Posted on 09/27/2009 8:51:57 PM PDT by SmithL
Indian Wells, California Republicans begin the 2010 campaign season with something many considered unthinkable just a few months ago - hope that they can win a major statewide race.
They realize the odds are still steep. Only 31 percent of California voters are registered Republicans and no Congressional or legislative district has a majority of GOP voters. And demographically, former state Republican leader and current political analyst Allan Hoffenblum said the GOP has become an "old white guy" party in a state that is rapidly diversifying.
Yet coming out of their three-day state convention that ended today, party activists say they are seeing signs the GOP is emerging from the shock of last November's national tail-kicking by the Democrats. Many see hope in a growing national frustration with federal bailouts and government expansion, and in declining approval ratings for President Obama.
"Last year it was a morgue here," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County), who attended the convention to support former eBay CEO Meg Whitman's gubernatorial bid. "For the first time since (former GOP Gov.) Pete Wilson's 1994 campaign, I feel a sense of 'we' in the Republican Party."
The newfound sense of "we" showed in the absence of bickering over social issues like abortion that typically divide the party gatherings. Instead, California Republicans joined in extolling the promise of two deep-pocketed gubernatorial candidates - the billionaire Whitman and multimillionaire state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner - along with what's expected to be a similarly well-funded Senate candidacy of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer.
Most of all, they hope to capitalize on what they say is a growing anti-government sentiment in California that will inspire voters to seek alternatives.
California Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth urged party members to reach out to supporters of the anti-tax, anti-government
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
It’s good to read about some positive news for the GOP. Keep the good news coming!
They’ll figure out a way to mess it up. You’ll see.
Yup, the "New CA GOP" is just like the "Old CA GOP: throw our little babies under the bus.
Trying to be like Democrats is a losing strategy, and is what led to the party falling into disarray. Stand for something!
Whitman and Fiorina are going to destroy what’s left of the GOP. You do realize that people are just as angry with Republicans as they are with Democrats? Those Tea Parties are not pro-Republican rallies, people aren’t going to vote for lesser of two evils anymore.
Carly will do for the GOP what she did for Lucent and HP (HP is at least recovering).
Alternate title:
“California GOP still suffering from Hallucenagenic Overdose. Still seeing things.”
Pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-illegal alien.
The "new and improved" GOP.
This isn’t good news. These are far-left RINOs (Fiorina/Whitman/Poizner, et al, nevermind Ah-nold) hell bent on destroying what’s left of the CA GOP.
I read the first paragraph and I was excited at the idea of: California Republicans begin the 2010 campaign season with something many considered unthinkable just a few months ago - hope that they can win a major statewide race.
But then again, I can't really hope of any conservatives in the mold of Ronald Reagan rising in California anytime soon. California isn't what it used to be during the Reagan years. CA's population tend to be more liberal and vote Democrat.
However, I don't dispute the idea that someday, conservatives may regain power in CA again. You never know.
Remember well that Democrats don't concede us practically anything. How else would you explain Dem wins for Governor in Wyoming for the better part of the past 34 years (only 8 of those were held by a Republican) ? But as long as you have RINOs standing in the way protecting their Democrat friends, like I pointed out in that Philly City GOP article yesterday, how can we even get our candidates to the general election ?
There was a time in my teens when I idealized the idea of having a conservative world where people would live by our conservative values and standards. However, reality is a different animal altogether. Let me give you a more specific example:
Duncan Hunter is a strong conservative man. I think he is an honest man. Yet when he ran in the GOP primaries he couldn't even get his state to vote for him. He won ONLY 1% of the vote. So even if the whole FR community voted for him a few times, it wouldn't change the fact that he won't win a national election - a hard reality, but reality nonetheless.
Being a native New Yorker (though from the more conservative upstate region - which by the way isn't as conservative as it used to be), I don't expect a true conservative to win statewide elections in NY, nor do I expect a conservative would win in liberal CA. But if we can get someone who could take these states closer to the right, little by little, that would be an improvement.
Politics is about winning, and it is about getting someone who can win elections. It's not about dreaming wonderful dreams and losing in the end. If we are supposed to advance our conservative agenda, we need to find someone who can win. Oh yes, if he or she is a conservative and can win elections in CA and NY, more power to him/her. But if we can't get such a strong conservative, then a not-so-strong conservative will suffice - if we can win and as I wrote above, promote our conservative agenda, even if it takes time.
The point is to win elections. To enact our agenda we need to start winning elections. If a true conservative can't win in a certain state, then get the next most conservative candidate who can win. That's politics.
