VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT!!
Rebellion is brewing!!"
Posted on 08/29/2010 9:24:21 PM PDT by Lorianne
You're not going to want to hear this.
Nonetheless, you have to.
If you want to win - indeed, if you want to make any sort of serious inroad into the American Political Process, you need to read this, you need to listen, and you need to adopt this path.
If you do not, you will be marginalized into irrelevance, no matter what else you do.
Here it is:
You must discard - intentionally - all "wedge issues" as points of debate, discussion, or campaigning. You know what these issues are - they fall broadly into the category of religion in one form or another.
These are issues such as abortion and gay rights (in all it's forms, including marriage debates), but is by no means limited to these two. In short, if there's a religious basis for your position, you must not campaign on it, and indeed you must pointedly refuse to discuss it.
The Tea Party began as a protest over bailouts and handouts - that is, theft and corruption within our markets, government and economy. This is a winning position with 90% of the American Body Politic.
Any candidate who runs on these issues - and these issues alone, promising to stop it and lock up the scammers - all of them - wins.
As soon as you bring the other issues that everyone wants to talk about into this, you will lose.
Here's why.
These are called "wedge issues" for a reason.
What you personally believe is irrelevant to the political process. These issues are used by the two main political parties to get the electorate to divide on a 50/50 basis - thus leaving them having to persuade exactly one person of their position on some other issue to win.
You cannot win such a contest. At best you can force one of the other parties - the one that most agrees with you - to lose. The reason is simple - you will split that half of the electorate, which means the other party - the one that disagrees with your position on those issues - wins the election.
Drill this into your head folks:
If you allow these issues to become part of your campaign, you will not only lose you will cause the party that most-agrees with you to lose.
I know this is going to be unpopular, but it needs to be said. I've seen this happening in some of the local Tea Party groups, and it saddens me. The local Niceville branch here featured people talking about "natural law" as an important qualifying factor for political candidacy, as just one of many examples. There were times I felt like I had walked into a Baptist sermon.
The Tea Party and other political expressions like it are, of course, free to run on whatever platform they'd like, and to back candidates based on whatever they'd like. But if you're going to do this, then you'd be wise to try to take over the Republican Party instead of being "independent" or any other sort of "outside" influence, because it is the only way you can win with this approach.
The Tea Party infiltrating The Republican establishment is a long shot. Witness John McCain, who made a campaign spectacle out of bailing out the banks. How's JD Hayworth doing in challenging him? He lost, right? How'd that happen? The same way it always happens: Hayworth let the campaign's terms include those wedge issues, and then got tattoed by the guy with the bigger warchest and the ability to threaten people politically.
You either change the terms of the debate and the issues upon which the election is decided or you lose.
It's that simple.
(excerpted)
People with moral blinders are the blindest of all.
They don’t realize that God-given moral principles benefit them as well. Unless of course they are addicted to immorality as a way of life.
ROFL. You old warrior you.
> “They’re univesral moral absolutes and the very foundation of human civilization.”
.
Given to us by him, who laid the foundation of the universe!
Let me make this as clear as I can: I’m not for RINOs or candidates that don’t support conservatism on social issues that come into the political and judicial sphere: marriage, abortion, school prayer, etc. etc.
I am only talking about campaign strategy on the national level. What is the best message to get the most votes to turn the country around.
I believe that message is jobs and freedom and all that encompasses. Nationalizing the election on these issues.
The best example, which was very successful, is the Contract with America.
Guess how many social issues were in that document.
The following is the Republican Platform as seen by the average idiot leftist. There are a great many of them, as evidenced by the number of votes for a certain democrat candidate recently elected President. But not so many that they can be complacent the next time around. After all, they are easily swayed, by their attention to the whoppers from their President, and the “covert” planks of the Republican Platform. Reality could cause them to pause.
I suggest that Republican candidates stick to the platform as contained here: http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/
The Republican Party of “NO” has been accused of having no platform, no plan. That is not accurate. The following are the 38 “covert” planks that defines the GOP.
