Where the Tea Partiers Should Go From Here (by Karl Rove in the WSJ)

Wall Street Journal ^ | Apr. 1, 2010 | Karl Rove

[SmartInsight]

Democrats are attacking the tea party movement because it is a new force that's bringing millions of here-to-fore unengaged Democrats, independents and Republicans into the political arena. If there's something a ruling party doesn't like, it's a new political player converting spectators into participants.

To maintain their influence, tea partiers will have to maintain their current energy and concern over health care and federal spending.

But tea partiers will have to do more than surf discontent with the Obama administration's policies. They will also have to coalesce around a positive agenda.

The unhinged quality of the White House and the DNC attacks show that they understand how much the tea party movement can affect this year's elections. Now is the time for the movement to ensure its energy - and influence - stay high.

[EternalVigilance]

Unfortunately, generally speaking, there is no fundamental belief that the existing leadership of the Republican Party will not sacrifice on the altar of expediency.

There may be some VERY small remnant of individuals that could be considered "leaders" of the formerly grand old party of which the above isn't true, but it is true of the overwhelming majority of those who possess actual power in the Republican Party today.

Everything is negotiable to them. Everything. When met by superior earthly power they fold like a cheap suit. Because that sort of power is the only thing they understand and will respond to.

Is my claim harsh? Yes. Is it true? My experience over many years at all levels of the GOP, in almost every section of the country, tells me it is.

[EternalVigilance]

If a man gave you a cup which was 80% filled with the finest wine, but the other 20% was cyanide, would you drink it?

[Wpin]

Exactly...

those were all conservative actions...try me.

[mkjessup]

So no specifics? Just a general "it got bigger" issue?

Isn't that enough? Good God man, most if not all of the problems of the GOP flow from their greed to create a federal behemoth as large and powerful as any 'Rat ever did.

[1010RD]

Excellent and well-thought. I’ve book marked it for future reference, but if you run into one of these “Not a hair of difference” threads, please ping me.

Thanks.

[mkjessup]

While you're selectively quoting Reagan...
I wasn't "selectively" doing anything. And the quotes you gave does NOT negate what Reagan said with "If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it." That's just common sense! Those "radical conservatives" are/were just simple-minded ideologues who couldn't see the forest for the trees. As such, they are/were worthless.

Twisting the Gipper again I see. First of all you neglected to state the context in which Reagan spoke, which was when he began negotiating with the California legislature after assuming the Governorship. They were not addressing issues of national survival such as illegal immigration, mindless expansion of the structure of government, spending the State into bankruptcy, there isn't anything "simple minded" about living within your means, be you a State or be you an Individual, nor is it "simple minded" to demand that trespassers and interlopers be stopped, be they on a national scale, or individual criminals breaking into your home. You trumpet the virtues of 'compromise' and being satisified with '80 percent', but if the remaining 20 percent of your imaginary 'meal' contains poison, the ones consuming it (We The People) end up dead.

Would a starving man turn down 80% of a meal? Of course not! It's shameful to have to say that to adult men and women.

It's shameful to suggest that adult men and women should eat a meal that is 20 percent tainted and unfit for human consumption, but that is what you are doing.

Take that 75-80% and build from it. What's so hard to understand about that?

In SOME circumstances that might be possible, again: depending upon the issue. How about abortion as an example? Would you consider it an admirable goal if 80 percent of the unborn were actually allowed to live? Most folks would say emphatically yes, but there is no negating the fact that such an achievement would also mean that the unlucky 20 percent would still end up murdered before ever taking a breath.

If you're an all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway type, just enjoy your incessant bickering. And that's just a plain pathetic way for an adult to be.

When you file your income tax this year, see if the IRS will accept only 80 percent of what they say you owe and get back to us.

[mkjessup]

I don’t know what koolaid you have been drinking pal, but I don’t want any of that.

Understandable. You already made your own flavor selection:

[mkjessup]

If a man gave you a cup which was 80% filled with the finest wine, but the other 20% was cyanide, would you drink it?

LOL, in the interest of bipartisanship, I don't doubt that rdb3 probably would.

[EternalVigilance]

They also forget that the only reason they’re giving you the wine in the first place is to mask the cyanide. It isn’t that they care about you having something good to drink.