There’s validity to your arguments, but I do also take into account the practical viability of a given candidate as well. Hunter was well regarded around here, but as I also told folks, he was not a first-tier candidate (he’s Cabinet Secretary material). But saying that, there also reaches a point where a candidate from our side is so liberal that they will inflict more damage to the GOP and Conservatism if they win than if they were to lose. It’s why on some rare occasions, I’d simply prefer the outright Dem to win (not because I agree with their policies, but because I know they will be so horrible as to scare the public straight). If McCain had won the Presidency, we’d be bracing for further losses in the off-year elections in NJ & VA and probably even further declines in Congress next year as the party in power. It’s like the argument that it took Carter to get us Reagan. If Ford had won in ‘76, it was assured a Dem would’ve won in ‘80 and the GOP would’ve never retaken the Senate back (same had Bush, Sr. won reelection in ‘92 - no GOP Congress in ‘94).
There has never been a president as bad as Obama, to the point that many don't realize the damage he is inflicting on our country. You pointed out Carter, but even Carter wasn't as bad as Obama. The salient difference being that for all his incompetence, Carter didn't dislike America as Obama does. Obama follows the communist doctrine as his blueprint for destroying America. To me, protecting the country from enemy forces hell-bent on destroying the nation is more important than the survival of a political party.
I understand what you are saying. You are saying that Obama is so bad, that the likelihood is that the Republicans and Conservatives will win Congressional seats in 2010 and 2012. The idea is that Obama's administration is causing and will continue to cause such a mess that people would vote Republican next time. But at what price?
I wasn't thinking of electing a liberal GOPer in liberal states and localities. What would be the point of doing that? Might as well elect the real liberal. I was thinking that in the absence of a strong, credible conservative candidate, a less strong conservative - and a more sound candidate - would suffice, especially if he or she can win in more liberal states that tend to vote Democrat. Remember what Reagan said, "My 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy." However, if there are strong conservatives who can win elections in Democratic areas, then by all means let us support them to victory.
But this idea of 'winning by losing' elections is something I can't reconcile. The point of politics is to win elections and enact policy, not to lose elections and lose ground. And before someone calls me a RINO, I have to say that I put a lot stock in my conservative values and principles, but not to the point of sacrificing my country to safeguard my political interests.
LARRY ELDER TRIED TO RUN WHY ARE WE NOT FIGHTING FOR HIM!!!
HE NEEDS MONEY WHY NOT FROM ALOT OF PEOPLE INSTEAD OF GOP, WE ALL NEED TO PUT OUR MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTH IS, REGUARDLESS
OF THIS ECONOMY 5 BUCKS FROM ONE MILLION PEOPLE SHOULD DO IT. TAKE BACK OUR GOVERNMENT!!!!
LARRY ELDER TRIED TO RUN WHY ARE WE NOT FIGHTING FOR HIM!!!
HE NEEDS MONEY WHY NOT FROM ALOT OF PEOPLE INSTEAD OF GOP, WE ALL NEED TO PUT OUR MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTH IS, REGUARDLESS
OF THIS ECONOMY 5 BUCKS FROM ONE MILLION PEOPLE SHOULD DO IT. TAKE BACK OUR GOVERNMENT!!!!
But don't be presumptuous about Freeper's political contributions. By shouting "WE ALL NEED TO PUT OUR MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTH IS," you undermine your cause, as some Freepers may be ready to support him with donations.
I understand what you’re getting at here, but let me try to explain this a bit (or maybe reiterate what I already stated). It is, of course, our basic goal to win. You don’t really want to lose, but sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture. Before I mention the Presidential thing, I look at the Governorships. In ‘94, we had that great sweep of offices, but some of the candidates that won turned out to be weak (at best) or terrible (at worst). When we lost some of those races in ‘98 (and MS the following year), some of the weaker fruit were knocked off the tree. I thought it was terrible at the time, but it enabled us by coming back with even stronger candidates and Governors the next time around. In AL, we had Fob James, who had switched parties three times (!), but James was a fine man, but he wasn’t as effective as hoped. He was beaten by an ethically-challenged rodent (who later went to prison), but because of that rodent, we ended up with a stronger candidate in ‘02, who took the office in two successive elections and likely stands to hand off the office to another Republican for the first time in the modern era.
In GA, we had Guy Millner nearly beat Zell Miller in ‘94, but Millner wasn’t the guy who could quite seal the deal (in a state that was built on a very tenuous Dem majority at the time). If Millner had taken out Miller, it’s very likely Millner still would’ve lost as the incumbent in ‘98 to Roy Barnes (as it was, Barnes did beat him in a race many thought Millner would win). But how was this a victory for us ? Because the Democrat Barnes proved to be the Governor that would preside over a near-complete collapse of the Dem party in the state (which likely wouldn’t have happened under Millner). When Barnes lost reelection in ‘02 to the much stronger and experienced Sonny Perdue, Perdue was able to take advantage of the disarray the Dems were in and strengthen the GOP, and was able to easily take a second term.