1. Cut taxes for the rich. Enable the wealthy to increase their wealth.
2. Cut social spending. Social programs for the disadvantaged do not enrich or advantage the advantaged.
3. Destroy unions. The unions created the middle class. The wealthy class does not intend to share with the middle class.
4. Outsource jobs. Send American industry overseas. This further destroys unions and foreign slave labor is profitable.
5. Deregulate business. Regulations or rules prevent capitalistic gouging. Gouging the economy, the consumer, the people is profitable.
6. Privatize everything. Enable corporations to profit, unimpeded by governmental competition.
7. Cut big government. Big government is a big threat to profiteering. Regulations and oversight impedes profits.
8. Support law and order. Hold the disadvantaged down so they do not pose a threat to the wealthy’s wealth and property.
9. Secure (close) the border. Keep immigrants (Mexicans) out. Mexicans who become citizens vote Democratic.
10. Increase the Social Security collection age. Hope that the retired worker dies before she collects what she put in. Social Security does not further enrich the wealthy.
11. Hike Social Security taxes. Make the worker pay more into a retirement fund that he will hopefully not live long enough to collect.
12. Privatize Social Security. Create a gravy train for the Wall Street profiteers. Allow the banksters to gamble away retirery’s subsistence.
13. Privatize Medicare and Medicaid. Provide vouchers to the helpless and elderly with which they must grovel, hat in hand, to the big insurance companies. Big insurance will get much bigger. This is an untapped gold mine of corporate profits.
14. Perpetuate a state of war. Create eternal enemies abroad. Institutionalize hatred and fear. Nothing is more profitable to Fortune 500 companies than military contracts.
15. Increase military spending. Increase military contracts. Privatize the military and warfare. Nothing is more profitable.
16. Adopt Obstructionism. Promote misery. Destroy any attempt at recovery or relief by voting “NO” on everything. Miserable people are too frustrated to vote, or vote for the party out of power.
17. Religiocize Capitalism. Write it into the Constitution. Make private property, profit and exploitation a commandment from God.
18. Harness Hate. Pander to the loco fringe, the Tea Party, the right “Wingnuts.” Maintain deniability. Spread their message, utilize their support, but disassociate from their nonsense.
19. Satanize Islam. Generate fear and hate by associating Muslims with al Qaeda and the Democrats. Constantly remind the public that the president’s middle name is Hussein. Prey on prejudice.
20. Criminalize abortion. Save babies (read: save tax dollars) by not funding abortions and throwing disadvantaged mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters into prisons. We the wealthy will abort our daughter’s bastards safely, privately, discretely. We will appear sanctimonious, and will appease our fundamentalist supporters.
21. Legitimize all lobbying. Deregulate and institutionalize political bribery. Elevate lobbying to the fourth branch of government. Protect this lucrative welfare source, perhaps with a constitutional amendment.
22. Support the “Old Boy’s Network.” Keep the club small, private, and exclusive. Qualification depends on wealth, name, race, and conservatism.
23. Defend inherited wealth to the death! Conservative power depends on conserving the wealth. Block all inheritance taxation. Rename the “inheritance” tax the “death” tax. After all, everyone dies. By all means, preserve the “lucky sperm club.”
24. Lionize business, demonize labor. Business is an asset. Labor is a liability. Business represents profit. Labor represents loss.
25. Denigrate the opposition. Portray all who support peace, the poor, fairness, and egalitarianism as traitors, radicals, terrorists, levelers, anarchists, jihadists, Satanists.
26. Oppose gay marriage. Republican core values are based in conservative Christian fundamentalism. Also, gay individuals tend to be liberal. Liberals tend to vote Democratic.
27. Support Israel right or wrong. Ignore any Israeli outrage, injustice or atrocity. After all, Jewish people and fundamentalist Christians are the Biblical “chosen people.”
28. Promote super-patriotism. Distract the masses from the economic disparity by waving the flag. Make the people feel grateful to live in this capitalistic paradise.
29. Support tradition over innovation. Tradition conserves the status quo (economic inequality and injustice). Innovation will result in economic egalitarianism and redistribution.
30. Support family values. Toleration of alternative lifestyles is a liberal concept that will upset the status quo, and benefit the liberal (Democratic) opposition. Also, the family values the woman as mother, not competitor in the business world.
