Posted on 10/30/2006 10:08:08 PM PST by goldstategop
One repeatedly hears that some conservatives and Republicans will either vote Democrat or not vote at all -- out of anger at the Republican Party.
According to these Republican holdouts, the Republicans have governed as Democrats-lite by greatly increasing government spending and doing little about illegal immigration. Accordingly, it is better to have liberal government under liberals than liberal government under Republicans, and the Republicans need to be taught a lesson so that in the future they will govern as authentic Republicans.
Conservatives should file this thinking under the heading "Cathartic," but not under "Smart."
One of the great realizations one comes to as the years pass is how small a role reason plays in most people's decisions. From choosing products based on their packaging to deciding how to vote, passion and emotion usually eclipse reason.
Any Republican, let alone conservative, who votes Democrat or stays home out of pique with the Republican Congress or the president has chosen emotion over reason.
Have the Bush administration and Republican Congress spent too much money? Of course. And it really is quite annoying. Nothing unites conservative and moderate Republicans as does opposition to big government.
So it is not surprising that so many Republicans are furious at the increases in government spending, such as the staggeringly expensive Medicare prescription drug plan.
Add to this the fury of the conservative base of the Republican Party at the administration's apparent apathy toward illegal "immigration," and you have an Election Day problem.
Now, regarding spending, I share Republicans' anger. Republicans who don't control government spending do far more harm than Democrats who don't. Why? Because when the smaller-government party expands government, those who believe in smaller government have nowhere to turn.
Nevertheless, if it were not for the Bush administration, we never would have gotten the substantial tax cuts that have led to such a robust economy (especially impressive in light of the costs of the war in Iraq and of Katrina).
As for illegal immigration, here, too, I identify with those who are frustrated that Republicans have not done more while in control of both the executive and legislative branches of government. But at least President Bush has signed a bill authorizing the building of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. No Democratic president would do that. If you care about reducing illegal immigration, isn't that reason enough to prevent the Democrats from gaining power?
And what about the single most important reason to elect Republicans -- the appointment of judges, especially justices to the Supreme Court? What sort of reasoning would lead a conservative to conclude that it is more important to express anger at Republicans than to prevent Democrats from appointing Supreme Court justices and other judges?
And taxes -- what rational conservative would prefer tax increases, one of the major goals of the Democratic Party?
As regards national security, what sort of Republicans are so angry at the Bush administration and/or the Republican Congress that they would want to replace the party that made the Patriot Act and NSA wiretapping possible with the party that opposes the Patriot Act and NSA wiretapping? And doesn't the Bush administration deserve credit for the absence of a single terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11?
How about Social Security? Why would a rational Republican want to reward the party that opposed any attempt to fix a system that will fail the next generation of Americans -- and hurt the Republican president who bravely, if ultimately futilely, spent political capital trying to fix it?
And what about tort reform? Republicans have begun reducing abuses of the legal system by passing some tort reform legislation. With Democrats in power, such achievements will be reversed, and trial lawyers and legislators will be empowered to continue to damage this country through law. That is, after all, why trial lawyers are among the biggest donors to the Democratic Party.
Finally, please remember that it was disaffected Republicans who voted for Ross Perot who helped elect Bill Clinton president, and it was disaffected Democrats who voted for Ralph Nader who helped elect George W. Bush president. Unless you run yourself, dear annoyed Republican, you will never find an ideal candidate. Compared to you and your conservative principles, real-life Republicans are indeed a failure. But compared to real-life Democrats, they are almost giants.
Vote out of anger, and you'll either vote Democrat or stay home. Vote out of reason, and you'll vote Republican. Please choose reason. If you don't like the Republican candidate, the place to get rid of him is in the primary, not the general election. The general election is not between good Republicans and irresponsible Republicans; it's between Republicans and Democrats.
Here is my short report on advance voting in Georgia on the first day:
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=830322&highlight=#830322
Have you been taking lessons from Kerry?
Your talking out both sides of your mouth.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1728954/posts
This is the time to vote for the PARTY. Not for the INDIVIDUAL
Besides the tombstone and illegal alien votes the Democrats' best hope is that Republicans will fall for the leftist propaganda of the past 6 monts and stay home.
The only other hope Democrats have of taking Congress is a military coup.
What more do you want them to do to the border?
Look, you anti-Miers people WON! Isn't that enough? You want to forever punish anyone who disagreed, like some sort of thought police?
"How did we get here?"
