Why Republicans Should Be Afraid

The Weekly Standard ^ | 07/29/2002 | David Brooks

[jmaroneps37]

This is a lead up to little billy crystal and the rest of those stand up guys at the weak ly standard to start talking up their favorite candidate, the moron from Arizona, what's his name? With friends like these....

[OldFriend]

The Weakly Standard......doing what it does best. Helping demonrats.

[churchillbuff]

Precisely WHAT is implausible about this guy's analysis. The idea that a market crash might hurt the party in power?
The idea that Bush doesn't have much of a domestic agenda? (Bush himself would argue - yes I do, look at the ed. bill I wrote with Teddy Kennedy!; and of course that just proves the point). I can't stand Brooks' hero McCain, but that doesn't make Brooks wrong when he simply states common sense, as in this article. Freepers who want to bury their heads in the sand risk suffocating.

[I'mAllRightJack]

What if the bulls of 2000 blame Republicans for the market of 2002?

What if my aunt had wheels?

She'de be a trolley car.

[DallasMike]

What if the bulls of 2000 blame Republicans for the market of 2002? That's a lot of angry voters.

That says in two succinct sentences what I've been fearing all week.

[churchillbuff]

What if the bulls of 2000 blame Republicans for the market of 2002? What if my aunt had wheels? She'de be a trolley car

I don't get what you're saying? Do you really think it's ridiculous to speculate that a crashing stock market just might hurt the party in power? If that's what you believe, you've apparently never heard of a gent named Herbert Hoover.

[Twodees]

Ahaha......Kristol's blueprint for merger with the democrats begins to come clear. Reckon Karl Rove is writing this under a nom de plume?

[mercy]

Synopsis: The Rats have successfully turned the majority of Americans into ingnorant sheep. Thank you NEA and mostly lazy parents. Therefore there is no path to political power other than successfully manipulating those sheep to believe YOUR PARTY will provide the best pasture. Being corrupt, the idea of actually smartening up the sheep ala RWR is not even considered.

[FITZ]

Freepers who want to bury their heads in the sand risk suffocating.

True.

[lone star annie]

Pardon me Mr. Brooks but what domestic agenda are the RATs leading on? Please be specific. Bush inheredited all the problems that are evident today. That is why they blame Slick more for the mess than Bush.

I can't stand these dweebs at the Weakly Standard. They refuse to admit they were wrong about McCain and Bush. Stubborn idiots of the ilk that let Time-Warner screw up really bad and continue to screw up.

Trying to tie the GOP to big business is an old tired proposition. Slick loved big business and so does the RATS. Who ran off to Nantucket in a corporate jet?

[rwfromkansas]

Regardless of that, we need to fight like heck because it will be a big battle in the fall.

[Jhoffa_]

Domestically, the Republican party is as bereft of plausible policy ideas as at any time in the past quarter century. How exactly do Republicans respond to the current moment? With cuts in the capital gains tax rate? With the flat tax? With deregulation? With a crusade to shrink the size of government? With entitlement reform? These ideas, admirable on the merits, are as politically implausible now as any that can be imagined. Worse, many of them have the feel of a bygone era.

The contract with america was a popular idea. Of course, we ditched most of it and have been losing ground ever since.

[liberallarry]

Nobody will blame Bush for the crash - if he puts the crooks in jail, and if he takes some positive actions in appropriate areas.

But if - after the dust settles - many, many Americans are out of jobs and have no pensions while the crooks are safely enjoying life in their mansions, you can bet they'll blame Bush and the Republican party.

Only fools wouldn't.

[parsifal]

Before you can scare the average Republican, you have to wake him/her up. Little chance of that happening unless they have to sell the SUV and buy a used KIA, lose their investments, have to move out of the 'burbs into a mobile home, or lose their white-collar job and have to start getting their hands dirty. Until then, they will snooze on on happy bliss while the peasants supposedly nibble on cake. parsy the former republican.

[Ohioan]

How exactly do Republicans respond to the current moment? With cuts in the capital gains tax rate? With the flat tax? With deregulation? With a crusade to shrink the size of government? With entitlement reform? These ideas, admirable on the merits, are as politically implausible now as any that can be imagined. Worse, many of them have the feel of a bygone era.

The article seemed fairly reasonable, until he stuck the above in. There is nothing implausible now in some of those ideas. And as for "the feel of a bygone era," that is where we come in. We need to make certain that the American heritage is not a relic of a bygone era.

In deteriorating times economically, there is more, not less, appeal to getting Government to lessen its burden on the backs of the productive. The people to whom less Government and shrinking entitlements have no appeal, are those who are going to vote for "Liberal" Democrats, anyway. We need to do three things--and I mean now, before the end of July:

1. We need to get back on track with the Reagan Counter-Revolution, and shrink not expand Government.

2. We need to make it clear that we will deal with immigration, both legal and illegal, to protect American jobs as well as our cultural heritage. (No one allowed in without assurance of a job; but a policy which encourages social pressure to induce employers to give preference to Americans.)

3. We need to assert the high ground on issues like the Boy Scouts; the attack on expressions of Faith in public places; and on coddling anti-social behavior. That high ground means expressing support for the Boy Scouts sensible exclusions; expressing support for local school districts which express the religious values of the Founding Fathers; and continuing the path to ending the Federal role in Welfare payments to those who flaunt total personal irresponsibility.

The right combination of these concepts, with the right explanation of how they relate to the interests of mainstream America is a winning formula. Offering a rehash of past Republican mistakes, when the party was more "liberal," is certainly not the answer.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Jesse]

REPUBLICANS have been pretty sanguine about their prospects in this fall's midterm elections. They shouldn't be.

Come November 8, the GOP is going to awaken to a loss of the House and Senate. The press will say it was a stunning defeat for Bush and a repudiation of the conservative Republican agenda (there is no longer a conservative agenda, but no matter.)

And while the still-clueless Republicans will ask what happened (Simple,of course. Enough of the conservatives who "have no place to go" won't go to the polls rather than support a party in full retreat from its principles, a party which increasingly treats its conservatives like bothersome children and tells them to be quiet when they speak out)the dems will be laughing their collective asses off.

The NEW!GOP plan of giving away tax dollars in exchange for votes, the way perverts give candy away to little girls for sex, will fail miserably for the GOP. Why vote for Democrat Lite Republicrats when you can have the real deal?

[TLBSHOW]

democrats are the enemy within

[TLBSHOW]

260 Reasons to Vote the Democrats back to the Stone Age and OUT of the U.S.A.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/719321/posts

sorry, 261 I added McCain to the list!

[supercat]

Come November 8, the GOP is going to awaken to a loss of the House and Senate. The press will say it was a stunning defeat for Bush and a repudiation of the conservative Republican agenda (there is no longer a conservative agenda, but no matter.)

How long before Kruschev and Kennedy are both proved right?