31. Suppress compassion. Characterize caring as liberal sentimentalism. Dehumanize the homeless. Equate unemployment with laziness. Shame welfare. Compassion may generate a demand for social spending.
32. Delegitimize the president. Question his American citizenship. Cast doubt on his right to serve. Create a perception that the Black president is not “one of us.” Pander to the “birthers.”
33. Bash public schools and teachers. Teachers are liberal because they are educated. Liberal education opens, liberates the mind. Liberated minds oppose greed and economic disparity. Too, teachers are a unionized Democratic block.
34. Promote school prayer. Misuse of prayer as a social opiate to produce docile, passive citizens. For it is written, the meek shall inherit NOTHING!
35. Endorse closet racism. “Colored” people procreate alarmingly. Keep them as a cheep labor pool.
36. Derail gun control. Pander to the National Rifle Association, white supremacist, and the “cowboy” element of society. Ignore the terror that illegal guns have wreaked in our inner cities.
37. Promote Francophobia. Mock the French. Fear the French, and British, and Canadians, and Scandinavians, and all the enlightened nations that provide universal health care and Socialized social programs. The demand, the virus might spread here!
38. Maintain the Big Lie. Misrepresent the Republican Party. Keep this platform secret. If the masses know what we really stand for, they will vote their economic interests, and the Republican Party will be consigned to the trash bin of history.
The thing is that conservatism wins when it’s tried. Not narrow focused. All on the table - reducing (WAY reducing) the tentacles of the power mad government, lowering taxes, strong military and border defense, protection of the unborn and helpless, and no catering to deviancy or support of leftist social causes.
Leave any of it out, and there will be less support.
We will just have to disagree. BTW I am working my a$$ off for Sharron Angle. Is she a RINO in your book? She does not support much of the Rep platform BUT she supports all of your key point of contention.
If people don’t want to accept those universal moral absolutes, then who gets to decide what’s right and what’s wrong? Why, THEY do!
Actually, it turns into a case of the dog with the biggest teeth wins, simple.
You’re not leaving it out, you’re picking what the key thing about the choice is. Either you do it or your opponent does it for you. If you emphasize everything, nothing is emphasized.
The Contract with America, Morning in America - these clearly defined the election and the choice into something of utmost importance to a landslide majority of voters.
FR is a CONSERVATIVE site and I mean to keep it that way. Hope you get the message.
Yikes, this is only #174 and the comment count is way over 200. I got in really late, can she do it? Time will tell.
In her defense, Hawaii is a very liberal joint. Just look at the politics of the WWII veteran in the Senate. Makes me wonder.
People can think of more than one important thing at a time.
In the mid-90s, the screaming nosedive into the abyss was not quite as accelerated as now.
0thugga and the Dem party have actually made it pretty easy for Repubs. Whatever the Dems want, just say we’re dead set against it.
Or for the opposite, or however people want to say it. Just the exact opposite. And they are absolutely FOR every sort of moral depravity, Big Brother control, destruction of the Constitutional principles, etc.
I'm sorry, but my experience is that the key 5% of voters pay little attention to the election until a couple of weeks out and then go with the general feelings they have on what it's about. October Surprises work often, last minute gaffs can become the thing that swings the election.
0thugga and the Dem party have actually made it pretty easy for Repubs.
Famous last words.
Whatever the Dems want, just say we’re dead set against it.
You get some votes that are "against the other guy," but not enough. You still need votes "for" your candidate or issues.
And they are absolutely FOR every sort of moral depravity, Big Brother control, destruction of the Constitutional principles, etc.
And I'm proposing nationalizing the election on freedom and the foundational principles of the American experiment.
I'm not proposing framing the election into an argument about issues we disagree about how to deal with even here on FR.
Key voters aren't just the ones who haven't made up their minds until the last minute; there are other kinds of key voters. For instance, a lot of Rs stayed home because they could not stomach voting for the RINO McCain. So putting a non-staunch conservative R loses other kinds of key voters. (BTW I did vote for him although it made me sick to my stomach to do so.)
