So, I'll repeat my comment to you and my questions and hope for an answer this time:
JAG wrote:
You're kidding, right?
What kind of incentive do Americans need to convince them to not vote for a Marxist?
If people want to live in a welfare state, what Republican could POSSIBLY in any way, shape or form attract their vote?
I am sincerely interested in your answer.
The American people voted for a Marxist and you are claiming if only they'd been offered "true small government policies" they wouldn't have wanted Marxism?
WTH kind of logic is that?
That's like saying people voted for free cotton candy, but they would have voted for broccoli if that had been on the menu.
Again, I would like to know:
What kind of incentive do Americans need to convince them to not vote for a Marxist?
If people want to live in a welfare state, what Republican could POSSIBLY in any way, shape or form attract their vote?
It's not about what was on the "menu," it's about changing Americans' "tastes." No candidate can do that. It's a bigger task than that. We have to already want and be committed to freedom and understand when it is a risk.
I don't think that most people want to live in a welfare state; I think that most people just don't care. Here's why McCain lost: the economy. It was the number one issue with a plurality of voters and it killed McCain.
It's not that people listened to Obama's socialist message, processed it, and then affirmatively accepted it, it's just that Obama was the default when Republicans were rejected for their failure to properly "manage" the economy.
Now, we can debate until the cows come home as to whether it should be the government's job to ensure that the economy is humming along, but for better or for worse, that's what people currently expect from the government. If the economy is still bad in two years, Democrats will probably lose seats in Congress. If it's still bad in four years, Obama will probably lose. If it's better, then he'll probably win, barring some other huge issue. That's sort of the deal.
JAG, I agree Obama is horrible, and I am frightened for the future. But simply saying “Marxist” over and over again is not going to convince most people of anything. You ask, “What kind of incentive do Americans need...to not vote for a Marxist?” I think the better question is, “What kind of incentive do Americans need to get out to vote against him?” The answer is that they need a clearly superior alternative. The current GOP is not a clearly superior alternative for most people. You are talking about a party that—after spending 60 years promising small government if they finally got into power—FINALLY got into power in Congress and the White House and proceeded to double the debt, double the size of government, accrue enormous unConstitutional powers onto the Executive Branch, get us involved in two expensive interventions abroad and yet fail to capture Bin Laden, and finally nationalize the banks, insurance industry, and mortgage industry! And THEN they managed to nominate just about worst RINO Establishment hack running, a man who is the very definition of “Same Old Thing.” Saying “Obama is Marxist” isn’t enough incentive to get a lot of people to go along with that.
What the GOP needs to do is provide the incentive by being a true, clear, viable alternative. That means being the Party of small government, free markets, sound money, civil liberties, peace, and freedom, rather than the Party of huge government, managed markets, inflation, the surveillance state, war, and statism. People don’t WANT the Welfare State. What they want is true freedom alternative.