Posted on 01/31/2007 10:06:06 AM PST by rellimpank
"it's the far right wing that does the blackmailing."
Alas, that is sometimes sadly true. However, it is always true of the radical Left that poses as far Right to deliberately split the GOP voters.
And they are among us.
That's why we have the Secret Handshake! ;^)
martinez is a manipulator. He is all you say and worse. esssentially he is a nanny state politician.
the only hispanics he attracts is the quota queens who feed on gov contracts and set asides.
Maybe the core voters feel that addressing their agenda isn't pandering; it's housekeeping. What cost GHWB the election, adhering to the Party principals, or violating them to pander to the Left's insatiable desire for taxes?
I note that you dodged the question. What core agenda defines the GOP? If they want to be the Party of the Middle, then why not say so? Let them define a new platform and stick to it.
I think maybe the GOP has finally realized that they can't depend on the far right and now, instead of getting more from the GOP, you're gonna get LESS.
The "far right" being anyone you consider too conservative? Adopting the enemy rhetoric, are you? This is, you remember, a conservative site. Are you advocating that the GOP move even further Left, just so long as they win more middle voters? Which "far right" constituency do you advocate they abandon first? The religious? The libertarians? The Law n' Orders? The Hawks? The 2nd Amendment advocates? The Nativists? Who's first up for your purging, Howlin?
LOL
When you ask questions like that, you're part of the problem.
I tend to think when you don't ask questions like that you're part of the problem. When I think of life as being center-Right I think of it as a social contract between the dead, the living and the unborn. Asking such questions respects the dead and may protect the unborn.
There are two choices, Republican or Democrat; you have about 12 months to make up your choice.
Good luck.
What a frame to exist in! I'd rather be conservative!
FGS, come over to the real world; those are the choices.
I'd rather be conservative!
And who is THEIR PARTY'S candidate for 2008?
You're right, true conservatism for me ended with President Eisenhower and has been going downhill ever since. So I'm a hopeless conservative romantic living in Europe and blogging for American conservative stimulation.
You're stuck in the 50's?
Never mind.
bump
See, this is the attitude that lost the 2006 elections for the GOP, and it's based on faulty logic. The third choice is "no thanks". When you say "take it or leave it", a certain percentage is going to say "leave it." Given the razor thin margins on which several races tipped, being dismissive, arrogant and hostile to normally reliable voting blocs is stupidity.
The purpose of a political party is to serve the needs of its members, not the other way around. No party is "owed" a vote, and when it stops addressing issues that motivate voters, it will lose that vote, either to apathy or to some other willing to champion it.
The more the Party refuses to have a unified agenda, the more votes are going to swing on individual candidates. As the Contract with America shows, a unified, objective agenda is a winning strategy. As the failure to follow through on it and becoming Beltway Drones shows, 535 different agendas is not. You still haven't answered my question: what does the Republican Party stand for, unequivocally?
Look, you can talk and talk and post and post and rationalize and rationalize; the fact remains that there are only two parties in the running.
If you want to leave the GOP, leave.
But the GOP is NOT going to move farther to the right than it is right now -- especially since it cannot count on the far rights vote.
If you want to leave the GOP, leave
You are missing my point. I don't wish to leave the GOP, but it is getting to the point where there is no GOP to leave. There is no "there" there to leave or stick with. It is a vast Big Tent, which I can no longer even see the walls of. It even covers vast swaths of enemy ground, in fact practically all of it save the howling wilderness.
Within, there are only individual candidates, running individual campaigns, on individual agendas, in every direction. The ones I vote for generally club up with the GOP for broad, organizational purposes, but I find they are as often betrayed in even that pursuit by others who call themselves GOP as well.
But the GOP is NOT going to move farther to the right than it is right now -- especially since it cannot count on the far rights vote.
It can't count on the middle left, either, but it doesn't stop them from constantly pandering to them. OTOH, you come across with this attitude, and then criticize the "far right" as traitors for not voting for them. As if they were entitled to that or any voting bloc. If the GOP doesn't want them as voters, then it shouldn't bitch when it doesn't get them.
I am not going to play your game; you ask me question so you can pontificate on how bad things have gotten.
They are what they are -- or what they will be.
And it's not going to be a far right conservative who gets the nomination.
Talk about a strawman. There is no conservative majority. However, there is a nexus of conservatives and centrists Dems that can form a majority when the right Republican is nominated and the Dem nominee runs too far left for the centrist Dems to follow.
However, if the pubbies run too far left themselves in heated pursuit of swing voters, the conservatives have a hard time following and the centrist Dems don't have any real reason to leave the party and vote for the pubbie - the difference becomes neglible to them.
And if the Dems get smart and run a solid pro-life centrist (like they did in Pennsylvania against Santorum), the GOP is usually hosed.
Fortunately, the Dems are too dumb to attempt that very often. Too bad the GOP is too dumb to exploit that fact more often.
All right, no pontificating. What are they right now? What do you think they will be? What can one expect Generic GOP Candidate X to support?
And it's not going to be a far right conservative who gets the nomination.
You still miss my point. I'm not really talking about the nomination process, so much as what is the Party about? Whoever gets the nomination, right, left, or center, will do so on their own agenda, not on the GOP's. The GOP doesn't HAVE an agenda right now. What do Hunter, Guliani, McCain, Tancredo, Brownback, and Romney all have in common that could be considered core to the Party?
Oops. I'm pontificating. A little bit. Still, I'd like to know what you consider defining GOP characteristics and issues. Under RR, it was smaller government, less taxes, strong defense, and anti communism.
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