Even FL, for example, might’ve benefitted from Jeb having lost in ‘94. Because Jeb went out over the next 4 years and made more inroads to strengthen himself and have a lot more experience he wouldn’t have had merely knocking off Lawton Chiles. Also, too, had he been Governor from ‘95-’03, I believe none other than Katherine Harris would’ve ended up as the Gov nominee in ‘02, for which we would most assuredly have lost the Governorship to a Dem (and that Dem would’ve likely won again in ‘06).
MS was another example here. When Kirk Fordice, the first GOP Gov since Reconstruction stepped down after two terms, the GOP nominee, Congressman Mike Parker was narrowly beaten by the Dem Lt Governor Ronnie Musgrove. While I’m sure Parker would’ve made an OK Governor, we ended up having Haley Barbour come in 4 years later and knock off Musgrove and he quickly became one of the best Governors in the nation. In my estimation, Parker probably wouldn’t have quite reached that pinnacle (and had he been Governor, Haley might never have ended up in the office).
Now I’ll give an example of where winning hurt us. In my own state of TN, where we swept the ‘94 races (both Senate seats and the Governorship, the first time we had held all of those since 1971-75), we elected Don Sundquist to the Governorship, a former Congressman. I got to vote in all those statewide elections for the first time that year at 20, and it was very exciting. But something went very wrong with Sundquist (I derisively called him Scumquist). He climbed in bed with a corrupt Democrat establishment that had been in control of my state for effectively since the early part of Reconstruction, and jettisoned a lot of his “Conservatism.”
By ‘98, I was thoroughly disgusted with him, and supported his Democrat opponent. His Dem opponent had been the liberal nominee in 1970 for Governor (he was credited with losing the governorship for the party for the first time in 50 years), but now John Jay Hooker was more of a gadfly populist, but militantly pro-Constitutional, putting both parties to shame in his defense of it. I didn’t agree with him on everything, but he did strike a chord with me on ending a lot of Democrat control of institutions by unconstitutional means (the Judicary especially). The Dems DID NOT WANT this man anywhere near the Governorship. They were horrified when he managed to take the primary.
When I started to see Scumquist getting de facto endorsements from the crooked Dem establishment, where he was getting their money at fundraisers, I knew I wasn’t wrong to support Hooker. Hooker ended up losing in a landslide when the party simply ignored him (as it was, Scumquist’s “victory” was a mile wide and an inch deep, he didn’t help the GOP improve its standings at all). I may have been one of the early ones to figure out how much of a slimeball this guy was, but he soon became mightily unpopular as his second term dragged on. As a nice little stunt, he tried to ram an illegal income tax down our throat, and instantly became a reviled figure (there were enormous worries his unpopularity would benefit Gore in ‘00, but fortunately didn’t - but the national party told him to lay as low as possible).
When redistricting came up in ‘01, he decided to get even with Republicans (namely Conservatives), by signing off on an audacious plan to gerrymander as many Republicans out of their seats as possible, giving the Dems a 2/3rds majority (which the Dems managed to do every 10 years, and they were doing so even AFTER the GOP was winning a clear majority of the vote statewide, they’d have their guys win large numbers of seats with narrow %’s, while ours would win in landslides in hyper-GOP districts). The Dems, never ones to be bashful and who always enjoyed screwing us, thought the Governor’s plan was so over-the-top with sticking it to his own party, even THEY couldn’t go along with it, and portrayed themselves as the “sensible bi-partisan moderates” in submitting a plan to just remove 1 Republican from the legislature (and redraw a vacated seat in Congress to the benefit of a Dem). But, he wasn’t done, yet.
The Republican vacating his seat in Congress was running for Governor, but he didn’t have boatloads of money like our former Nashville Mayor had in running on the Dem side. Scumquist decided to drag out some rich old liberal RINO from East TN (who was such an asshat, he lost his own legislative seat specifically drawn for him). The RINO spent a mess of money, knowing all he was doing was driving the Congressman to bankruptcy. So, by the time the Congressman won the nomination, he had no money left to face the superrich Mayor. By all accounts, Phil Bredesen was too liberal for TN, so he used his money in GOP East TN proclaiming himself as the best Mayor in the history of civilization and undermining the Congressman. Well, it ended up working, he drove down the GOP % in East TN (actually, the areas where Bredesen was ALREADY known, he didn’t do as well as he had hoped), and he obtained a narrow victory over a cash-poor Republican (whom, if he had had the $$ to compete, would’ve won), and he also was allowed to break campaign finance laws to do so, without penalty.
