Just out of curiosity, Jim Rob. I am a native Californian. I left the state in 1992, and have seen quite a change in the politics of your state in the past few decades. A lot of it started before I left. I lived in Sacramento, so I was in the center of political trends, and even back then it appeared to me that the Republicans' days were numbered.
Now I live in Pennsylvania, and a lot of what I see here parallels what I saw in California a few decades ago. The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs are growing, the old farm lands on the outskirts of the cities are getting developed, a whole lot of immigrants are moving in (Lancaster, PA is now 30 percent hispanic), and so forth. As these changes occur, Specter is now the only Republican holding statewide office. We lost the legislature and Santorum in 2006, and of course we lost Ridge several years back.
My question is this. Can you name a pro-life Republican who can take this state, or Ohio? Because as far as I can see, no Republican can win the White House without one or the other. The only Republican who outpolls the Dim field in PA is Giuliani. No R, including Giuliani, outpolls the field in Ohio.
If we do nominate a candidate who does not outpoll the opposition, aren't we just repeating Dole 1994? Go ahead and nominate the consensus candidate among Republicans, and hope we can put lipstick on the pig later and fool the swing voters?
I realize FR is a conservative site. But I am wondering whether conservatives are now becoming as powerless on a national level as they are in your state, and what your take on this is? Do you think that Santorum, Talent and Allen lost because they were not conservative enough?
You and Rush Limbaugh are in similar circumstances, from what I can tell. You are both conservatives, but have made the decision to promote the Republican Party (as opposed to, say, Michael Savage). There are a lot of times when your objectives clash with Republican objectives. GWB presented any number of those situations, and Rudy will as well.
Nonetheless, when the Republicans held all the power the most relevant political discussions in the country were going on at FR. Now we are begging for a few bucks for the troops, and hope to get them without having to surrender in the process. I support Giuliani because he is the only vehicle I see who can get us back to where we were, and even that is a long shot. So I am interested on your thoughts on these things, particularly the name of the candidate who can take PA or OH.
I don’t know but if you go with a gun grabbing, illegal alien pandering, gay rights supporting abortionist liberal like Rudy as your “conservative” standard bearer you’re going to have a whole lot more than OH and PA to worry about.
We didn’t “lose Ridge” in an election — he resigned in order to head Homeland Security, and his successor declined to run for Governor in the next election.
We didn’t lose Santorum because he’s pro-life — Santorum got triangulated out by a supposedly pro-life son of a famously pro-life former democrat governor. In other words, Santorum held office until the dems ran a pro-lifer against him.
I think your analysis is off in regards to Pennsylvania.