I’m always intrigued by this notion that Republicans have to moderate whenever we lose. Nobody ever said the same thing about the Democrats after Kerry lost.
I have some questions:
1) What is the difference between outright libertarianism and being a “moderate Republican? They all seem to be saying the same things.
2) Am I blonde? We’ve RUN moderate Republicans, Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, et al..where are the electoral victories?
We had so many handpicked establishment candidates for the Senate such as Denny Rehberg, Scott Brown, Rick Berg, Tommy Thompson et al — if this brand of moderate Republicanism was so great, where the heck are their electoral victories?
The problem from my standpoint is that too many moderate Republicans alienate conservatives once nominated, assuming that they’ll just “vote for them anyway.” While many of us do end up voting for the lesser of 2 evils in many cases, the passion/vigor/GOTV effort(s) are not as strong. Then the moderate is portrayed as a flip flopper because he’s constantly trying to alienate the conservative base while still reluctantly throwing us a bone or two hoping we don’t stay home. The Dems and the media then make a mockery. They lose, then we’re told to moderate, repeat.
Conservative candidates are universally expected to “reach out” to moderates, but moderates never have to do anything to reach out to us. Shouldn’t it be a two way street?
The way some of these people talk, they act like we nominated a right-wing crusader for the last 2 cycles. Like I said, either I’m blonde, or we nominated RINOs for two cycles now.
Modern libertarianism seeks a limited government based on constitutional authority.
Moderate Republicans want to spend a little bit less than a left wing democRat, but they have equal disdain for any limits on their power to enact any legislation or executive order they please.
Pretty much the same, a rino supports the left on the border and social issues, and in hatred of the social conservatives, yet largely supports the conservative position on economics, rino or "moderate" is already melding into libertarian, and you will see more of that in the future.