Posted on 02/28/2007 7:54:19 AM PST by Al Simmons
Wedge Issues Posted by: “Common Tator” in FreeRepublic.com April 16, 2002
The one thing that amazes me on this site is the belief by some that the conservative position is the majority position.
Mostly people tend to believe it could be the majority position if the right candidate ran, or if it weren't for the media or RINOs or etc, etc. They really don't have a clue.
Roughly 2/3 of the public has firm views. They have made up their minds and do not change them. This group is nearly equally split between the left and the right.
There are about a 1/3 of the population that is never sure. Sometimes it will go left and sometimes it will go right.
When a party restricts itself to its base it will be in a minority party. The "base only" party will be reduced to crying as the other side works its will. In some nations both the left and right restrict themselves to just their base. That nation then develops five or six parties. And all governments in that nation are coalitions of a major party and some of the minor parties. In that situation the minor party always has more influence than its numbers represent. For the Rino and Dino haters that is the worst of all worlds.
Many of Rino and Dino haters try to make ours a 3 or 4 party system. They never figure out that their splinter right or left party would never get much power in a government based on coalitions. They are too small. It is the centrist parties that have a 1/3 of the public as potential members that get the clout in the Multi Party system. As you can see in a 2 party or a 5 or 6 party system the center tends to prevail.
But in our two party system the center is an instrument the major parties use to enact their goals. In the multiparty system it is the center parties that use the right and left to enact their centrist goals. Such a system like those in Italy and France are RINO and DINO paradise.
This nation now and for all of the last 140 years has been roughly 1/3 left, 1/3 right and 1/3 in the middle. Those in the middle who run for office are what we call RINOs and DINOs.
When Republicans drive RINOs out they leave the party to become DINOs and take their political power with them. The Democrat party gets them by default.
Then the Democrats thanks to its Dino buddies have a veto proof house and senate. It was Barry Goldwater's greatest accomplishment. In my BRAIN I knew Barry would elect a lot of DINOs ... and he did.
If a party with most of the center wins the presidency too, they have a filibuster proof senate. That party then can do anything it wants to do. When the party leadership takes control they implement the parties’ core beliefs. It was what LBJ did after Goldwater drove all the RINOs into LBJ's camp. It let LBJ do the "Great Society." LBJ had to have Barry's help to do it. And Barry did what it took to give LBJ the support he needed... LBJ had all the left. Barry gave him all the center.
To win control a party must keep its base and get over half the middle. If the Republicans have more RINOs than the Democrats have DINOs the Republican agenda prevails. If the Democrats have more DINOs than the Republicans have RINOs the Democrat agenda prevails.
Those that demand the defeat of RINOs are doing all they can to enact the leftist agenda. They are the most valuable asset the left has. One of the most effective tactics in politics in the negative campaign.
Negative campaigns are not about getting votes for your candidate. They are about getting the other side's base to not vote for their candidate. Thus if you can get the right to vote against a Rino or not vote at all, you can elect a very liberal candidate.
If you can force the Republicans to nominate a right wing candidate so right wing he can't get the center voters, you elect the left candidate.
I'm sure some liberal hack will enjoy your money. He's got a couple of kids to put through college, I'm sure, or at least a payment to make on the Mercedes.
Still won't be enough to convince conservatives that he is one, though.
A great thing about Rudy is that he will not pay himself a monthly salary of $10,000 out of campaign donations, like Alan Keyes.
Because it suggests that someone can get what they want on this forum with money, which, IMO, is an insult to our host.
Drop the subject with me. Jim can obviously speak for himself.
Is that a suggestion that Rudy will illegally convert my campaign contribution to personal use, or that someone will embezzle it? Are campaign funds ever misused in your personal experience? I just want to know as a head's up.
He's not a Bolton, but he'd be a stitch at the UN.
It's far too early in the campaign for people to even being picking sides, we don't even know if everyone who is going to declare is known to us.
I've seen perfectly good people being harranged lately and insulted personally.
I haven't made up my mind, but I won't even bother to vote in one of the sidebar polls after that cute comment about "undecided/too dumb to vote" thing.
Yeah, this is a conservative site, but one of the most important things about conservatives is that the are supposed to be decent to each other, or is that a Christian value that no longer exists?
Your toolbox is really empty.
4 posted on 01/02/2007 6:50:35 AM MST by Miss Marple
Yeah boy!
What I said is quite clear, and needs no clarification. The kind of political hacks that work for Giuliani are completely unprincipled, completely mercenary, and are very highly paid. They might leave your contribution for a tip. But, have at it. It's your money.
How do you know this?
People donate to FR to support this forum.
People donate to the 'conservative forces' I mentioned thinking those donations will help their candidate win, not give the candidate a huge salary along with mailing lists with their names on them to be sold for more dollars in the "candidate's" pocket.
It hit me pretty hard when I realized what I was funding was fire and brimstone moral speeches, lavish lifestyles, and not one less abortion for all the hundreds of thousands of dollars donated.
Just so I can more clearly understand where you are coming from. Are you looking for more people like Eternal Vigilance, Spiff, Narses, Reagan Man, Dirt Boy, Delphinium and the like? Are those the type of folks you consider to be *true* conservatives who are helping to further the conservative cause?
And those who aren't in lock step are treasonous liberals in your view?
True, but it's two years out from the election. If this continues, the party will be a total wreck long before the election and who benefits from that?
Because I've watched them operate for years. They're the kind that go both ways. Fitting when you're talking about Giuliani.
Which is an orchestrated lie that originated right here on Free Republic shortly before the 2006 election debacle.
Because of you, someone else is being watched closely. You know, the guy who paid himself 10K Per Month out of campaign donations.
Are you denying Keyes did that, EV??
After all, how could reasonably intelligent people take an election in the midst of a highly unpopular war led by an extraordinarily unpopular president with a GOP controlled congress beset by a variety of scandals and the predominant media acting as the PR wing of the DNC and conclude that it was social issues that hurt the GOP?
I have a theory Al. Those who expound this line of thought do so not because they believe it, but because it furthers their ultimate goal, to expunge those unsophisticated rubes otherwise known as social and Christian conservatives from the Grand Ol' Party. The Christie Whitman "It's My Party Too" wing has been looking for an opportunity to seize back control of the party from the great unwashed for some time now and have concluded that the time is ripe. Think how much nicer it will be for them at all the cocktail parties when they don't have to spend all their time distancing themselves from those awful pro-lifers, I mean for God's sake Al, those people actually stand in front of clinics and pray! Or those NRA people, they own guns! Not just fox hunting guns, but handguns!
Now, maybe I'm cynical, but pushing a pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-homosexual former mayor of NYC seems like a very good way to marginalize all those "fringy" social conservatives and return the party to the glory days of Rocky and Jerry Ford.
If they (notice I didn't say you, because I'm being nice) succeed you can expect the same results at the voting booth.
You throw insults around like candy. Name names.
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