This is what happens when we eat our own.. (Turning backs on GOP winners I.E. Bush)

Freerepublic ^ | 11-05-2008 | myself

[82ndABNOfficer]

It is evident that we the GOP turned our backs on President Bush. Keep in mind he successfully defied all odds and won two elections. We turned our backs against the core values and conservatism to reach out to libs and independents... this is what we get for throwing our own under the bus. Just some food for thought.

[EagleUSA]

People moan about borders.....
:::::::
It servers no purpose to whitewash Bush. His legacy is what it is, and it is cast in stone. We know all the details about what he did right, and what he did wrong. The facts speak for themselves. Nice try, though.

[sausageseller]

but if conservatives have lost big here,

Try again. The middle went for the rats. A Chicken in the pot and a car in every garage.

MCCain was not , is not and never has been or ever will be a CONSERVATIVE! To have won all he had to do was vote against the bailout( A REAL CONSERVATIVE would have!)

And blast Walstreet for the FAKE values of those companies, Blast the Bond raters that gave out phony ratings and tied the Rats to Countryside and the Bank phonys and Obama to Countryside and he would have won.

He could have bashed Bush & Bama but chose to get in bed with them!

[sausageseller]

but if conservatives have lost big here,

Try again. The middle went for the rats. A Chicken in the pot and a car in every garage.

MCCain was not , is not and never has been or ever will be a CONSERVATIVE! To have won all he had to do was vote against the bailout( A REAL CONSERVATIVE would have!)

And blast Walstreet for the FAKE values of those companies, Blast the Bond raters that gave out phony ratings and tied the Rats to Countryside and the Bank phonys and Obama to Countryside and he would have won.

He could have bashed Bush & Bama but chose to get in bed with them!

[angkor]

>>>>>‘Conservative’ is a brand in the market of ideas.<<<<

Cockamamie BS.

Conservatism is a series of interconnected ideas underlying a coherent belief system.

I suppose you’d also assert that Judaism, Catholicism, and Buddhism are all “brands” in the “market of religions”???

Or that communism, fascism, totalitarianism, and Maoism are all “brands” in the “market of repressive political systems”????

The idea is preposterous and trivializes human society.

[NeoCaveman]

The Bush Legacy is President elect Barack Obama and a complete 100% reversal of the 1994 elections in terms of people and policy.

Thanks George you did “one heck of a job”

[HelloooClareece]

I’m saying that Bush needed a Senate and a Congress to take care of the border issue. They didn’t.

I’m sick of all this Bush’s fault crap on FR. He had a full plate and all some on here can do is beg for more. They’re like Libs.

[outlawjake]

and mccain was too afraid to say that bush was a very god president.. because bush’s approval ratings were so low..

but if you look at the big picture of what he accomplished.. vs. the harm he has caused.. he should be considered at least a decent president.. but bush never cared enough about polls.. and other republicans found no harm in not defending him..

[kabar]

But our REAL problem, in a political sense, is that we conservatives haven't got a clue how to promote and defend ourselves politically. It's pretty clear to me that we are in the grip of a host of wrong assumptions -- about the rules of the game; about what constitutes "victory"; about the culture in which we live.

John McCain became the presumptive nominee of the party with just 31% of the primary vote. He is a self-described maverick. There are consequences when you nominate a maverick to be your standard bearer.

There is a pony in there somewhere. A McCain victory would have further marginalized the conservative influence in the GOP. We conservatives can now remake and take back the party and return to tried and true principles. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

The Dems will now be responsible for their policies and actions and we must hold them accountable. Issues like immigration and climate change will actually be easier to fight than if McCain were in office. We will need to change the political landscape to make us a viable, national party again. Every challenge represents an opportunity. We must seize it.

Immigration has been changing the demographics of this country rapidly. Non-Hispanic whites have declined from about 89% of the population in 1970 to 67% today. They have served as the Reps political power base. The GOP must develop a strategy to attract the so-called white Reagan democrats and asians. It is a waste of time going after the black and Hispanic vote except on those issues that appeal to blue collar workers. Curtailing the number of legal immigrants and secuing our borders will give us a fighting chance. Currently, 87% of the 1.2 million legal immigrants who enter this country annually are minorities and almost all of the 500,000 to 1 million who enter illegally are minorities. By 2042, half of the country will be minorities. Our immigration policies are leading the Republican Party [and our nation] down a path to suicide.

According to the latest BLS statistics, the black unemployment rate is 11.4% and Hispanic 7.8%. For whites it is 4.9% and for asians, 3.8%. We need to go after votes on Dem turf. They are vulnerable because their leadership has sold them down the river. How can black leaders and union bosses be for guest worker programs and amnesty, when these additional workers are hurting their constituencies? The same holds true for these cap and trade programs that will kill jobs and force businesses overseas.

I agree the Rep party needs a dose of reality. We can't continue to follow the same template. We need to take the gloves off and not be afraid to take chances even if it pisses off a certain portion of the population. Pandering doesn't work.

[StormEye]

"Bush overall, turned out to be what I have to call “the worst kind of Republican”. He oversaw the apocalyptic War in Iraq and never bothered to keep the American people informed all along the way of how it was going, and why it was going the way it was going. He was perhaps intellectually incapable of trusting himself to do this. He hung his head in shame over Katrina, as if he too believed himself to be responsible for all it.

Once again, there’s an entire dimension missing there if he was unwilling to fight for what he in fact did do to ameliorate the natural tragedy that became a political tragedy for Republicans. He spent like a drunken Liberal, in the name of “compassionate conservativism”, and never followed up on the success/failure of any spending programs. In the past 6 months he has become as invisible as his VicePresident has been for the last several years. There has been NO ONE at the helm except General Petraeus in Iraq, and of course, the Democrats , who managed to steer the Ship of State in their direction, so they could climb aboard, as they now have."

