This is pointless. The base was intact and we were hammered. We lost the middle, end of story. We can run and hide in denial but in the end we need a message that can attract a broad coalition. The mere idea of splitting the party is ludicrous as we’ll never win another election in our life times. You would need the other side to splinter into multiple parties as well so that the 30% of the vote we could bring to the polls would be sufficient. They aren’t that stupid and we lose, again. Conservative values can sell and I do believe have as I think the county is very conservative in their personal lives but in the end you need a message that can sell to the middle. I don’t think this election is one you are forced to reinvent yourself over as we were very very unfortunate with respect to the current events. In other words, the deck was stacked against us.
You can’t go any more to the middle than McCain and he was beaten. The hell with the middle...Republicans need to be almost exactly the opposite in every regaurd as the Democrats. They need to offer people a clear choice, not liberal light.
Rush likes to trash the mushy middle, but they are the ones who win national elections. Most are moderately conservatives, but not always on the same issues. The key to the long term success of the post war Democratic party was do to the FDR coalition, Nixon’s silent majority was a coalition of lifelong Republicans and conservative Democrats as was the Reagan revolution. OBama won because he brought the middle to his side. We will not ever win another national election if we demand fealty to hard right conservative positions. That does not mean we shouldn’t run conservative candidates, but we must give the middle a reason to vote for us. I still think they want low taxes, reasonably small government, and a strong defense. We saw Gay marriage go down in of all places CA. When O’Reilly was on the View he mentioned personal responsibility and pegged Luntz’s meter with both D’s and R’s. But they also want reasonably priced health care, good schools, safe streets and plentiful and reasonably priced energy. All of these things can be achieved without large expansive and expensive government programs. We need people who can come up with the ideas and articulate them well(Newt comes to mind). Not any easy task, but doable. However, we can’t freeze people out because they don’t agree with us on one or two issues. As we saw Tuesday they will find a new home. Being a ideologue does you no good if you can’t get elected and can’t take over the reins of power. 80% of something is better than 0% of everything.
“The base” was not intact.
Did you type this “(This is pointless. The base was intact and we were hammered.)” with a straight face?
ROTFLMAO!
However, if the party is split, with conservatives (be they social conservatives moving because of the presence of RINOs in the GOP, or fiscal conservatives moving because of being ignored for years and the presence of large amounts of CINOs in the GOP as well as the social conservative movement) then Conservatism is dead! What people should realize is that conservatives need each other. What we need to do is retake the party, not go and form a 3rd party and have a situation where a re-emergent Democrat party faces a fledgling party populated by either social OR fiscal conservatives (apparently the two are becoming more and more like oil and water, and a denuded GOP populated by a smaller number of people than before.
In war that is called divide and conquer.
Take over the party by throwing out RINOs and CINOs. Come up with a strong and effective narrative similar to what Reagan used to have, or what the Republicans came up with during Clinton's run. Have strong conservatives like Steele stand up. Ensure that whoever is selected as our nominee can TALK and just doesn't keep on repeating 'my friends' like it will work like Obama's tacit mesmerism. The infighting needs to stop (look at what is happening to Palin ...she is being used as a scapegoat, when the fact remains that for whatever reason McCain chose her, without her he would have lost by an even wider margin). People also need to be realistic and stop seeing the Democrats as stupid ...as I said a couple of days ago, there is the stupid left and there is the clever left. The clever left just dumped a perfect Rovian tactic on us, selected our nominee for us (McCain's selection was not even popular with the conservative base ....it was just hilarious, those guys won this from the very beginning), ensured that the media was totally on their side, and that any potent attacks (which would have destroyed any other candidate) did not even resonate with the voting public. They also came up with a very strong narrative (which FReepers were pooh-poing, when the fact remains that it was very effective even if hollow), and put together a campaign that was, quite simply put, one of (if not the) best run movements in American political history! Yet people here still want to believe that all Democrats are the spittle spewing retards over at DU!
Oh, and don't get me started on all the rope-a-dopes that kept on coming out. I said again and again ...the Ayers, birth certificate, Odinga stories were just wasting our time. They knew it, I knew it, anyone who looked at it would have seen it. It would not have changed the minds of voters ....for Ayers, most people don't remember nor care about him. For the birth certificate, I strongly believe that if the story had stuck, which it did not, a REAL certificate would have come out to humiliate us. It was a rope-a-dope from the beginning. For Odinga, which kept on coming up on FR, I told people that ...I am a Kenyan by birth ... that a lot of the stories regarding him were fake. For instance the memorandum of understanding with Muslims was shown to be fake months ago in Kenya, but people here kept running with it! Also, Americans don't care about 1,500 dead Africans ....if they didn't care of 900,000 dead Rwandans, what are a thousand Kenyans? It was continuous rope-a-dopes, and people wanted to believe that they finally had the 'silver bullet' so much they fell for it. Instead of coming up with powerful narratives for our side, and defining what we stood for, or even a mass GOTV campaign, we spent a lot of time chasing silver bullets that either did not exist, or would probably have not have penetrated the media aegis that Obama had going for him! The moment the guy survived Reverend Wright is when I knew that he was teflon coated ....he'd have to kill a kid of video while molesting his wife's sister for anything to stick! If Wright did not stick, there was no way Odinga or ACORN would have. If people were saying years back that Arnold Schwarzenegger should be allowed to run for president (even though he was born in Austria), there was no way people were going to go berserk over a birth certificate (although I still think one exists ....there is a reason why McCain never brought it up, and even if you take him as a wuss, Hillary Clinton never brought it up, and she is no wuss).
