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.
EV turned down a job offer from Karl Rove in Philly at the RNC convention in 2000.
Hopefully. But this thread is a good example of what we're up against.
Yeah, those all-or-nothing Christian voters sure did show the American citizens by preventing a liberal like Bob Dole from becoming President. Good Lord.
You are forgetting something in your calculations: 9/11.
I don't think you guys have a clue about the number of voters whose main issue is the war on terror. Or you do, and that scares you more than terrorism on our own soil.
Gonna be hard to do when you alienate so many who do not share your pup tent.
"Yeah, he's a socialist."
Hmmmm...a socialist who believes in free enterprise, tax cuts and is anti-affirmative action....something wrong with this picture?
I'm talking about returning the party to the same condition it was in before 2000, and not the 1800s.
There was purpose and unity in the party then, and people like yourself were independents and most had voted for Perot or backed pat Robertson.
Those days were a hell of a lot better than the present.
When your house guests trash your property, you have only one course of action, and that is to remove the guests who offend.
See ya!
Better get goin'. Hunter went from 2% to a footnote asterisk in the latest ABC/WaPo poll.
"They'd rather be irrelevant than compromise."
Irrelevant under a Dim admin
Irrelevant under a Republican admin
Either way it's still irrelevant.
I am not even registered Republican anymore. Here in NC, there is no registration for "libertarian" so I am independent. That said, I am fervently pro-life. THAT said, I am for the sovereignty of the states in deciding the issue, the way it was before ROE (legal issues which touch on personal morality, including porn, homosexuality, etc, are best decided locally). I believe in EVERY SINGLE PLANK of the Christian Right, I just don't believe in the usurpation of Federal power to do so. I believe that judges should have a "litmus test" regarding their views on federalism, not abortion. The Christian Right, which I grew up with, has whored itself out to the pursuit of political power on the federal level. It should repent and get back to the job of espousing the happy state of being cleansed by the grace of Jesus, and the personal responsibilities to repudiate the false god of more and more trinkets and toys, while hoping that they can get some guy in power who will stave off cultural collapse. This is worshiping a false god, or what the old faithful called "idolatry."
Seems to me this thread is about you being as divisive as possible. This is what scumbag fifth columnists do, infiltrate a group and try to turn the group against a common cause.
I have no idea where this comes from. I remember Common Tator as a huge Blackwell supporter and local party (Ohio) Republican official. The last I heard was that he had some health problems and needed our prayers.
Common Tator was no liberal, and its shameful to post your obloquy when he can't be here to defend himself.
That is the only name calling you recognize? That's pretty dishonest.
OK. I AM GONNA POST IN CAPS SO EVERYONE SEES THIS REPLY.
BY 'RUDY-HATER' I HAVE REFERRED (AS I EXPLAINED EARLIER) TO ABOUT A HALF-DOZEN POSTERS WHOSE VICIOUS POSTS ARE ACCURATELY DESCRIBED AS SUCH. THOSE ARE THE FOLKS THROWING WORDS LIKE "TRAITOR" AND "LIBERAL" AT THOSE WHO ARE OPEN TO A RUDY CANDIDACY.
IN USING THIS TERM I IN NO WAY INTENDED TO LUMP THE VAST MAJORITY OF POLITE FREEPERS, WHO HAVE LEGITIMATE RESERVATIONSW ABOUT RUDY, WITH THE FORMER CROWD.
IF ANY OF THE LATTER FOLKS HAVE BEEN OFFENDED, I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT. I WAS NOT REFERRING TO YOU, AS I BELIEVE I HAVE HAD TO REPEAT A FEW TIMES ON THESE THREADS.
OTOH, MY USE OF THE TERM AS A 'HOOK' TO GET PEOPLE TO READ MY LAST TWO THREADS HAS WORKED WELL. TO THE EXTENT THAT HAS ADVANCED DEBATE, I THINK IT WAS ON BALANCE WARRANTED.
SOAPBOX OFF.
Ecclesiastes 3
1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Id rather hang out in your kitchen
As I see it, we would pick up the blue dog Dem's who are in the fight of their lives right now with their party.
We could have them all, and send the Dem's our fine upstanding moralist friends who would rather saw off the limb they are sitting on, then sit next to a social moderate or learn the art of politics.
Great post and thank you for making it. I remember those days too.
It's gotten so bad around here that the other night we were treated to a vanity piece that Rudy supporters are treasonous liberals, a position held by the powers that be around here.
A lot of veterans and others were outraged that supporting a Republican could cause such overheated hyperbole.
Most of my posts on this thread have either been Jim Robinson's views, which I agree with, or responses to vicious personal attacks similar to the ones you regularly employ.
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