Well, this is what I came up with. I think aside from Kennedy and Truman, who by todays standards would be Republicans who would be called RINOS, this man is probably the reason why the Democrats are like they are today.
"Wallace was chosen by Roosevelt in 1940 to be the Vice Presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, mostly for his loyalty to FDR, and his popularity in the Midwest. The Roosevelt-Wallace ticket won the election that year, marking the beginning of Roosevelt's unprecedented third term. It would be the first and last elected office Wallace would ever serve in.
As a wartime Vice President (the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred less than a year into his term), Wallace took on all sorts of roles. He was chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare, which spent over a billion dollars fighting the Axis in world markets. He also went on several goodwill missions around the world, including a trip to the Soviet Union, where he was extremely impressed with the economic progress that the country had made under Josef Stalin's rule. Around the time of the end of the war, Wallace also began to talk about encouraging a "revolution of the people" in Europe in order to help the common man.
Due to reactions against Wallace's praise of Stalin's Soviet Union, and growing concerns about Roosevelt's health, the Democratic establishment was firmly against Wallace's re-nomination as Vice President in 1944. It would have taken unwavering support from Roosevelt for Wallace to stay on the ticket, and he did not receive it. Wallace was dropped from the ticket in favor of Harry S. Truman, and Roosevelt-Truman won the general election that fall. Wallace was kept on as Secretary of Commerce.
After Roosevelt's death in 1945, Wallace began to diverge from the Democratic Party, now under Truman's leadership. He disagreed with Truman's hard line policies against Russia, preferring policies of accommodation and economic aid, even suggesting that the United States share atomic energy research with the Soviet Union. After publicly stating these views in a speech in September 1946, Wallace was dismissed by President Truman. He almost immediately took a job as editor of the New Republic, criticizing Truman's foreign policy decisions whenever he could. In 1948, Wallace ran for President on the Progressive Party ticket, but only won less than 2% of the vote."
"The only other hope Democrats have of taking Congress is a military coup."
Actually, the Democrats have a good chance of taking congress. You seem to forget that the political parties play by different rules.
There will be fraud, massive lawsuits, "green districts", voting machine failures, disenfranchisement and everything else thrown at Americans to ensure a Democrat victory come November 8.
The MSM is going to post exit polls illegally, call elections before the polls close and write articles supporting Democrat accusations.
This is it for the RATS. They lose this one, they can kiss their party goodbye as well as kiss the ACLU, Moveon and every other Marxist group that either funds them or they fund goodbye.
The DNC will implode and Dean will be gone, replaced by Clinton cronies.
If nothing else happens in the next two years, Bush should have one goal in mind. Fill as many seats on the bench with Conservatives as possible. Go nuclear!
Then propose a purge of every voter roll in the country to be replaced by everyone reregistering to vote and a mechanical voting system that gives a paper receipt. Show the country how ridiculous the RATS are and the only way to stop the madness is by scratching the system and starting from square one.
Finally, with that, redo the census and redictrict the entire country.
Negative advertising turns swing voters off. They say fie on both your houses and refuse to vote.
The California Governors race between Gray Davis and Bill Simon was a classic example. Karl Rove tried to convice Bill Simon to stay positive but he refused and went negative. Davis had been negative from the start. Davis and Rove knew that when both parties went negative it turned the moderate voters off.
When the votes were counted a total of 10 plus million people voted but only 6 plus million voted in the Governors race. The bases of both parties voted and swing voters did not. Since there were mote Democrats than Republicans in California, Davis won.
In the central states the Republican advertising has been very negative.Surpisingly so has the Democratis advertising. That means the swing voters will not vote. Since there are more Registered Republicans than Democrats in these states ... Republicans will win on what will appear to be a light turn out. But if those who vote are checked out you will find it was the swing voters who stayed away from the polls.
The pollsters are assuming the swing voters will vote in the same frequency as in the past. That will not be true.
Damn I use to think the liberals had a lock on ridiculous hyperbole.
He misses a key point, and that is that by far most of the Congressional Republicans are on the right side of the immigration issue - always have been. Both House and Senate. The problem is that with a narrow edge, if a few RINO's like Specter vote with the Dem's, the attempt to pass something will fail. Not to mention fillibusters. So the "true conservatives" are basically blaming all pubbies for the actions of some RINO's. Of course Bush is also not where he should be on the issue but that also is not congressional Republicans' fault.
I agree with you entirely we need to not be eutopians but pragmatic ;-). Thanks for the reply and God bless you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.