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GOP Gloom
The Washington Times ^ | 18 May 2006 | Gary Andres

Posted on 05/18/2006 5:02:18 AM PDT by maica

Conservative columnists have a case of congressional crankiness. Take Peggy Noonan at the Wall Street Journal, for example. She wrote last week that Republicans on the Hill are so far off track it might take losing in November to unlearn the lessons of power. Media critic Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post found her mood so foreboding he suggested only Prozac might lift conservatives' gathering gloom. Frustration among conservatives is both palpable and understandable. Many believe -- accurately, I might add -- their pens played a role in promoting the emergence of the Republican majority in Congress.

---snip---

Frustrated conservatives should aim their fury at the real culprit -- the 45 Democratic senators who have the means and motive to block most conservative initiatives. Consider what the House, where "majority" really means 50 percent plus one, has passed in the last several years: permanent tax cuts, death tax elimination, medical malpractice reform, creating opportunity zones in urban areas, welfare reform, child interstate abortion notification and Head Start reform, to name a few. The House could have also adopted some version of Social Security reform with personal accounts and tax simplification had Senate prospects not been so bleak. ---snip--- Instead of wallowing in frustration, conservatives need a new mantra: There's more work to do. They should begin by painting a more realistic picture of the meaning of "controlling" the Senate for conservative voters and then promote the creation of a real majority by trying to elect five to seven more Republican senators. Prozac cannot lift the collective spirits of conservatives, but neither will "Speaker" Pelosi.

(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 109th; conservatives; demoratmajority; diaperchange; electroshocktherapy; elephanteatsownhead; gop; lithuim; noonanisahack; november; overstatetheobvious; preshillaryclinton; prozac; senateinneedofenema; speakerpelosi
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A needed pep talk and reality check for dispirited and/or angry conservatives.
1 posted on 05/18/2006 5:02:19 AM PDT by maica
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To: maica
The GOP needs to get out the vote, but they aren't exactly exciting the base.

They'll never get us out by telling us what they did over the course of the last few years.

Whether some want to admit it or not, the illegal immigration issue is the issue of this campaign.

They are in control and are giving the entire issue to the democrats, lock, stock and barrel.

Sounds incompetent to me.
2 posted on 05/18/2006 5:06:17 AM PDT by Preachin' (Enoch's testimony was that he pleased God: Why are we still here?)
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To: maica

"Frustrated conservatives should aim their fury at the real culprit -- the 45 Democratic senators who have the means and motive to block most conservative initiatives."

Not to mention the RINO turncoats like McCain and Hagel!


3 posted on 05/18/2006 5:08:31 AM PDT by NRA1995 (Let's all leave the US and return as undocumented trespassers....uh, immigrants)
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To: DrDeb; Freee-dame; ColdSpringGirl

This article lists so many accomplishments of the past 5 years, and speaks candidly about the reality of a need for a 60 seat majority in the Senate. Andres praises the House for the many initiatives that they have passed.


Remember my axiom: Look for what is NOT being reported. What drive-by media ignore is where the important news is located. The many conservative bills passed through the House is one more example of this truth.


4 posted on 05/18/2006 5:09:50 AM PDT by maica ( We have a destination in mind, and that is a freer world. -- G W Bush)
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To: maica
Frustrated conservatives should aim their fury at the real culprit -- the 45 Democratic senators who have the means and motive to block most conservative initiatives.

This is a lame but standard excuse among Republicans (and we have several extremely noisy and annoying exponents of that excuse right here on FR).

Here's my advice to Bill Frist and the other transparently spineless Republiucan leaders on Capitol Hill.

Make the Rats filibuster every time they threaten to do so. That doesn't mean back off, it doesn't mean stand down, it doesn't mean "negotiate."

It means to let Reid, Kennedy, Feingold, and Feinstein spend their hours, days, and even weeks doing nothing for their constiutents while exposing in full public view the reprehensible values they stand for. Make them defend immigration amnesty, a decaying Social Security system, their plans for Iraq and the war against global jihad. Make them stand before the American people and explain themselves.

5 posted on 05/18/2006 5:09:52 AM PDT by angkor
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To: maica
"Frustrated conservatives should aim their fury at the real culprit" -> the politicians who claim they are conservative but vote like hyannis orcinus.
6 posted on 05/18/2006 5:10:30 AM PDT by JohnLongIsland
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To: maica

This place is turning into "Republicans Gone Wild.com"


7 posted on 05/18/2006 5:10:53 AM PDT by Darkwolf377 (Kowtowing to the Bush haters ends now)
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To: maica
the reality of a need for a 60 seat majority in the Senate.

Nope. The repubnlicans need simply to force the Rats to an actual filibister every time they threaten to do so. The American public would tire or such childishness very quickly (esp. since the Rats cannot articulate what it is they actually stand for).

