in the primaries.

By that, I mean you don't vote for the winner of the primaries if they are a RINO, simply because they call themselves Republican.

If you support the winner and they are not a Conservative, then all you've done is reward liberal thinking in the GOP. That's all.

I voted a lot of third parties in 2006, and some people chastised me here and elsewhere (although after they saw what a nutcase money-chasing lefty Rick Perry has turned out to be in the past few months, some have apologized).

When we vote for RINOs, we are rewarding them. How? Simply with our vote. We are saying "we may not agree with you, but we are going to give you our vote anyway" which sends a very clear message that they can continue to lean left with no repercussions.

Imagine that a focus group of 100 people were made to watch the abortion of a 5 month old baby. What percentage of those people do you think would leave the room "pro-choice"?

One of the reasons the American people are not sold on the pro-life position is that they are not hearing that position articulated.

"Pro-life" for Republican politicians these days is a checkbox on an issues questionairre that keeps the base mollified. No national Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan has actually tried to persuade the American people on the issue.

And the same thing is true of almost every other conservative position. We're trying to win on the same basis as the Democrats ... sappy platitudes about "the children" and a bunch of big-government "compassion" gambits.

When we do that, we may win some battles, but we're losing the war.

It certainly hasn't done us much good here in New Jersey. We now have two liberal parties and I often end up writing in "Mickey Mouse" for our state-wide offices because the Republican candidates are such repugnant liberals.

Your state is the living proof that if we keep electing RINOs, then we'll end up with having to pick from two major parties - liberal and liberal-lite. Texas is starting to turn that way (big surprise - many of our "Republicans" such as Rick Perry are former Democrats), and I'm worried that it will turn that way. We've got a lot of liberal yankees moving into the state (just look at Tom DeLay's old stomping grounds - Fort Bend County, which turned liberal). We've got a lot of politicians who were Democrats and became Republicans simply because they wanted to win, and I'm wondering if they won't switch back in a heartbeat if they need to, in order to win.

Politicians seem to get very addicted to winning and many will do whatever is necessary to continue winning.

Lump all the Culture of Life/Culture of Death issues together, and that's what you'll get. If you want to see the GOP dissolve, watch what happens if (God forbid!), Rudy gets the nomination. It will not be pretty. Which is why I'm urging pragmatic, well-intentioned Republicans and conservatives to abandon Team-Rudy now.

I don't doubt your sincerity on Right to Life issues, however, I don't see a prominent Democrat defecting to run for President on the Right to Life ticket (Martin van Buren defected to run as a Free Soil candidate). When the Republicans formed, they had Whigs, Democrats and the fairly powerful Free Soil party to provide membership. The scenario for disintegration on abortion is simply not as sharp as it was for slavery.

There are a number of reasons for this - partially because participation in politics has (probably) declined over time; there was a time when people wouldn't do business with each other on the basis of party affiliation. Secondly, abortion has more "middle ground" than slavery, which is an either for or against issue. Abortion, one can be against it with exceptions - i.e., mother's life being in danger. There is no "trimester" issue with slavery either.

The best way for conservatives in a year with a weak bench is to pick the most popular candidate, who will appeal to the broad mass of the country, to insert caveats for support, and to start building up the depleted bench by promoting future stars like Michael Steele.

Ivan

Then be prepared for a repeat of 1992 and 1912. Whatever what one thought of Bush Senior (and I was not a big fan), we all would have been much better off if he had won in 1992 - the reputation, pride and glory of the United States would have been much better served.

Don't blame the voters. George H. W. Bush renegged on his tax pledge, gave the base the "finger", and then proceeded to run one of the most awful campaigns in history. He lost because people didn't trust him anymore. He lost with 38% of the vote. That's got to be among the lowest ever for a sitting president.

The lesson for Republicans then should have been don't let a moderate like George H. W. Bush become your front-runner or, God forbid, your president, in the first place. Republicans win by running as conservatives. With an outright liberal like Giuliani as our (spit!) nominee, we should be prepared to go back to being a 38% or less party.

"I would strongly advise against any third party support."

