Posted on 01/27/2005 7:27:58 PM PST by Patriot814
Given the choice of a liberal RINO or a nutcase RINO, I'd choose neither.
So those are my choices. I'm thinking. I'm thinking. This one is going to take a lot of thinking over.
No contest. Rudy anytime.
Steve Forbes
Considering McShame's temper, it's a windchime in a tornado (more violent, more twists).
you misunderstand.......the tent will not stand for everything but we will be inclusive for people to agree on varous matters....IE.....there are atheists that voted for Bush cause terror was their overriding concern. Well I don't think the party will turn atheist but we should include people who want to vote Repub cause of various issues....if they want to change the party too much in another direction then of course they will be told to choose cause our core values won't change
Let's keep looking....
We've got at least two years and plenty of Great Americans to choose from!
Sorry, but you misunderstand.
Anyone can vote for anyone in either party. The liberals in the democrat party have their big tent. Their entire consituency is based on groups with their hand out looking for something from the government that doesn't belong to them and that they haven't earned on their own. They all have their own demands, but their commonality is the "gimmee".
The liberals then turned to the GOP to give themselves a second bite at the apple. If they could commandeer the GOP and offer so called 'moderates' -- read: republicans who hold traditional democrat values and side with them a la Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snowe, Jim Jeffords, etal -- then liberalism wins every time.
The GOP should stand for the solid traditional value of small government, low taxes (not just smaller and lower than what the dems want), and more personal liberty. Those are the cornerstone ideals that bind us together. Our candidates should reflect those ideals and fight consistently for them.
Then, when a liberal ninny realizes that terrorism or welfare or government 'solutions' ARE the problem, they have a place to turn.
Our standards should be fixed and solid. Once they are, we may have a smaller tent, but it will be crowded with solid supporters, not those looking to undermine it.
The bottom line is that the party should accept the voters, but that the voters have to know that party won't compromise it's principles to get the voter. Right now, we bargain away a principle with each new supposed constituency that we try to cater to and with that lost principle are voters, the grassroots workers that assure the continued life of the principles behind the party, who won't return to a party that betrayed them.
And the liberals - the leftists - win again. Good plan, wasn't it? And 'we' help them do it when 'we' sacrifice our principles just to win.
When I made that comment, I assumed the reader would not take it out of context. #1. Last time I checked, Hillary was a Democrat. I said Republican. So, no, not Hillary. #2No I don't have an R fetish. I believe in the Republican Party because they are so much better then the alternative. And I'm not talking about a third party. Its useless to throw away your vote on a third party. #3 Yes principles matter to me. Thats why I vote Republican. And at the risk of copying Condi. Please don't impugn my integrity. #4 No I would not support Arlon Spector or Lincoln Chaffee over Zell Miller. Thats where I expected the reader to use some common sense. I'm sure its safe to say Spector or Chaffee would never make it through the primarys so the idea of having to vote for one of them is just silly. #5. I know we need true conservatives to enact our agenda and in a perfect world, we could elect someone like that but the world of politics isn't perfect. We haven't had a perfect candidate since Ronald Reagan, God rest his soul. I am realistic enough to know we most likely will never have a perfect candidate. #6 You are right. If you lose an election, you lose everything you believe in. These people who plan on sitting home or voting 3rd party will ensure us a loss. How is that going to help our cause? #7 Im not power hungry. I am patriotic. I love my country and I'll be damned if I will sit home and pout or waste my vote on a third party just because I am not in perfect lockstep with our candidate. I'll be damned if I will contribute to the anti American party getting their foot in the door and ruining my country just because I wanted to make a statement. I hope I have answered your questions.
Neither
Yes, and I realize that is exactly what it means because it's being set up that way since Hillary could never get 51% of anything, not even DU. Don't you find that interesting that it appears that the Republicans are either deliberately or "unknowingly" playing right into the only way she can be elected? I'm getting very cynical in my old age.
Ditto
Maybe someday when you are older and have repeatedly held your nose and voted for every lousy "R" candidate no matter how awful, you will get as cynical as I am and say, "No more!"
core values? Could someone just tell me what the core values of the Republican Party are? The only one I see is "let's do whatever gets us elected". Tents that are too big are easily collapsed.
I don't like having to hold my nose to vote for our candidate but I am scared to death of the rats gaining control. We are in the battle of our lives and we cannot lose it. GWB came so close to losing in 00 and nearly had it stolen from him and they tried it again in 04. If our candidate doesn't win by a big margin, it will be stolen. Thats why we need every last vote.
I have felt the same way you do, but after so many times of "this is the most important election in your lifetime", the scare wears off. If after 8 yrs. of a Republican President, Republican House and sometime Republican Senate, we end up with the same old out-of-control activist Supreme Court and Federal Judiciary making up laws as they go, more treaties with a corrupt organization that does away with our soverignty while they break our laws and rob us blind, etc., and then the Republicans manage to nominate someone for President in '08 who is certain to split the party, guaranteeing a 3-way race, you will have to forgive me if I'm not able to accept that it's a coincidence AND just the coincidence that makes Hillary electable. Fool me once ('92)..., fool me twice ('08) with the same old trick... nah, I don't think so.