Also do not get me started on PUMAs, who were NOT a rope-a-dope but might as well have been one. People kept shooting for numbers of 18 million ...PUMAs were never close to that. Just because 18 m people voted for Hillary does not mean they would move from voting for Hillary (a person whose liberal record is ALMOST as bad as Obama's, with the only redeeming grace being that she at least has more experience than he does and is a known entity) to voting for McCain/Palin. The issues that a core Hillary supported has run VERY contrary to what the Republican party espouses. Sure, there were quite a number of REAL PUMAs, who are people who were very strongly pro-Hillary and felt jaded, or simply did not trust the snake-oil Obama was selling, but thinking they would have a major difference in the election was a joke. Almost a rope-a-dope, apart from the fact that it was not done by purpose by the clever left.
We need to come out strong, retake the GOP, come up with a narrative that works, elect REAL CONSERVATIVES (meaning the entire gamut ...not just stem cells and abortion, but also property rights, adherence to the constitution, immigration reform, fiscal responsibility ....can any Republican say those two words without going into spasms ....etc etc etc).
Doing otherwise will just lead to another Liberal-lite, a lighter version of your standard Democrat. Which means the Clever Left wins again ...either people will reject the Liberal-Lite and vote for the 'real thing,' or they will vote for the liberal lite and the Clever Left still have a liberal! Win-win for them.
We cannot leave the GOP ...we have to reform it. Splitting it is suicide, and nothing would make the Clever Left happier! We also need to stop seeing liberals as fools ...up to a day before the election people here were still deluding themselves that all those people were lying to themselves, and saying otherwise got you a reprimand. Apparently they were not wrong. Many Democrats are not bright, but like a hive/swarm society (e.g. ants, bees, termites) a colony doesn't need the majority to be smart. They simply need them to move en masse. The brains/leadership is restricted to an inner core, which HAS TO BE smart enough for the entire colony. Underestimate them at your peril.
We've been hit! We can get up. This has happened before, i.e. Carter (although not to this level of coherence), and we ended up with Reagan. That can happen again ...a Reagan for the 21st century (many say it's Palin, but I don't think so. There are far stronger examples of 21-C Reagan-esque Republicans who are Conservatives across the ENTIRE SPECTRUM that is conservatism, plus are great orators as well as having rapport with people). We need to get together. We need to have faith. We need to be strong.
We will rise.
However, if the party is split, with conservatives (be they social conservatives moving because of the presence of RINOs in the GOP, or fiscal conservatives moving because of being ignored for years and the presence of large amounts of CINOs in the GOP as well as the social conservative movement) then Conservatism is dead! What people should realize is that conservatives need each other. What we need to do is retake the party, not go and form a 3rd party and have a situation where a re-emergent Democrat party faces a fledgling party populated by either social OR fiscal conservatives (apparently the two are becoming more and more like oil and water, and a denuded GOP populated by a smaller number of people than before.
In war that is called divide and conquer.
Take over the party by throwing out RINOs and CINOs. Come up with a strong and effective narrative similar to what Reagan used to have, or what the Republicans came up with during Clinton's run. Have strong conservatives like Steele stand up. Ensure that whoever is selected as our nominee can TALK and just doesn't keep on repeating 'my friends' like it will work like Obama's tacit mesmerism. The infighting needs to stop (look at what is happening to Palin ...she is being used as a scapegoat, when the fact remains that for whatever reason McCain chose her, without her he would have lost by an even wider margin). People also need to be realistic and stop seeing the Democrats as stupid ...as I said a couple of days ago, there is the stupid left and there is the clever left. The clever left just dumped a perfect Rovian tactic on us, selected our nominee for us (McCain's selection was not even popular with the conservative base ....it was just hilarious, those guys won this from the very beginning), ensured that the media was totally on their side, and that any potent attacks (which would have destroyed any other candidate) did not even resonate with the voting public. They also came up with a very strong narrative (which FReepers were pooh-poing, when the fact remains that it was very effective even if hollow), and put together a campaign that was, quite simply put, one of (if not the) best run movements in American political history! Yet people here still want to believe that all Democrats are the spittle spewing retards over at DU!