[mkjessup]

Good point EV. And to the recurrent outbreak of 'Bush-was-a-conservative' in this thread, it's time for a reminder of GWB's own words to his former speechwriter Matt Latimer, when Latimer was preparing a speech for Bush to give to CPAC in late 2008, Bush questioned a part of the text referring to 'the [conservative] movement', and proceeded to state to Latimer that he had 'whipped Gary Bauer's ass' in 2000, and that there "was no movement", that he (GWB) had "redefined the Republican Party".

As the saying goes "By thine own words, art thou condemned".

GWB did a few conservative things, and I will be the first to state that he restored dignity and integrity to the Oval Office after the reign of Emperor Billigula, but Bush was just one more country-club, Ivy League liberal-Rockefeller style Republican, No more, and no less.

[EternalVigilance]

Since this is a Rove thread it should be pointed out that he was intrinsic to that Bush attitude.

They never had any scruples about using conservatives, but they view conservatives with contempt.

[1010RD]

This graph by Pugetsoundsoldier is worth remembering in this debate. We cannot pretend that there isn't a difference between Republicans (however imperfect) & Democrats.

Below is a repost of Pugetsoundsoldiers original post on this thread at #141---

There's a lot of anger in some circles of conservatism, and unfortunately it's tending to eat its own, rather than be productive. Anger unfocused is anger that is destructive.

I wish more of the anti-everything-GOP people would listen to the wise, sage words of President Ronald W. Reagan on compromise:

"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it.

"Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything.

"I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.'

"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it."

The GOP is not the enemy; the GOP should be kept in line, but the Democrats are the enemy. The Tea Parties are tending to split the conservatives between those with unfocused rage, and those who know the key to success is within a party. A party without a platform or leader is not a party, it's a mob, and that gets you no-where, politically.

Reagan was right - the person who's with us 75-80% of the time is an ally, not an enemy.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“I don’t like Karl Rove. He was a disaster. And Bush would listen to him since he didn’t own a brain. Hence, Bush was also a disaster. “

Yep

[EternalVigilance]

A party without a platform or leader is not a party, it's a mob, and that gets you no-where, politically.

Good point. The GOP overwhelmingly has ignored its own platform. No demand has been made or enforced that politicians even follow it. Your party is almost completely bereft of real principled leadership now. Which of course is one of the reasons it's become a directionless mob.

[EternalVigilance]

the person who's with us 75-80% of the time is an ally, not an enemy.

Since you're using military language in the political context, let's carry your thinking through to its logical conclusion.

If you're in a real war and your leaders sell you out to the enemy 20-25% of the time, can your army and your troops survive that?

[1010RD]

Your energy is rightly directed toward the GOP and electing conservatives.

Winning is everything, though and there are districts in the country where a conservative is unelectable. In those cases a Republican is better than a Democrat.

You’ll not find what you are looking for with Democrat majorities, as has already been demonstrated in spades in 2010.

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”(who said that?)

[EternalVigilance]

If the bus driver drives you and everyone aboard over a cliff only 20% of the time, that’s okay with you?

[Sloth]

Rove needs to just apologize & shut up.

[EternalVigilance]

I have no problem “hanging together” with principled men and women. But the idea that we have to hang together with the unprincipled is destroying our country. It’s already pretty much destroyed the GOP.

[kabar]

The GOP should not be the lesser of two evils and be viable. Bush's profligate spending including his no child left behind initiative and the prescription drug program (an $8 trillion unfunded liability,) the biggest expansion of the entitlement programs since Medicare are two examples of a party that has drifted away from its moorings.

And the Bush administration pushing an amnesty against the wishes of most of his party, which would destroy this country with the stroke of a pen and cost $2.6 trillion, has driven a major rift within the party that is still not healed.

President Bush and Presidential nominee McCain supported amnesty bills (Hagel-Martinez in 2006 and McCain-Kennedy in 2007) against the majority of their own party. Moreover, we had the sorry spectacle of people like Karl Rove and Lindsey Graham castigating their fellow Republicans who opposed amnesty using such epithets as bigots, racists, and nativists. These criticisms just reinforce the Democrat branding of the GOP and alienate minorities who perceive that they are not welcome in the party. Moreover, being branded as a “racist” political party hurts the GOP in recruiting new members, regardless of race or ethnicity. America is not a racist country and no one wants to be associated with a racist organization.

I wish more of the anti-everything-GOP people would listen to the wise, sage words of President Ronald W. Reagan on compromise:

I wish people would also heed these words of Reagan:

“A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers. I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.”