Posted on 02/01/2008 11:08:49 AM PST by PlainOleAmerican
Republicans no longer control the Republican Party and as a result, they can not advance a truly Republican candidate though the current liberal leaning primary process. By the time 99 percent of Republicans get a chance to vote in the primaries, all real Republicans have already been eliminated from the race. Lesser evil choices are all that remain by Super Tuesday…?
How it Happened
It happened by two important factors.
First, Republicans refused to unite behind any of the conservatives originally in the race. They were divided, and all of their candidates failed as a result.
Evangelicals think Pastor Huckabee is the real conservative in the race based solely upon his evangelical preaching from the stump. Fiscal conservatives think that business man Mitt Romney is the real conservative in the race. Anti-war isolationists think that Ron Paul is the real conservative in the race. Border security – national sovereignty conservatives thought that Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo were the real conservatives in the race. War on Terror hawks thought that Rudy Giuliani was the real conservative in the race and the base of the Republican Party, those who are fully conservative on all the above, thought Fred Thompson was the real conservative in the race.
As a direct result of these divisions, the one candidate that is by no means a real conservative in the race, John McCain, is currently leading the race for the Republican nomination. Failing to unite early behind one of the conservatives, left the door wide open for the worst possible result, John McCain.
The second factor is a broken primary process. McCain is not being nominated by conservatives or for the most part, even by Republicans. He is being nominated by liberal voters from liberal leaning states who hold the earliest primaries and vote to eliminate all conservatives from the race before “fly-over” Republicans get a chance to cast a single vote.
A Broken Party
Like it or not, the BIG TENT is collapsing. You can’t invite liberals to your table without inviting their ideologies along. Try this at home with your liberal neighbors if you think I’m wrong on this. They will be happy to eat your food and drink your wine, while they tell you all about the progressive benefits of socialism. They won’t shut up until you stop inviting them for dinner.
Yet this is what the Republican Party leadership decided to do years ago. Invite liberals across the aisle into the fold under the BIG TENT open society philosophy whereby all ideas are welcome if not equal, even when they aren’t.
Today, the base of the party is trying to figure out if or how it can wrestle back control of their party from the dinner guest they invited to the table years ago. The problem is this. RINOs now think it’s their party. They have exercised squatter’s rights. They are using the “possession is nine tenths of the law” defense to claim ownership of the Republican Party now and demanding that “right-wing extremists” (the foundation of the party) leave. The guests are tossing out the hosts.
A Broken Process
How do you expect to advance a Republican candidate via a process designed to net a liberal candidate, voted upon by liberals in Democrat strongholds? The answer is - you can’t. Yet this is what we do.
It is not possible to advance a conservative candidate using liberal RINO, Independent and Democrat voters in liberal strongholds. The Republican primary process MUST change.
The Long-Term Fix
Only registered Republicans should be voting in Republican primaries and Republican primaries must begin in Republican strongholds, not Democrat strongholds up east. There should be no such thing as “open primaries.” Even in many “closed primaries” in Democrat stronghold states, where Republicans seldom have even a chance of carrying the state, many Democrats and Independents register as Republicans for the sole purpose of skewing the Republican nomination. This can not be allowed to continue.
Further, if the Republican nomination process expects to ever advance a conservative Republican candidate, it must start its nomination process in Republican strongholds across the country, not the Democrat strongholds they start in today.
The ten most Republican states in 2004 (a Republican year) were Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Alabama, Kansas, Alaska and Texas, in that order. Yet only one of these states has held a primary thus far, Wyoming. Before the rest will get a chance to vote, all Republicans are out of the race.
Other traditionally Republican strongholds are Indiana, South Dakota, Mississippi, Kentucky, Montana, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Pick the five most populated states from these two groups and start the nomination process there, if you want to see what real Republicans want for party leadership.
Three of the worst states in which to hold an early Republican primary are Michigan, New Hampshire and Iowa. Yet this is where we begin our nomination process?
Both of these things must change looking forward and they will have to be changed at the state level by simply getting Republican stronghold states to move their primaries up to the front of the line. Don’t count on any help from the Republican National Committee which has long since determined that Republicans must join liberals in order to compete with them.
The ONLY Short-Term Fix
These two changes in the nomination process will allow Republican stronghold states and real Republican voters to advance a real Republican candidate in the future. But it’s too late for 2008.
So a short-term answer for the immediate problem is also in order and only one option is available now…
That option is the subject of my last column, Time for Some REAL Straight Talk
Take a moment to read it quickly. Super Tuesday will set the next four years in stone. What we do between now and then makes a difference….
Republicans simply passed on all opportunities to do something smart and unite behind one of the conservatives in the race over the last several months. Now, doing something half-smart is the only immediate option available. Find a way to be part of the solution, not just an angry part of the problem acting out in childish temper tantrums and protest votes.
Half-smart is better than blindly foolish and all wrong any day…
Long term, things must change. But short term, our options are now limited to living to fight another day. Think about it!
True.
The second factor is a broken primary process. McCain is not being nominated by conservatives or for the most part, even by Republicans. He is being nominated by liberal voters from liberal leaning states who hold the earliest primaries and vote to eliminate all conservatives from the race before “fly-over” Republicans get a chance to cast a single vote.
