Posted on 12/06/2011 7:52:17 AM PST by upchuck
For much of the last three years, I, like so many others who were so despondent after the election of 2008, assumed that the election of 2012 was finally going to provide the American people with a real choice of philosophies.
On the one side you have President Obama and the progressive / fascist utopia. (Fascist in the economic sense – where private property remains, but government dictates its usage – rather than the Nazi anti-Semitic / nationalist sense.) This utopia is where government plays the role of caretaker of the nation, where government tells citizens what they can and can’t do with their property, what they must buy and where they must invest, where unions have the power to coerce both government officials and private corporations that pay their members salaries.
On the other side the Tea Party was going to make sure that for the first time in 30 years a conservative nominee would be the standard-bearer of the Republican Party. The platform would include radically smaller government, less intrusive government, and lower taxes coupled with a less complicated tax code – maybe even the Fair Tax – and a strict adherence to the 10th Amendment. Life was indeed going to be good again and prosperity would soon come roaring back.
Given the failure of everything progressive, from welfare to education to the USSR to practically the entire European continent, Americans would finally be given the choice between continuing down that well trod path to failure and a going down that forgotten path of economic liberty that was the foundation of American prosperity since the revolution.
Somehow, somewhere along the road leading to that fateful, Solomanic fork in the road, something went wrong. Not on the left. No, President Obama has indeed been as progressive as most of us feared, and in some cases far worse. Actually, the problem is on the right. Where many of us were hoping that the standard-bearer of the GOP would be a clean, if not perfect, conservative, increasingly it looks as if the nominee is going to be someone other than that.
In the one corner we have Mitt Romney who to this day refuses to renounce Romneycare, the Massachusetts disaster that spawned Obamacare. He also was an early supporter of cap and trade, was gullible on global warming, opposes a flat tax or the Fair Tax and shares an unhealthy affinity with Barack Obama for class warfare.
In the other corner we have Newt Gingrich, the guy who sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and told us to pressure our leaders to combat climate change. Although he finally admitted that was one of the stupidest things he ever did, there are other candidates for that title. He trashed Paul Ryan’s less than radical tax plan as “conservative social engineering”, supported the individual mandate in healthcare and now wants to harness local boards to determine which illegal immigrants should be allowed to pursue a “Path to legality”. I have to wonder how effective that might be in sanctuary cities around the country like San Francisco, Austin and Denver. As if all of that were not enough, after taking almost $2 million from Fannie & Freddie and praising their work and the GSE model itself, he now wants us to believe that the only thing he did for the money was tell them their businesses were going to fail. Really?
There are of course others in the race and they too are imperfect, but at least with Perry and Bachman you know they are true conservatives mostly dedicated to a smaller government. Unfortunately for the two of them, their campaigns barely register a pulse when it comes to the polls.
At the end of the day one has to ask, what happened to the Tea Party revolution? How is it possible that the two men leading the race for the 2012 GOP nomination are big government, crony capitalist chameleons who are far less inclined to upend the Washington applecart than work with the people driving it? Why are not the leading GOP candidates shouting from the rafters that they will radically slash government spending and regulation, that they will champion a flat tax and that they will impose a strict adherence to the Constitution, particularly the 10th Amendment?
Despite the best efforts of the media and the Democrats to paint the Tea Partiers as racist rubes and the Occupy Wall Streeters as noble sophisticates put upon by the evil capitalist system, the American people recognize the truth. The fact that the PR field is so heavily 
tilted towards OWS, yet citizens still have a more favorable view of the Tea Party, tells you everything the GOP needs to know about the coming election. If they would simply run a candidate who proudly articulates basic conservative principles, the next election would result in the country being freed from the tightening progressive noose around its neck. Without such a candidate, with just another standard-bearer Americans can’t distinguish from the big government GOP they’ve come to know, Barack Obama may indeed triumph.
With Gingrich and Romney sitting in the pole positions, I find myself pulling for a brokered convention that results in an opening for someone other than Frick and Frack to take the nomination. Someone like Sarah Palin, or even the forgetful but conservative Rick Perry. Sure that’s an unlikely scenario, but at this point the traditional route has brought us two paper tiger conservatives leading the pack. The Tea Partiers and the country deserve an opportunity to make a clear choice between progressivism and conservatism. Let’s hope that somehow the GOP can figure out how to give that to them. Otherwise it may be another four years of hoping for change.
If you really don't care then get out of politics and stop ruining it for the others who are trying to serve their country.
There are other pursuits that are much more suitable for someone with your nihilistic tendencies.
Alcoholism might work for you. Or perhaps homosexuality.
So that's what this board as come to? Nice. Real nice.
not one vote has been cast yet, and we are getting this kind of talk....