Famous last words.
Let's say the Dems in general and 0thugga in particular have made it easy for the conservative GOP to be a clear contrast.
You get some votes that are "against the other guy," but not enough. You still need votes "for" your candidate or issues.
I don't mean by saying "We're against whatever they're for, and for whatever they're against" - I mean stating clearly the Constitutional principles that they trash. Clearly and forcefully stating what the conservative principles and platform is, which just happens to be precisely the opposite of what the Evil party is.
And I'm proposing nationalizing the election on freedom and the foundational principles of the American experiment.
Not sure what you mean by "nationalizing" the election. Also the word "freedom" can mean many things - what exactly do you mean? And the foundational principles were not merely monetary.
I'm not proposing framing the election into an argument about issues we disagree about how to deal with even here on FR.
What specifically do you think should be left off the table, then?
VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT!!
Rebellion is brewing!!"
I’m very encouraged to see Jim Rob on this thread denouncing the various liberals.
And lets call a spade a spade here. For that’s what these libertarians are.
Pro-drug, pro-porn, and more recently they (and their boy Ron Paul) are pro-Muslim. (Islam is not the enemy.)
I’ve been calling on Jim for months now - and I’m doing so again - to host another bugzapper thread. This time to flush out the libertarians with their democrat morals and values.
>>>>”Key voters aren’t just the ones who haven’t made up their minds until the last minute.
They’re one half the key at least. The other half is turnout. Those who have made up their minds long before the election. Some always vote, the others are more problematic. GOTV is crucial and they have to think it’s important enough and their vote counts, the need emotional involvement.
The 5% who make up their minds at the last minute are those “independents” blech. But anything over 52% is a landslide, so, yes, they often determine the outcome, because they’re up for grabs.
Nationalizing the election means framing it such that the great majority voters see it as voting on the nation instead of the narrow issues of their district or the likeability of their congresscritter, pork, etc. Contract with America is a classic example.
You may think every congressional election is nationalized but it’s not, it’s rare and difficult. It takes a unified issue perfectly in tune with the moment and of extremely broad appeal and emotional content. With “Morning in America” it was “we want to feel proud to be Americans again” or “American exceptualism”. You can see this is a big emotional issue, in tune with voters of the time (we’re tired of this weak ‘malaise’ crap).
>>>>>”What specifically do you think should be left off the table, then?”
Issues that don’t fit well in the category above. Issues that divide off into subgroup upon subgroup and cause division even among normally unified blocks.
It's a big word. That's a good thing. Freedom from being told what to do by government, freedom from taxes, freedom from the snot-nose elites who think they know what I need better than I do, freedom to choose my doctor and my insurance, freedom to buy what car I want, freedom to use incandescent bulbs instead of what the government says I have to - how f-ing ridiculous is that? Freedom to open a business without an EPA emissions permit, freedom to defend my property and life, freedom from paying for free stuff for illegal aliens, freedom this government caused economic mess.. Freedom.
the foundational principles were not merely monetary.
They're intertwined. In elections, if there's any economic uncertainty, your key position had better be economic or have positive economic appeal - pocketbook rules. Right now, this issue is off the charts, it overwhelms whatever is in second place.
Two more quick things, then I’m outa here:
First, the ‘84 election (Morning in America) was a landslide Reagan victory, but the dems still picked up two seats in the House. However, this is much less than the average for second term losses, and the GOP retained the Senate. The point here is: there’s never reason for over-confidence even with a killer campaign at the top.
Second point is: if you want to see what can happen to unity of purpose in defeating the Dem Congress if you start in on social issues at the wrong time, just look on this thread.
“Whose version of Jesus Christ? Judaism’s? Thomas Aquinas’s? King James’s? Mohammed’s? Benny Hinn’s?”
Don’t forget Benihana’s - LOL
(sorry, it’s been a long day :-)
“I’m not for RINOs or candidates that don’t support conservatism on social issues that come into the political and judicial sphere: marriage, abortion, school prayer, etc. etc.
I am only talking about campaign strategy on the national level. What is the best message to get the most votes to turn the country around.”
Ditto.
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