8 posted on 05/18/2006 5:11:44 AM PDT by angkor
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To: maica

I do think that thanks to the tireless efforts of people like Sessions the immigration issue with have an "acceptable to most" resolution.

I am one of those discontented conservatives and I have to say that there are most definately some republicans who "get it" they are working tirelessly on our behalf and I think it would be a mistake to pull the rug out from under them because a few rotten apples keep gumming up the works. The answer is MORE republicans being elected not less.


9 posted on 05/18/2006 5:13:03 AM PDT by Prysson
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To: JohnLongIsland
the politicians who claim they are conservative but vote like hyannis orcinus.

An alleged leadership which is too interested in comfy Senatorial comity than the state of the Republic.

10 posted on 05/18/2006 5:13:46 AM PDT by angkor
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To: angkor
The repubnlicans need simply to force the Rats to an actual filibister every time they threaten to do so.

Pardon for all those typos, my keyboard is acting cranky and due for an immediate replacement.

11 posted on 05/18/2006 5:15:04 AM PDT by angkor
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To: All
If Frist had done away with the filibuster (and he could have, at the beginning of each Congress, rules are adopted by simple majority vote), then Senate results would be more like the House's.
12 posted on 05/18/2006 5:17:22 AM PDT by bennowens
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To: Darkwolf377
Yup! I remember many years of waiting for a Republican Majority in Congress. Now we have to focus on getting a conservative Republican Majority in the Senate, while also keeping the House in Republican hands.

We cannot succumb to an attitude of defeatism, and let Pelosi, Kennedy, Reid, Carl Levin, Charlie Rangel, etc. start making new rules the day they take over. They will change the rules so that Republicans Never regain the majority. I have seen what unscrupulous and ruthless dumocrats with a veto-proof majority can do in the Maryland legislature. Lenin would be proud of them!

13 posted on 05/18/2006 5:21:31 AM PDT by maica ( We have a destination in mind, and that is a freer world. -- G W Bush)
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To: maica

We're about 20-25 seats away from a solid conservative majority in the house. This is "doable."

My communist congresscritter has gone over the edge and is now representing illegal aliens and Marxists in the California Sierra Club. This is the year we throw him out.


14 posted on 05/18/2006 5:23:16 AM PDT by sergeantdave (And though getting up in the world attracts attention, it does not establish solid worth.)
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To: angkor

A (traditional) filibuster is what one Senator uses when he does not have the 41 votes necessary to stop a motion from coming before the Chamber. When the Dums have more than 40 votes they can stop anything that Frist wants to bring up. When something has been "stopped" other rules come into play to keep said motion or plan or bill from being presented again. So Frist would be shutting down Republican initiatives by his own action.


15 posted on 05/18/2006 5:25:23 AM PDT by maica ( We have a destination in mind, and that is a freer world. -- G W Bush)
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To: maica

The Iranian regime (and its agents) use a technique of distraction in order to pull people away from the real story or situation.
The dems (and msm) are using this technique too. And the republicans are falling for it.
All of the hearings and investigations are pulling peoples' attention away from the accomplshments made and are also stalling and preventing more accomplishments from being made.
The republicans in congress and senate need to say "no" to all these distractions and get on with their business.


16 posted on 05/18/2006 5:25:54 AM PDT by nuconvert ([there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business])
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To: Prysson

I agree.


17 posted on 05/18/2006 5:25:59 AM PDT by maica ( We have a destination in mind, and that is a freer world. -- G W Bush)
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To: maica
I remember many years of waiting for a Republican Majority in Congress. Now we have to focus on getting a conservative Republican Majority in the Senate, while also keeping the House in Republican hands.

THAT is the attitude we need to have: We have a Republican majority; now let's build on that to get a CONSERVATIVE majority.

Why are people around here wanting to toss away that golden opportunity when we are right where we want to be in terms of longterm party-building???? I think it's the SAVAGE! "I want it all my way right NOW or I'm going to hang up on you!!!!" mentality.

Adults don't do things that way. We are in a far better position to get a conservative majority than we would be in that loopy alternate universe where Losing = Winning.

We have to target our disgust at the INDIVIDUALS we don't want in the Congress, not the party. The party is the foundation, we now have to build the house (and the House) on it, not demolish the foundation because it doesn't have that perfect livingroom we want!

18 posted on 05/18/2006 5:26:32 AM PDT by Darkwolf377 (Kowtowing to the Bush haters ends now)
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To: nuconvert

You are so right.


19 posted on 05/18/2006 5:27:48 AM PDT by maica ( We have a destination in mind, and that is a freer world. -- G W Bush)
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To: maica

What it all shows is that you can't fool conservatives, like you an liberals.


20 posted on 05/18/2006 5:29:15 AM PDT by Brilliant
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