Posted on 05/07/2008 3:50:49 AM PDT by Dawnsblood
Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.
The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.
“There is an attitude that, ‘I better watch out for myself, because nobody else is going to do it,’” the member said. “There are all these different factions out there, everyone is sniping at each other, and we have no real plan. We have a lot of people fighting to be the captain of the lifeboat instead of everybody pulling together.”
In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.
And in a closed-door session at the Capitol, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told members that the NRCC doesn’t have enough cash to “save them” in November if they don’t raise enough money or run strong campaigns themselves.
Although a top House Republican brushed aside Gingrich’s broadside as “hype from a has-been who desperately wants to be a player but can’t anymore,” the harsh words from Cole were harder to ignore.
“It was a pretty stern line that he took with us,” said one House Republican.
In the end because of the sucess of OC and Obama having ended up becoming bloody, McCain will win the general by default.
The problem is that Republicans now do not stand for a sensibly-unified governing principle. Pres. Bush has done great things for America, but his triangulation in social policy has hurt his party. When conservatism is infected with the notion that to be conservative we must be ‘compassionate’, then the very underpinning of conservatism is rotted away. That principle, to me, is that one begins to conserve by standing up and providing for oneself. Compassionate conservatism decays that by insisting that there is a standing class of those who cannot (read: will not) do so and we, as conservatives, must help them.
I deny that principle, at least from a politically institutional point of view. It is one thing to be personally charitable for those one personally knows to be on hard times. It is another to order that everyone ‘pay it back’. That makes personal initiative a sin, for which those who achieve must pay. And there’s never any forgiveness nor absolution. You just keep paying and paying and you keep empowering the brokers who made up the whole charade in the first place. Their power grows as they more and more effectively steal money, always making sure to keep a nice slice for themselves.
This has bedeviled American politics since Progressive days before WW I, but it’s now endemic and systemic. This is an election where Americans appear determined to be stupid and to do so with a vengeance. They’d apparently rather cut off their own financial arms than stand up and be adults and take care of themselves, ignoring the chattering and power-hungry sets and getting on with life.
It’s 1968 all over again and, truth be told, I lived through the ‘70’s that resulted and I don’t want to do so again. I’ll vote to prevent it, to the extent I get the opportunity, but I expect to have to hunker down for at least the next two year.
Fair enough. Heaven knows that's how ya'll governed for the 12 years you were in power.
Wanna bet?
This is interesting, maybe, just maybe they need to make their message more conservative.
Then the money will flow back in and we will turn out and vote.
Or they can believe what McStupid believes ‘I can win without conservatives’.
IMHO I don’t think so.
Well, they are a self inflicted wound and brought this totally upon themselves for all their stupidity!! They have utterly failed Americans and conservatives. They wanted to be liberals, and now they are going to pay for it. I am sure they are going to get destroyed in November. I know no one around here, solid conservatives, who are happy with the party, the candidate for president, the other crap these fools are guilty of.
And with all the hallmarks of a Bob Michel fight for control of Congress. The GOP is now the Party of Bobs.
Please Newt STFU, you lost ALL your creds with your global warming crap.
I sure hope it was worth it you POS sellout.
U.S. MILITARY 2008!
Agreed. I always find it interesting that people claim they want change yet they go into the voting booth and pull the lever for the very same useless corrupt politician that has them in the very mess they find themselves in election after election. I do wonder, how can one seek change yet do nothing different to make it happen?
Yep! Listen to McCain and Bush. That's the ticket.
as ann coulter said, McCain is Dole without the warmth and charm
So now I got this super liberal feminazi ditz who sends out full color gaudy brochures of her posing with the troops she doesn't support. I don't even know if we have a Republican running in this district, but I suspect not because the NRCC was so happy to elect our wonderful Democrat libby lady last time.
They reap what they sow.
As he continues to reach across the aisle to moderates and Independents, McCain still has problems appealing to a signficant number of Republican voters.One can be almost assured that 90% or more of the Dems will hold their noses come together to support their nominee. [Look at the number Kerry got in 04.]
He, the assured nominee, still loses 23% of the GOP vote in Indiana, 27% in North Carolina and 27% in Pennsylvania.
Right. Let's have Gingrich do some global warming commercials with Pelosi /extreme sarcasm
I just don’t see Obama winning. I can easily see McCain faced with an overwhelming opposition Democrat majority in both houses, though.
“These are the same people that allowed a conservative from my district who wanted to close the border to lose to a liberal Democrat last time. They refused to support the party’s nominee. This was after he defeated their hand picked Rino candidate in the primary. And they meddled in that too.”
And they’ll hold that loss up as proof that the GOP should run liberal Republicans and that Americans aren’t concerned about illegal immigration or border security.
“They reap what they sow.”
They can’t figure out why they keep pulling up onions.
If half the "taxpayers" don't pay any federal tax, and even get EI credits, who cares about tax cuts?
I think the Mississippi election next week will tell us a lot. The Louisiana race was kind of unique in that Woody Jenkins was a truly awful candidate, who many Republicans absolutely refused to support. The seat may very well flip right back to the GOP in November, assuming they can find someone besides Jenkins to run for it. If the MS race also goes Democrat, that will be significant.
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