Oh, and don't get me started on all the rope-a-dopes that kept on coming out. I said again and again ...the Ayers, birth certificate, Odinga stories were just wasting our time. They knew it, I knew it, anyone who looked at it would have seen it. It would not have changed the minds of voters ....for Ayers, most people don't remember nor care about him. For the birth certificate, I strongly believe that if the story had stuck, which it did not, a REAL certificate would have come out to humiliate us. It was a rope-a-dope from the beginning. For Odinga, which kept on coming up on FR, I told people that ...I am a Kenyan by birth ... that a lot of the stories regarding him were fake. For instance the memorandum of understanding with Muslims was shown to be fake months ago in Kenya, but people here kept running with it! Also, Americans don't care about 1,500 dead Africans ....if they didn't care of 900,000 dead Rwandans, what are a thousand Kenyans? It was continuous rope-a-dopes, and people wanted to believe that they finally had the 'silver bullet' so much they fell for it. Instead of coming up with powerful narratives for our side, and defining what we stood for, or even a mass GOTV campaign, we spent a lot of time chasing silver bullets that either did not exist, or would probably have not have penetrated the media aegis that Obama had going for him! The moment the guy survived Reverend Wright is when I knew that he was teflon coated ....he'd have to kill a kid of video while molesting his wife's sister for anything to stick! If Wright did not stick, there was no way Odinga or ACORN would have. If people were saying years back that Arnold Schwarzenegger should be allowed to run for president (even though he was born in Austria), there was no way people were going to go berserk over a birth certificate (although I still think one exists ....there is a reason why McCain never brought it up, and even if you take him as a wuss, Hillary Clinton never brought it up, and she is no wuss).
Also do not get me started on PUMAs, who were NOT a rope-a-dope but might as well have been one. People kept shooting for numbers of 18 million ...PUMAs were never close to that. Just because 18 m people voted for Hillary does not mean they would move from voting for Hillary (a person whose liberal record is ALMOST as bad as Obama's, with the only redeeming grace being that she at least has more experience than he does and is a known entity) to voting for McCain/Palin. The issues that a core Hillary supported has run VERY contrary to what the Republican party espouses. Sure, there were quite a number of REAL PUMAs, who are people who were very strongly pro-Hillary and felt jaded, or simply did not trust the snake-oil Obama was selling, but thinking they would have a major difference in the election was a joke. Almost a rope-a-dope, apart from the fact that it was not done by purpose by the clever left.
We need to come out strong, retake the GOP, come up with a narrative that works, elect REAL CONSERVATIVES (meaning the entire gamut ...not just stem cells and abortion, but also property rights, adherence to the constitution, immigration reform, fiscal responsibility ....can any Republican say those two words without going into spasms ....etc etc etc).
Doing otherwise will just lead to another Liberal-lite, a lighter version of your standard Democrat. Which means the Clever Left wins again ...either people will reject the Liberal-Lite and vote for the 'real thing,' or they will vote for the liberal lite and the Clever Left still have a liberal! Win-win for them.
We cannot leave the GOP ...we have to reform it. Splitting it is suicide, and nothing would make the Clever Left happier! We also need to stop seeing liberals as fools ...up to a day before the election people here were still deluding themselves that all those people were lying to themselves, and saying otherwise got you a reprimand. Apparently they were not wrong. Many Democrats are not bright, but like a hive/swarm society (e.g. ants, bees, termites) a colony doesn't need the majority to be smart. They simply need them to move en masse. The brains/leadership is restricted to an inner core, which HAS TO BE smart enough for the entire colony. Underestimate them at your peril.
We've been hit! We can get up. This has happened before, i.e. Carter (although not to this level of coherence), and we ended up with Reagan. That can happen again ...a Reagan for the 21st century (many say it's Palin, but I don't think so. There are far stronger examples of 21-C Reagan-esque Republicans who are Conservatives across the ENTIRE SPECTRUM that is conservatism, plus are great orators as well as having rapport with people). We need to get together. We need to have faith. We need to be strong.
We will rise.
We stacked the deck against ourselves. We lost the middle because of one issue, and will continue to lose the middle because of it. We cannot seem to “get it” that the net result of being so determined to legislate morality instead of teaching it is the Obmamination. We have tossed out the baby with the bathwater. The Republican party has been hijacked by those who want to use political office to impose religous views. We are(were?) a Christian nation, God belongs in the pledge, In God we Trust on our currency, the Ten Commandments on the court house wall and in the schools. How much more good could have come if all the time, money, and energy spent on the right to life issue had been spent Teaching..in the home, Church, and just plain ‘ol advertising. Would a Republican be preparing for an Inaguration on Jan 20, 2009 IF we had kept things in their proper place? I think so. Instead WE have by our single minded stubbornness brought upon ourselves the Obamination.