Half-true. It's not so much liberals (who are too busy with the Democrat race) as independents who are voting in Republican primaries.
Also, I don't know how Iowans would take being told that they weren't "fly-over country" any more. Some would cheer, others would wonder what Williams was smoking.
Arguably, any state that accepts the kind of media circus that Iowa and New Hampshire submit to, is going to come out looking and acting different. Give Utah an early primary and the results you get may not please you.
The ten most Republican states in 2004 (a Republican year) were Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Alabama, Kansas, Alaska and Texas, in that order. Yet only one of these states has held a primary thus far, Wyoming. Before the rest will get a chance to vote, all Republicans are out of the race.
Other traditionally Republican strongholds are Indiana, South Dakota, Mississippi, Kentucky, Montana, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Pick the five most populated states from these two groups and start the nomination process there, if you want to see what real Republicans want for party leadership.
Three of the worst states in which to hold an early Republican primary are Michigan, New Hampshire and Iowa. Yet this is where we begin our nomination process?
It makes some sense if you care about whether the candidate can win in November. Historically, Iowa and New Hampshire have done a fair job giving Republicans candidates who are conservative and competitive. It would be a pity to throw that away because of this red-state blue-state nonsense.
Don’t bother writing anymore of your defeatist drivel here please. Some of us want to fight for our country and our party. If you don’t, just sit quietly on the sidelines instead of undermining the effort you claim to support.
You're KIDDING right???
When the Dems have hundreds of millions in donations and the other repubs have tens of millions in donations and your donations don't even break out of single digits, there's not a THING you can do.
This isn't Freds fault! This is conservatives fault for not supporting him and Duncan and Tom T.
And those who refuse to fight, will always lose.
It’s a state to state decision. You have to go after the state party powers in each state.
That’s what Democrat just did to Florida, otherwise, Obama was going to carry the state.
WRONG...
Voting for any of these four will deliver the same result, Clinton-McCain.
False. When we put forth a good candidate, we win. It works just about 100% of the time it is tried. The only time the GOP loses the White House is when we moderate too much. Conservative values - strong defense, smaller government, less intrusive governments, strong values - is a winning formula. There is simply not a viable candidate that carries message this year. Some have part of it down. None fully demonstrate all of the above.
Spoken like a well trained RINO...
Thompson did, but too many conservatives listened to the MSM instead of Thompson.
Only registered Republicans should be voting in Republican primaries and Republican primaries must begin in Republican strongholds
I would suggest a $10 annual charge to be a member of the GOP. That small charge would eliminate a huge chunk of voters who are not really Republicans from voting for our nominee. Also, there should be no winner take all states, and the number of delegates available in a state should be proportional to whether there is any chance for that state to provide electoral votes to the party's nominee. California has no business having any say in who the GOP nominee is. Give them a few delegates to keep the party alive in the state, but there has to be a weighting system so that it gets far less than a smaller state, like Texas, whose desires we want to know.
I think we got the result this time that the RNC, run by Bush, wanted, not the result that the conservative base wanted. This will only get worse if McCain gets control of the RNC.
In 2000, South Carolina gave us Bush over McCain, and some of what we got was McCain's policies. This year South Carolina, surely one of the most conservative states, picked McCain, and he may be the nominee. Would things have been different if New Hampshire hadn't come before? I don't know, but it stands to reason that something's wrong with Williams' idea, since McCain did carry South Carolina, running well ahead of Thompson.
On the mark!
Read: Russell Kirk
Or suffer in ignorance.
My guess is that it won’t matter. We can whine and scream all we want, but the RINOs won’t listen.
But if the FALCONservative party gains traction, they’ll be forced to listen.
Death of the GOP and the Birth of a New Political Party
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961828/posts
The time may soon come where many of us say, like Ronald Reagan’s famous quote regarding the Democrat party, “I didn’t leave the Republican party, the Republican party left me.”
We do NOT have to join them to defeat them. We have to challenge them on real ideas to defeat them. Socialism has failed everywhere in the world it has been tried. So why are you selling socialism in America, along with the DNC, the leftist press and the leftist RINOs currently running the RNC?
In fact, we can't defeat them if we join them.
This nonsense is the problem, not the solution.
If both parties are left leaning "moderate" parties, then we do NOT have a two party system. We have a one party system.
Have read Capt. Kirk...
He’s an idiot, not a conservative.
You have to follow your conscience.
I’m not happy about Romney, but given the alternative, I would vote for him and campaign for him. He is trying to woo us. McCain has just goen us rhetoric with no specifics about conservative issues. And given his duplicitopus track record, I probably wouldn’t believe him anyway.
Romney claims he WAS a liberal Republican and has seen the light. McCain has been a mean-spirited, back-stabbing demon who did his best to further a liberal agenda of his own under Bush.
If McCain gets nominated, I will not vote for him under any circumstances.
It's impossible, the national committee controls this game, and the game is pretty well rigged.
You know what I find kind of amusing about this whole situation? I distinctly remember not much more than three or four years ago people seriously talking about the death of the Democrat party, and about how Republicans would be in control of things for the foreseeable future. And here we are now, facing total implosion.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.