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 cant invite liberals to your table without inviting their ideologies along. Try this at home with your liberal neighbors if you think Im 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 wont 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 arent.
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 its their party. They have exercised squatters 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 cant. 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. Dont 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 its 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!
“The key is to remember that Ronald Reagan put together a coalition of disparate groups who together swelled into a majority: A patriotic assembly of social conservatives, defense hawks, and small-government fiscal conservatives. Those elements of the electorate are all still out there but we lack a leader with the skill and vision to call them together.”
Reagan also had the good fortune to follow Carter, probably the most ineffective president in history. Reagan also got plenty of Democrats to cross over for him. I’m playing Devils Advocate here, but it seems that if a candidate reaches out to the various factions, then the “True Believers” from his own faction turn on him.
McCain / Vincente Fox '08.
"We don't need no Stinkin' Borders!"
Cheers!
I prefer the latter!
Is this supposed to make sense? What does this have to do with primaries elections?
I agree to a point...Just remember this is the same Republican party that brought us: Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, GHWB abd GWB which also yielded Reaganomics, supply side economics, peace and prosperity, and some terrific Supreme Court choices...It is that this year is just a lousy year for the candidates the Party has presented..Too many candidates and the primary vote was fractured..
Also too many RINO’s with phony messages and NO REAL SOLUTIONS to our country’s problems...
We as a country are on the verge of voting for a woman, or a black, or a Bob Dole type, or a lying flip-flopper...Both parties are screwing the American public and we are paying the price..As for The Rep party, i would like to see a draft movement..Let the Party know we STILL are not satisfied and we want a Winner, not some arrogant ancient wuss or flip flopper or RINO....
The delegates should REVOLT, throw some chairs around, demonstrate and get down and dirty cause we aren’t putting up with this BS anymore...the delegates may have to do some tonsillectomies without anesthesia...so be it...
Any of the candidates now running can give a speech...if they were to say : “ We will screw the public every day!’, that will be the first TRUE comment we have heard during this long primary process...get ready...man the barricades, cause’ it’s coming...Send a message to the Party loud and clear—we have had it up to here...
The problem is having stupid Iowa and NH lead the pack. How about starting in South Carolina, then Florida, then Texas? True Conservative states. NH has become a liberal bastion, and Iowans are just retards (anyone who watched the caucuses on C-SPAN quickly realized that)
Dang that was good Hinckley !
#129...Excellent point
Hard to argue with anything but the strategy for dealing with the matter.
All true
Self-imposed disaster and still, some refuse to accept resposnsibility... at FR... The rest of the country is not even as strong as Freepers.
Republicans aren’t running the show, RINOs are. It’s a conservative house. RINOs are the guest...
Keep up!
“The delegates should REVOLT”
A VERY interesting notion...
The RNC “directs” the party so long as we let it.
But these decisions are actually in the hands of the state parties... Start there.
SC and Florida sure got it wrong this time around... Look at the list in the column again and start there...
one thing?? what is that one thing?? Di Curly tell you what that one thing was?
Why didn't you say that to begin with?
That is what I said --the independnts were running the show in states that are a lot more liberal than where I come from!
That's why you made no sense. Keep up!
Hi. Please tell me what you are addressing. Do you want me to read this article?
Oh, I see. Had to be away. I had tried to read the article, but got held up at the fairly ignorant dissing of thoughtful and perspicacious Huckabee supporters.
Too bad.
, the only option is a 3rd party
If McCain is the Republican nominee, the only option is a 2nd party. And that's only an option if a Ross Perot steps forward to crystalize the thing fast enough to get on the ballot in enough states to have a run at winning the Electoral College.Preferably all the red and purple ones, preferably all of the states. Even then it'd be a long shot. I don't consider third parties a sensible option - but as I said, any party that can nominate John McCain is not functioning as a party that sensible American patriots can vote for.
I've been wondering who McCain most resembles as a national candidate. Bob Dole had some similarities, but he wasn't advocating that Mexico coopt the sovereignty of the US over the Southwest and California in a reversal of the historical verdict of the Mexican War. He very much resembles John Kerry, lacking only the surrenderism. But I think that if he is indeed nominated for POTUS, by the time the MSM and the Democratic Party are through with him his national public image will most resemble that of Vice Admiral James Stockdale. The ex-POW who, asked to allow his name to be uses as a placeholder for Ross Perot's eventual VP nominee, was left on the ballot and learned only the week beforehand that he would be participating in the VP debate on national TV with Quayle and Gore. And who came out looking like a doddering, irrelevant old fool (indeed the Admiral died of Alzheimer's Disease nine years later - and Alzheimer's will make anyone a doddering old fool).
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