Posted on 03/04/2007 4:15:07 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Anger on Display Among Conservative PAC Audience
Sunday , March 04, 2007 By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — America's conservatives are mad and they're not going to take it anymore.
That was the message the movement's leaders delivered throughout the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. last week.
One after another, conservatives told FOXNews.com that they are angry, irritated, frustrated and in some cases depressed. And the target of their angst and ire is none other than the Republican Party, which wants and needs their support to win the 2008 presidential election and avoid losing more seats in the Senate and House next election.
Many of these conservatives, whose national stars began to rise with the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, described the GOP's state of affairs in Washington with words like "failed," defeated" and "in the grave."
"The Republican Party apparently has a death wish, but that doesn't mean we conservatives have to go along with it," Richard Viguerie, a movement veteran who helped elect Reagan, said during his wildly-received speech delivered Thursday. "Let's focus on the conservative movement, not the GOP."
"We've got to stop being lackeys of the Republican Party. We've got to be a third force," said Bill Greene, head of RightMarch.com, an online activist network. He is running as a Republican in the June special election to replace the late Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., who died of cancer on Feb. 13.
Several candidates vying for the GOP nomination appeared at the conference. But one — Arizona Sen. John McCain — was notably absent, and the frontrunner in generic opinion polls — former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — acknowledged to the crowd that he has differences with his audience on social issues.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
...and not one coulter/edwards/poofer comment either...
I think this has been quite evident here for the past few months! LOL!
oh sure, let's dump the GOP - and go into the political wilderness for the next 40 years. there's a real solid plan.
Please?
Is that like Clinton and Blair's The Third Way?
I said HERE, meaning Free Republic.
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/poll?poll=173
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/poll?poll=174;results=1
Or, we could just keep on doing the same thing, again and again (voting the least worse RINO into office), while expecting different results...
Get a clue. You are in the political wilderness.
I think social conservatives can accept that there are many Republicans who will vote for Giuliani under any circumstances. Why can't the Giuliani supporters accept the fact that social conservatives who adhere to principles be given that same consideration?
"You can't make a contract with America and break it," Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, said of the 1994 congressional class that helped usher in the "Contract with America," which pledged limited government, fiscal and social conservative reforms.
Nobody said that. But since you bring it up, it is the current plan that will put us in the political wilderness for 40 years. We can't out-socilist the socialists. The "we're slightly less sociailist than the socialists" platform is not a winner.
For 40 years the GOP was run by guys like nixon (price controls, welfare) and liberals in the congress like Bob Michael and Bob Dole. It was Reagan, followed up by the strong conservative platform in 1994 that brought about the GOP rise to power. Now, you would seem to suggest that it is socialism-lite that the GOP needs to do if it doesn't want to be in the political wilderness. I don't buy it. If you were alive at the time, I'll bet you voted for Ford in the '76 primary and Bush in the 80 primary because "Reagan can't win, he's too conservative".
What else is new?
The GOP needs to get on board with conservatives and conservatism, not the other way around.
As it stands now, there really isn't that much difference between the Rs and the Ds.
I don't pretend to know the solution, but I'm still waiting for the GOP to pull out the knife they stuck in my back.
I think the main problem is that the GOP leadership is utterly, completely and totally out of touch with its base. COMPLETELY. Furthermore, they show no interest whatsoever in listening to us. Its like talking to a cadaver. I never get a response to anything I ask.
I don't know that abandoning the GOP is the answer, but I am witholding $$$ donations and screaming in faces until I detect a heartbeat inside Washington DC.
I'll tell you why (and I am not a Giuliani supporter, by the way). In the 80's and then 90's the social consrvatives and the anti-tax leave me aloners came together to bring about GOP ascendency. Having won over the contry on the idea that big government was not the answer, we turned the reins over to the social conservatives who totally and completely through the idea of small government out the window. They undid 40 years of hardwork and became the biggest spenders and porkers ever. Now, I am a social conservative, but at this point I would now vote for a social rino if the person had a strong anti big government agenda.
If the Republican party continues to refuse to recognise Conservative values they are going into the wilderness for the enxt 40 years anyway. Why go with them. They saw what happened in 2008 thanks to their cowardice and it hasnt changed them a bit.
If the Republican party continues to refuse to recognise Conservative values they are going into the wilderness for the enxt 40 years anyway. Why go with them. They saw what happened in 2006 thanks to their cowardice and it hasnt changed them a bit.
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