I agree 100%, and for that reason, I am becoming resolved that the heart of the party needs to be fought for RIGHT NOW. We go left at this juncture, kiss your guns, beliefs, and borders goodbye. That sounds harsh, but lets be real honest - Rudy is not going to move right if the DEMs do hold the congress, and that, IMO, is the worse thing that can happen at this point. Any blame will be laid on the President as always, and we lose the chance to regain the attention of the sheeple that make up most of the electorate.

we need to be considering one other very important scenario; unless we can impeach Murtha, the DEMS will be working very hard to cut or realign funding for the war. We get Rudy as the candidate, and the public already thinks the war is over (of course, it won't be, but it will be spun the Congress has now saved us from a demoralized and broken Bush) we've basically got DEM versus DEM lite for no good reason. A very bad thing.

Again, if we want a conservative candidate instead of Rudy, we are going to need to start fighting very hard NOW to get the primary votes that are needed.

Why not fight to keep a conservative Republican party?

Let the party leadership in the RNC know in advance that there is a line you refuse to cross! Explain the issues you wont compromise on. Then let them know that candidate X,Y,or Z will NEVER get your vote, in the primary or in the general election.

Many of us have drawn a line, and especially in Texas, many Conservatives let it be known they wouldn't continue supporting RINOs (the Republican candidate for Governor only got 40% of the vote in the state, which is a clear sign that many of us did vote with our minds).

The problem is, right now, there is a view that the GOP leadership/management's job is to win elections. If that means pushing "moderate" (liberal) candidates, they will do that, because they are under the impression that Republicans will support whoever they push.

I've been around politics a long time - my wife and I have volunteered a lot of our time and energy at the county and state level, including Presidential campaigns, and we are both finished with the GOP, for many reasons, one of which is that Republicans are taken for granted.

I've literally heard people in campaigns say "Republican voters will support us no matter what, I don't care if they get upset, I care about the poll numbers and what the media is saying".

We've got to stop rewarding RINOs with our vote. We can't simply stay home either. I think if people who were fed up with the RINOs voted for a third party (whether it's the Constitutional or the Libertarians), rather than not voted at all, and they got a sizeable chunk of voters (perhaps enough to sway an election if those voters had voted for the RINO instead), I think that would wake up the GOP leadership.

I think conservatives did the right thing...to a point, in 1992. Pat Buchanan's run in the primaries did kick Bush Senior in the right direction. That should have been enough, and everyone should have come home to support him, awful campaign or no.

The fact that some conservatives supported the lunatic with the big ears is pretty horrifying.

Ivan

I don't doubt your sincerity on Right to Life issues, however, I don't see a prominent Democrat defecting to run for President on the Right to Life ticket

Abortion is not the only "Culture of Life" issue. Family issues. School issues. Cultural issues. Limited government issues. All these and more make up "Culture of life" platform. The current Republican platform is strong on all these issues. There's a reason for that--because the base of the party demanded that those issues be put there.

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are singularly weak on these issues--to the point where, in Rudy's case, he is on the extreme opposite end. Ivan, I'm telling you right now--a candidate who openly despises those issues is a dead-meat loser as a Republican--and will split the party if he (spit!) manages to get the nomination.

The fact that some conservatives supported the lunatic with the big ears is pretty horrifying.

Even more frightening is that the lunatic with the big ears probably would have WON the election outright if not for his inexplicable dropping-out-then-getting-back-in routine.

I gladly voted for Bush in 1992. I won't vote for Rudy in 2008. Just in case that tells you something.

Conservatives need to research and research, pick the best CONSERVATIVE candidate and support them with money (what you can afford), post on posting boards for that candidate, call talk shows, write letter to editors and work so hard as if our life depended on it. It may.

That's exactly what we have to do. It's going to be painful and it's going to be tough. Friends of mine who will support RINO candidates, they ask me "are you willing to see an Obama get in the White House". As a matter of fact I am - if it takes an Obama getting into the WH to wake the GOP up to the fact that Conservatives are tired of RINOs, then so be it. Our nation has went through worse.

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