So what’s my point here ? Sometimes we really are better off with the Dem winning in the short-term, because we might end up far worse in the long term if we elect a flawed, weak (or worse) Republican initially. TN would’ve been better off had Bredesen won back in ‘94, because a Republican would’ve easily succeeded him in ‘02 (quite possibly Fred Thompson, who then would’ve had that executive experience many cited he lacked).
Having the Dem come in and do their very worst, so to speak, does force the general public to see the sum total of liberal/Socialism and how much they simply don’t want it, and almost always scares the public back to sanity. Not to say I approve of Carter or Zero’s victory, they’re bad enough, but quite possibly necessary for a long-term gain afterwards. McCain would’ve been like our Gov. Sundquist, looking to make deals with Democrats, thumbing his nose at Conservatives, just like he always has, and the party would be in total disarray now, with the Dems looking at consolidating even larger supermajorities in Congress and the Governorships next year. How do I know this ? Because I’ve studied political history back to the beginning of our country, and I know how it works.
As for your point about Reagan and his saying about people that agree with him 80% of the time. Well that’s well and fine, but we have too many Republicans that not only don’t agree with a Conservative position 80% of the time, but disagree with it 85% of the time (and yet we have loons yammering away, even on FR, that we should fall in line and support people antithetical to Conservatism simply because they have an “R” label after their name). I’ve asked the question that if Bill Clinton decided to become a Republican tomorrow without changing any of his stances, would you say it was OK to support him for office in order to merely “beat a Democrat” ? No ? Well, then why are you guys humping the likes of Slick Willard or Huckster, when these guys were like manna from heaven to the Democrats in their respective states ? I mean, truly, what are we winning here ?
I got suspended from FR back in ‘03 vigorously denouncing Ah-nold in CA in favor of Tom McClintock, citing every liberal measure he’d likely champion as Governor if he won in the Recall. Everything I said about him proved right, and I asked my fellow Republicans, “Well, what did you gain by electing this Socialist as Governor ? Where are all the Republicans you thought he’d sweep into office ? How about how he put CA in the GOP column for President ? What ? He didn’t ? Well, no kidding.” Unless they’re Conservative, they’re not helping us at all. As for me, I only remain a Republican so long as the party remains Conservative. When it ceases to be and becomes a copycat of the Democrats, there is no reason for it to exist, and that’s why it doesn’t in a number of areas in the country, especially in Massachusetts. Frightening when you realize that it once was as GOP a state as it now is Democrat, with the Dems utterly shut out. And the Dems took it as they did not entirely because of strong leadership on their part, but because we totally ceded leadership on our part.
Chuck DeVore is the Conservative in the Senate race, and he’s polling closer to Boxer than the liberal Fiorina (which the establishment doesn’t want people to know). If anything, Elder ought to run for Governor. We have NO viable center-right candidate going for Governor on the GOP side, all 3 are liberals (Campbell, Poizner, Whitman), and that provides a Conservative with an incredible opportunity. If one of those 3 is nominated (and if Fiorina wins the nomination), I will not endorse any of them. I’ve truly had it with the hijacking of our party by the left.
No question about it. And since most Americans don't know what communism stands for and and don't know about its horrible legacy, perhaps this is a lesson that many won't forget. Sure, in that regard it is like saying, "good, you had it coming to you." However, people who voted for Obama aren't entirely at fault here because the media didn't do their job and closely examine Obama's agenda, ideology, and life. Obama was never vetted. To this day, no one knows what kind of student Obama was or even if he is an American citizen. His life before being a community organizer is largely a mystery.
In light of such a massive cover-up, people are ill informed and as consequence they believed the propaganda and voted for him. But I do blame those who knew about this man and still voted for him. Shame on them for putting this man in a position to destroy our country. Obama hasn't been in power a year, and the damage he is causing to our nation is great. Of course, the great majority doesn't know that since the media doesn't report it. But those who find out are rightly angry. Obama is not like any other president we have ever had. This is something we need to understand.
If it weren't for conservative talk radio and some good conservative journalists doing the difficult job of informing us, we would be sailing this communist minefield without even noticing.
I don't know if Sarah is going to run, but she is a solid conservative with positives ideas. The media, the democrats, and the liberals hate her and their influence reaches all levels of the population. So when people attack Sarah. I use Regan's phrase, "My 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy."
We both want conservatives leaders and conservative policies, we just differ as to how to get there.
If I understand you correctly, your point is that if you can't get a 100% conservative, don't even bother. Lose and learn your lesson, because you'll be willing to vote for the 100% conservative next time around.
My point is that if you can't get a 100% conservative for a certain job, get the next best available conservative candidate.
I'm bookmarking this thread since it's going on and on and on... kinda memorable, lol.
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