That is the second or third time I have heard someone say that. I am really confused. Are you saying that the Republicans may be involved in a plot to get Hillary elected or that Hillary is doing something to insure she gets elected. Why would the Republicans want her elected? Or how could she influence who gets the GOP nomination? This is getting weird.
Well said Badray........
Thanks.
You first stated:
"I will vote for whatever Republican runs no matter who it is."
Arlen Specter was a Democrat until he ran as a Republican.
Michael Bloomberg was a Democrat until he ran as a Republican.
Both times the party accepted them as candidates and ignored what they had stood for because they wanted someone who could win. We can only hope that the Stupid Party would wise up. You put nothing into 'context'. It was wide open to interpretation. That's why I asked for an explanation.
#2No I don't have an R fetish. I believe in the Republican Party because they are so much better then the alternative. And I'm not talking about a third party. Its useless to throw away your vote on a third party."
Better? In many ways, yes. Good enough? In way too many ways, NO they aren't. And in some ways, following the GOP gets us to the same socialist destination that the Dems want us to go, just at a slightly slower pace and less costly rate.
"#3 Yes principles matter to me. Thats why I vote Republican. And at the risk of copying Condi. Please don't impugn my integrity."
Cute. I questioned your meaning. I am questioning your blind allegience to the party because I don't find that much in the way of consistent policy or principle, mostly it's political expediency in order to craft a victory. But I have not impugned your integrity.
"#4 No I would not support Arlon Spector or Lincoln Chaffee over Zell Miller. Thats where I expected the reader to use some common sense. I'm sure its safe to say Spector or Chaffee would never make it through the primarys so the idea of having to vote for one of them is just silly."
It's good to see that you are not as dogmatic as you first stated because you did say ANY Republican. You never know who the party will accept as a nominee. If even a well known Dem stood up tomorrow and announced a 'conversion', the GOP would be happy to run them the next day as a candidate who could win. See my two examples at the top of the post.
"#5. I know we need true conservatives to enact our agenda and in a perfect world, we could elect someone like that but the world of politics isn't perfect. We haven't had a perfect candidate since Ronald Reagan, God rest his soul. I am realistic enough to know we most likely will never have a perfect candidate."
Perfect? No. Principled and with the courage to stand steadfastly for those principles. You don't get those candidates when the party doesn't have clear, consistent, solid principles that candidates must meet to get endorsed. Voter ideology can be varied, but the party must stand firm for small government, low taxes, (not just smaller and lower than what the Democrats want) and individual liberty.
Is that too much to ask? Is that too extreme? Is it that hard to get candidates that believe in those things? Or is it that the party only wants to win and will endorse anyone that they believe can win and will play ball (do as told)?
"#6 You are right. If you lose an election, you lose everything you believe in. These people who plan on sitting home or voting 3rd party will ensure us a loss. How is that going to help our cause?"
You need to reread what I wrote (or maybe I should check that I didn't misspeak). When you vote for principle, you don't lose even if you do lose the election. If you vote to win and are willing to overlook or compromise principle to do so, you do lose everything that is important to you when you lose an election.
"#7 Im not power hungry. I am patriotic. I love my country and I'll be damned if I will sit home and pout or waste my vote on a third party just because I am not in perfect lockstep with our candidate."
I guess that this is the difference between us. I am a conservative first and a Republican second and only quite reluctantly. You are a Republican first and maybe, kinda, sorta like some conservative ideals. I look at candidates with one thing in mind -- Do they trust me to be free? The more a candidate or party wants to control my ife, the less likely he will get my vote. Bush's CFR and Incumbent Protection Act, the Greedy Geezer Drug Benefit Plan, and the despicably named USA PATRIOT Act are just 3 examples of laws that are worthy of the Democrats. And if the Dems had proposed these bills, we would have raised holy hell and fought them. Bush sends them up and the Republicans are happy as pigs in slop. The Republican Party may present a nicer face to you, but they are taking us the same place as the Dems. Either they are incredibly stupid, power hungry, or dastardly evil when you get past that nicer face and look at what they advance. The Republicans just are not all that concerned with your liberty. Sorry if reality doesn't provide you a truth to your liking.
"I'll be damned if I will contribute to the anti American party getting their foot in the door and ruining my country just because I wanted to make a statement."
You may think that you are stopping the leftward drift by voting for 'any Republican', but all you are doing is ensuring that it will continue to that drift. Taking a hardline approach can be risky. But in 1994, we took that risk and won. We pushed for the GOP to go right and the American people followed and voted the for GOP to impliment the plans that we had to offer. Yet, when we finally get the GOP the majorities that they ask for, they lose their backbone and jettison those winning plans and start to act like the Democrats by pandering and buying votes with your tax dollars.
"I hope I have answered your questions."
I think that is more important if I answered yours.
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