Both Romney and Noot will say whatever they need to say to get elected..
AND then do whatever they want to do EXACTLY like Barry Half-White does..
Republicans are such PollyAnnas.. and have a taste for BULL Squirt..
Could be BArry, nOOt and Myth work for the same people..
You know its true.. they are “Progressives”... (covert/overt)
Or the better come back I used when I was little:
“Says you!”....or maybe the classic: “I am rubber, you are glue, everything you say to me, bounces off me and sticks to you!”
No doubt about it. You are smart.
They are not. We can choose Bachmann or Perry. And we must start getting behind them. Yeah, they made some mistakes, but they are smart and can learn.
Newt has to go. He is who we have been fighting against. He is part of the problem, not the answer. NOW is the time that we stick to our ideals and our values and make a difference in our country.
If we do not, we will become those who we hate.
If Newt wins, the country loses.
We already tried those compromises in 2000. We had the White House and both legislative houses...didn’t work.
No argument from me there. Check my posting history and you will see that I've been attacked in recent weeks by some of Gingrich's newfound FR supporters who suddenly think that he's the cat's meow of Conservatism despite all evidence to the contrary.
Over the last several months Newt has stood on the stage alongside Perry, Santorum, and Bachmann and he has apparently convinced many Republican primary voters that he is the better candidate for the GOP nomination. As Cain faded and then withdrew it was Newt who rose, not any of the other three. It is not that you are sticking to principles and others are not. Everyone is trying to do what is best for our country and it seems that some voters are deciding that Bachmann, Perry, and Santorum all look like general election losers compared to Newt. You might not like it but it seems that this is what most GOP primary voters are concluding.
Right. I do not understand why Herman Cain would be driven from the race, and Newt elevated to the front of the pack! Newt has cheated on two wives and the American public. I guess the younger kids don’t know his history. I am sure the Dems are dying for Newt to face the family man, Obama.
A lot has changed since 2000. I don't know what compromises you are referring to here but GWB attempted Social Security reform in 2005 and was hung out to dry for it by cowards within the GOP.
Now we are facing a financial calamity unappreciated and unanticipated by most voters as recently as 2006. Now we have the tea party movement. Now we have an unskilled and unpopular 'Rat incumbent instead of der Shlickmeister. Now we have far more robust alternatives to the MSM.
We need a GOP Congress and a GOP President and we need them starting in 2013, not 2017. If you think going down in noble flames is smarter than winning then your idea of "smart" is unrecognizable to me.
Herman Cain is out of the race because he chose to withdraw.
If you are going to be mad at anyone about this you should start with Herman Cain.
I speak of the compromise of our values, just to elect “republicans”...”THEN” we can get what we want.
We did it. We got republicans in the White House, the Senate and the House...republicans had ALL the power; and it didn’t do us any good, because the ones we elected were NOT CONSERVATIVE!
Most of us will NEVER do that again. It is not party first, it is values and convictions over party. It is America first.
In the old days, you had "favorite son" candidates. Many state delegates were either uncommitted and in play for whoever pleased local bosses or else pledged or inclined to vote for their state's Governor or Senator, at least on the first ballot.
Today there may be some uncommitted superdelegates who get their position from being officeholders in the party, but most of them will be committed to one of the declared candidates. There seem to be more of them in Democratic conventions than Republican, and they aren't usually spoken of as a major factor in GOP politics.
There's not much room for a brokered convention nowadays. The last conventions to go to a second ballot were the Republican convention of 1948 and the Democratic convention of 1952. Both went to three ballots.
There's some irony in insurgent and anti-establishment Republicans looking forward to a return to the bad old days of brokered conventions, but this time around it's not hard to sympatize or share the sentiment.
Of course they are. How else would you wish them to be chosen. Everyone has the opportunity to run to be a delegate. I did it once and I can tell you I'm not part of "the establishment"--whoever they are.
I was just at a meeting this am and I asked the question to all those in attendance. Just who is this dreaded "establishment" we keep hearing about.
The consensus finally decided, it's the winners of elections. Anyone who doesn't win, tries to demonize the winners.
I have no clue as to who is "the establishment".
Let's assume you're correct, just who are the party bosses who are in control? All the Tea Party people have to do is show up at caucuses, get themselves elected delegates to their county conventions and you're in control. It isn't hard, as a matter of fact, many times they can't even fill the required slots.
I'm tired of the whining on FR about "the establishment". I have NEVER seen one Freeper actually name who it is we're to dread. Freepers don't know, they just want to whine about things not being perfect.
I disagree with you. Everyone of these campaigns would trip over themselves if they thought you would get on board with their campaigns. Every campaign WANTS ALL Tea Partiers’ support. Why else do they try to court the Tea Partiers?
It’s more fun to sit and howl.
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