[winin2000]

They prove your point? They were both RINOS and they both lost.

Geez Louise, dude! Is your memory that bad or do you twist every piece of history into ideologically convenient pretzels?

Dan Lungren was seen as a up-and-comer in the conservative movement for years! He was supported by Jim Rogan and appeared on National Review's cover as the "The Great Right Hope"! He was likeable, articulate, and unapologetically anti-tax and pro-smaller government, and Davis spent the entire campaign flogging him for the GOP's signature views on abortion, education, and for Pete Wilson's record on immigration.

Ditto for Fong; he was a star of the flat-tax movement and Babs Boxer's attack ads on him repeatedly accused him of being anti-abortion.

Now if your theory holds, and the entire state of California knew unequivocally that they were conservative, they shoulda won in a cakewalk. Didn't happen, did it?! But all we were treated to was more revisionism that, well, he didn't really run as a Republican!

Christ, how many more Bret Schundlers is it gonna take to convince you people that conservatives can't win in left-wing states?!

[vbmoneyspender]

Christ, how many more Bret Schundlers is it gonna take to convince you people that conservatives can't win in left-wing states?!

I would like to get your thoughts on how Deukmejian was able to get elected as governor for 2 terms after Jerry Moonbeam had been elected for 2 terms. I recall alot of people saying back then that the election of a liberal like Brown demonstrated that a conservative couldn't get elected governor anymore in California because California was too liberal. I think they were also saying the same thing at the same time about Ronald Reagan being elected president.

The bottom line is that President Bush has made many Democrats and moderates wake up and see that the media-generated stereotype of conservatives is wrong. So, just as the conservative Deukmejian was able to get elected in 1982 after people had gotten a good like at the conservative Reagan, I think there is very good chance that an actual conservative could get elected as governor of California based on what Bush has been able to do.

[Redcloak]

Regardless of whatever records they had going in, both ran as RINOs. Both lost as RINOs. The theory that only a RINO can win in California clearly doesn't work. RINOs lose every time.

[nickcarraway]

Don't use Brett Schundler as an example. He was practically running as a third-party candidate, because the Republican party in that state gave him virtually no support. He also lost a lot of momentum after Sept. 11. How do you explain how Schundler got elected in Jersey City three time, which is much more liberal than the state as a whole. You cannot out-Democrat a Democrat.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Christ, how many more Bret Schundlers is it gonna take to convince you people that conservatives can't win in left-wing states?!

Don't agree, and am willing to vote Democrat forever in contests won by extreme RINO's, or Democrats In All But Label (DIABLO's), like Riordan.

[BlackElk]

Lundgren turned tail in the closing stages of the campaign. He lost his nerve. He disappointed his base. He lost the election. Your problem in California is not that you cannot get Barbara Streisand or the Baldwin brothers to vote GOP or keep the La Jolla Muffies and Skippers. Your problem is that the California GOP expressed itself as despising Chicanos under that rank idiot Wilson, which ought to show you what happens when you nominate and rarely elect a RINO who spends his time sucking up to the yacht club crowd. If you don't make deep inroads into the Chicano vote, while retaining social conservatives, the California GOP will be destroyed.

[=Intervention=]

So...conservatives can't win in left-wing states? Abandon the ship, mates, nothing worth fighting for here? Nothing disgusts me more than they who give up and then try to broadcast their pessimism as enlightment. If the experience of NJ shows anything, it shows that Republican infighting hurts the candidacy chances of the person who does win the primary. And please recall, by how many votes did Schundler lose? I wouldn't call a close race as indicative of ANYTHING, except for how on the ropes liberalism is, even in its own stronghold. How sad and how ultimately defeatist, to take a close call as a sign that we should surrender. Buck up or at least have the class to walk away and not spread around calls to surrender.

[Blake#1]

Great Post!