Endangered species alert: 45% of RINOs vanish in a single year

The 2006 election was tragic for conservatives who did lose several key races. But the losses were downright devestating for RINOs (Republicans In Name Only.)

The following is a list of the RINOs, who scored under 60% as graded by the American Conservative Union, and how they fared in the last election:

SENATE: Linc Chafee, RI: defeated. Olympia Snowe, ME: no contest. Sue Collins, ME: re-elected. Mike DeWine, OH: defeated.

HOUSE Christopher Shays, CT: re-elected. Mike Castle, DE: re-elected. Sherwood Boehlert, NY: defeated. Jim Leach, IA: retired. Mark Kirk, IL: re-elected. Nancy Johnson, CT: defeated. Wayne Gilchrest, MD: re-elected. Scott McInnis, CO: previously retired. Jim Ramstad, MN: re-elected. Robert Simmons, CT: defeated. Tim Johnson, IL: re-elected. Jim Gerlach, PA: re-elected. Tom Davis, VA: re-elected. Schwarz, MI: defeated in primary. Charlie Bass, NH: defeated.

It's worse than that, even. Also ousted were Jeb Bradley (ACU score: 60), Mark Foley (63), Mike Sweeney (72), and Clay Shaw (71).

This is not to say that there weren't some painful conservative losses, such as Northup, Hostettler, Sodrel, Chocola, and Taylor. But the losses to the Republican Party struck largely at the "centrist" wing. Where's the media decrying the loss of so-called centrists, like they did in 1994?

Rick Santorum belongs on the tragic defeat list. A great conservative senator who made one mistake.

I don't think it was any single "mistake" that cost Rick the election - - I think it was the matter of a teetering-liberal northeastern state with a typically mindless electorate which voted for a friendly and familiar name, regardless that that name belonged to a boring and clueless empty suit, in a cycle (6th year of a two-term Presidency) which is traditionally a big loser for the incumbent party.

I do agree, however, that Rick's clumsy statements about gays a couple of years ago hurt him, and his support for Toomey over Specter in the previous primary probably cost him a few votes as well. Then there was this year's MSM smear job over Santorum's kids' private school financing at the same time as they were giving the rat in the race a complete pass (as usual).

Add it all up and Santorum never stood a chance, sorry to say.

"Conservatives win even in traditional democratic strongholds when they know how to lead, instruct and stay connected with the common people. Reagan did it on a grand scale, but there are hundreds of Brent Schundlers out there who can do it locally."

Erm. Didn't Brent Schundler lose? Like, badly?

"The key is to get them past the party machinery who prefers to choose from within the inbred country club crowd."

While that particular malady does go on in a lot of local Republican parties across the country, I don't think that's the issue with New Jersey. This state has just gone despicably and hopelessly liberal, and nothing I can see will change that. If they could vote for Menendez with all the fraud he's been caught at, there's no hope - the voters here will just pull the "D" no matter who the candidates are. They're not even paying attention anymore, so I don't think the conservative's ability to "lead" and "instruct" really makes much difference anymore, I'm sorry to say.

Qwinn

Yes, conservatives CAN lose as well. And they often lose when their own party doesn't get behind them as was the case when Bush wouldn't campaign for Schundler but did campaign for Arlen Specter. However it is much less likely that a race will be lost where the candidate and the party advanced a consistently conservative message, and when a race is lost, the campaign will still have served to educate and instruct a segment of the voting population. In such cases, the leftists of the Democrats also instruct. Jimmy Carter and the Democrat congresses of the 70s and early 80s strongly made the case for conservatism by their actions in office, illustrating many of the lessons taught by conservatives.

However, when Republicans put up RINO candidates, we undo much of our work. We create ambiguity in the minds of the voters who are unsure that Republicans do stand for anything different than Democrats. We also open ourselves up to the usual charges of corruption and influenc peddling. Thus RINOs may win some elections in the short term, but they set the Republican party up for major losses and undoing much work in the long term.

Lastly, remember that even when a state or a region seems to have gone way to the left, conservatives can win because our approach to government is based on reality and not ideology. Conservatism is an exposition of facts and reality, and is never really out of fashion. The only thing that is discredited is false conservatism, often in the guise of RINOism.

Ah, spoken like a true devotee of Neil Cavuto!

Look, the point is this: foreign investment in this country is a great thing (your car plant thought), American investment in foreign countries that serves only to relieve employers of the responsibility of paying their employees is NOT. This is what has made American corporations so "profitable" in the last 10-15 years; they have raised profits by cutting payroll and benefits, and eliminating domestic competetion by acquisition (as an example, all the mergers in the financial and technology sectors in the last 20 years), and not by producing superior products and services at a lower price.

By the way, I spent 20 years in the financial sector (I spentg 12 of them as a manager and VP at Smith-Barney), and while they're are jobs be created there, they of the kind that require major certifications (i.e. they are not usually open, in most circumstances) to people who do not possess a higher degree in a related field, and for those who do, the entry-level positions (and even some managerial position, nowadays) available hardly pay as well as they used to. Certianly, the level of benefits available to the typical financial-sector employee in those positions pale in comparison to what might have been available a decade ago.

Why don't you tell someone who did factory work for the majority of their lives (i.e. someone who doesn't have the benefit of college and who might not be able to afford it now. We have legions of them down here in NC), and who is now out of work, about all them financial-sector jobs available to them, why don't you? Let's see how many of them actually manage to snare one. My guess is that while you MIGHT find a few success stories, you will find a whole lot more who have been shut out for lack of "qualifications" (I.e. a piece of paper that says you can faithfully parrot back whatever pablum your 'professor' doled out).

And that's the point. The rich are getting richer, the poor are geting poorer and those in the middle are footing the bill with less and less, particularly with less REAL opportunity. Why this should have to be a "liberal" idea (Gee, I didn't know Pat Buchannan, who says the same thing ad nauseum could be considered a liberal, too. And by the way, Republicans are liberals -- look it up, you'd be shocked at how incorrectly you use that term) is beyond me. Why it should be a requirement of republican/conservatism to turn a blind eye to the excesses of business in the name of "Free Trade", is similarly a ridiculous notion.

Call me 'liberal' all you want; if it means I'm sticking up for my neighbors and pointing out an injustice, then I will take it as a compliment.

The fact is (George Orwell wrote about the same thing in the 1930's, incidentally -- after he'd given up Socialism as a lost cause), that the health and prosperity of the American dividend-drawer is directly proportional to the sweating of Asian/Central American coolies (be they Chinese, Mexicans, Costa Ricans, Indonesians, Indians, etc). In the meantime, his neighbors are being pinched almost beyond relief and certainly without recourse to government (which readily allows them to be pinched so long as the campaign contributions keep pouring in and organized labor is continually marginalized and defunded).

Free Trade is nothing of the sort, Liberty; it's two lies for the price of one, and it's costing us all dearly, -- unless we happen to be fortunate enough to hold shares, of course, and too bad about everyone else.

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