You've stated the case against Bush concisely and correctly. In particular, I agree with your "NO ONE" at the helm" comment. Since his reelection Bush just disappeared from the scene. He never took the Democrats to task on anything. I remember Bush's press conference after the election where he said he had acquired political capital and would use it. Where did he use it? It certainly wasn't used for conservative Republicans.

[Wallace T.]

America still IS a center - right country, but will not remain so for much longer unless the issues of the leftist major media monopoly, the propagandization of school and college students by the leftist NEA, and the inability to erach out to the gropwing Hispanic and Asian American populations are not bridged.

Well said. You can take that to the bank.

[rottndog]

“...I didn’t leave the Republican Party...it left me...”

[brydic1]

Rove is called the “Magnificent Bastard”. I am not sure about the former but he certainly qualifies for the latter. Rove was the prime mover in the push to bring Illegals across the border even while Bush was Governor of Texas. He has been an unmitigated disaster for the republican party.

[sausageseller]

I guess it was worth saying twice.

[princeofdarkness]

Maybe so. But he did not help matters for the party by doing his reach-across-the-aisle style and not listening to the conservative base. He was like a hapless bully victim who rarely fought back against the Dems instead of taking them on fiercely.

One thing about the Democrats. They don’t talk about a big tent strategy to attract moderates and conservatives. They can now proudly pursue a liberal agenda with this victory.

[Guenevere]

This is what happens when we eat our own

He ate us first!

[Niteranger68]

I agree with you 100%. Considering the way we conservatives demand perfection, who in their right mind would want to run for office and subject themselves to that level of scrutiny? Basically, the media, Dems, and Obama finished what al Qaeda started and we let it happen because we got too picky and petty. If you kick the dog long enough, he won’t do anything to please you.

[what's up]

Sorry, but aside from tax cuts, the courts and defense

3 huge areas...Bush is no liberal.

Bush kept us out of Kyoto as well. I'll always thank him for that. Oh, and standing up for life again and again.

[Tenacious 1]

Bush stood his ground with the things he was most passionate about. He waffled to get “bipartisan” approval on conservative mainstay issues. He worked to hard to appease the left and in the process, compromised several issues that could have made him a truly great president.

Social Security Reform: Bush decided to debate whether or not his proposed solution was “privatization or not” instead of moving the debate to whether or not the plan would help fix Social Security - Failed Policy

Spending: Bush launched the Department of Homeland Security and sold America on consolidating several others departments under one command. NSA, CIA, FBI, etc. were to be under the intelligence gathering authority of HS. In actuality, it just added another chunk of government that is expensive. It does serve a purpose and it was quick to go to work and was effective. But, as in all government spending it has ballooned and no consolidation has been observed. Too many spending bills were passed and not enough budget cuts were sold to America and implemented. The promise was to cut taxes and government spending. In his defense, war is expensive. If this were the only place that spending was overdone, I'd give him a pass. But we will never forget the $1 Trillion dollars, %25 of the entire budget was pushed by Bush to give-aways to failing institutions at the dawn of his presidency as well. The treasury falls under the executive branch.

Immigration: Bush took an opportunity to push through what he figured would be an easy reach-across-the-isle, bipartisan solution to illegal immigration. He failed to understand the position of the people and I have a hard time believing he his heart was in amnesty (despite what he called it). McCain supported this, BTW.

War on Terror: Phase I - Afghanistan and Iraq, Big Wins. Phase II - The overthrow of despots and dictators in nasty countries was the right thing to to do. It was done efficiently and for the right reasons WMDs aside. The wars were necessary as evident by what will be noted as phase II. Phase II - Bush failed to use overwhelming superiority to quell the terrorist infusion into Iraq and cowered to political pressure to avoid adding more troops and the violence that would have surely ensued. The war could have been shortened if America was more aggressive earlier. He walked a tight rope trying to keep the Iraqi's pacified with a longer than expected American presence. The end effect was considerably more than necessary and longer engagement in order to pacify the world and bring Iraqi factions together to soon. (my analytical opinion). War is never easy in the moment and hind-site reveals many missed opportunities and strategic flaws. This is typical for every war America has ever fought in. This one was just under more scrutiny with an unpopular president in office and an unfriendly media reporting.

Communication to the American People: Bush did not have near enough ‘fireside chat’ type discussions with the American people during his tenure.

All that said, I believe his legacy will be the beginning of the end of Radical Islamic terrorist attacks. I believe history will help his approval rating as Iraq and the Middle East gravitate toward more western values and begin denouncing radical Islam. (Its hard to see now but I believe in about 15 - 20 years we shall see it).

[r9etb]

Try again. The middle went for the rats. A Chicken in the pot and a car in every garage.

Which is to say, the conservatives lost big. The "middle" was clearly not interested in what we had to say. Nor, for that matter, was the GOP base "conservative," based on the candidates available during the primaries.

[r9etb]

We need to take the gloves off and not be afraid to take chances even if it pisses off a certain portion of the population. Pandering doesn't work.

Neither does "taking the gloves off" work, if we haven't got a long-term strategy to go along with it. Over the past 20 years or so the Dems have had a great track record of thrashing us whenever we "take the gloves off."

The reason is not so much the reason for why we take them off; but rather, the way we take them off. To be honest, we often tend to lead with our chins. And even when we "win" in a short-term sense, we end up losing in the long term because we act like the victory "stays won." But Mr. Alinsky's tactics are in play on the other side; and one of his big ideas is that no battle stays won (or lost) unless both sides agree to let it remain so.