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.
It's obvious that's what you meant. You said "he", not "it".
Well said, Cold Heat.
I'm thinking it was more of a team effort.
What are you babbling about?
My "type"? What "type" is that?
You have proven yourself unable to tell the truth about this matter.
If only you were somebody who mattered.
That's the peril of a democratic republic. It functions on the will of the people, and is subject to national mood swings. That mood is like the wind. You can sail with it, tack (i.e. zigzag) against it, or sail dead into it. We can't sail with it, and we're dead in the water if we sail into it.
We might not like the idea of a guy who will be strong on national defense, and weak on domestic issues. But the voter will go with him, or go with an outright weak-on-everything leftist. They aren't looking for Newt Gingrich or Dick Cheney.
Call the voters what you want. Irrational, immature, childish, spoiled, you name it. They may be all of those things, but it's America, and you either play the system, or it'll play you. I'd love to see some meat eating, fire breathing conservative jump to the fore and start reading liberals the riot act, but it's not in the cards for 2008.
If they kept driving by with their lights-a-flashin' and their siren-a-blarin', I'd be a little more than ticked off.
It could have been a flaming lesbian.
Placemarker
I am certainly not a Rudy-Hater. I would just rather have a real true conservative win the Republican nomination, and there is still a chance for that to happen. I am supporting Duncan Hunter and hope he wins the nomination. If it does not happen, then I will have to vote for the winner no matter who it is. In that case, it will be anyone but the Democrat!
Not sure I agree entirely with his premise. It does make sense that about 1/3 of Americans are doctrinaire liberals and 1/3 are doctrinaire conservatives. But defining what constitutes the middle ground is the issue.
I refuse to believe that middle of the road Americans support unconditional abortion, illegal alien amnesty,
homosexuality as an equivalent lifestyle to heterosexuality, and disarmanment of law-abiding citizens as a neccessary or wise objective.
Yet the far left - that 33% of Dems believe this.
Their candidates reflect it and they manage to get nominated and elected. And I believe this happens because the Democrat party is more dedicated to the premise that their ideas are the correct ones, they are more ideologically unified, less willing to compromise, and they are far more dedicated to achieving their objectives.
Republicans on the other hand, are NOT ideologically unified, they frequently are willing to compromise on issues in a manner that provides the Democrat left with a moral victory, they more frequently fail to deliver to their base, they become retrospective and defeatist when they loose, and are willing to shift positions to the left in an effort - generally failed - to secure left wing voters. A far larger percentage of Republican leaders are more than willing to compromise what they present as their core values in an effort to win an election, than are Demcorats and I believe every time they do this, they loose.
A Republican can't win an election running as Democrat light.
Criminals and convicted felons should NOT be allowed to own guns and that is a national law, isn't it?
When we are facing a world wide onslaught by Islamonazis, abortion, as a topic, needs must be placed on a back burner.
Where DID those "principles" get people who stayed home or voted for Perot, because they were upset by President Bush the elder's "READ MY LIPS" remark and then had the Dems make him break it. They never have condemned the Dems; only the elder Bush.
If only I cared what you thought.
Which I don't, btw.
Me, too!
I can't follow your little hen party cluckings, no.
I am curious. Who does matter?
Honest question.
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