I agree with you for the most part...
my main point is that Ross Perot was not the reason Clinton won. Clinton won because Pres. Bush did his “read my lips” debacle.
The lesson should not be that the people we elect to should be given the luxury of betraying their voters and still hold our votes. When we blame Perot or his voters instead of Bush- we allow the cycle to continue- to the point where the American people literally have to shut down the lines in DC in order for their elected Reps to hear them and do the will of the people.
Debate is great-— but to blame each other for Republicans losing is ridiculous.
The Republicans have enjoyed the support of a large amount of the Libertarian vote due to the “Contract with America” and the supposed platform of the Republican Party. The folks we sent to DC squandered that support with their out of control spending- and poor handling of the Iraq war.
now it seems we are willing to squander the support of social conservatives as well?
just doesn’t make sense to me.....
I hope we do unite— but the social and fiscal conservatives are going to need to respect each other instead of blaming each other in order to acheive this...
Good thinking. Going back to the origin of the problem. I like that. You are right on. The way you state this essentially says, Perot's support was just a reaction from the original stimulus of anger at Bush One promising not to and then raising taxes.
Following this line of thinking or reaction, I would have to argue the one group (if we are grouping right now to make a point) that has reason for strong reaction from Bush Two is the fiscal conservatives. Overall, with the exception of the moral issues of some Republican politicians in their personal lives, the conservative Christians pretty much got their way (with the exception of R v W being abolished--or overturned. I like abolished from an emotional sense :-).
So the fiscal conservatives by all means should be the ones forming a third party if we applied your thinking for the upcoming election. Which I think fits very well. (Of course they will not and of course I do not want them to. I see them as a core of the party, no matter which way one falls socially.
Hopefully as you said we will quit the blaming and not allow the MSM to fuel this finger pointing and have some darn good debate.
Being both fiscally and socially conservative I am hopeful either way. May main concern is fiscal right now when it comes to nomination as no matter who is our representative from the primaries I will ALWAYS fight for my social conservative causes on the side and directly in the political sphere--this does not always mean just voting in a representative, sometimes it takes voting in a fiscal conservative and fighting hard to make sure they nominate socially conservative judges.
If Hilary gets in we will not only have a disaster from a socially conservative perspective, but a fiscal as well. Which ever candidate can beat her in the end is my candidate. As things trim down this could be several of the R candidates now running. We'll see.
My sense is you bring a lot of empathy to your analysis and I think this is one thing that is nice to see and to see role-modeled. We need this sort of empathy in addition to the disagreement.