Posted on 02/22/2008 5:46:14 PM PST by DWPittelli
Holding winner take all primaries in the most liberal states-far more moderate Repubs than conservatives-leads to mushy moderate and in my opinion unelectable candidates like McCain. McCain is probably the worst GOP candidate in my lifetime. I had no say. McCain was the presumptive nominee before my state votes. I went to the polls and voted Huckabee who took enough votes the McCain should be worried.
Au contraire....ONLY when the voters choose the candidates, receive accurate and equal coverage in the media, are not presented with ONLY the candidate who is best-funded by the Party and those who CONTROL the Party with their contributions of massive amounts of cash to buy the PR necessary to buy the votes...THEN, the "voters get to decide, I'm sure of it".
If the Party has their candidate of choice and pour the cash into their promotion, then you get whatever THEY decide you have a choice to vote for. You don't pick Joe Six-Pack down the street and expect that he can effectively get his message out and gain media support (look at Duncan Hunter and how he was treated).
I am not responsible for the gaps in your education. "Classical liberal" is a term long used in the United States, and is what was meant by "liberal" for more than a century before socialist-leaning Democrats appropriated the term in the United States because it sold better than "socialist" or even "progressive."
No education required to see a puffed up moron that needs a title to describe themselves, their views, etc.
That is pathetic, and I feel sorry for you.
You really feel the need to assign yourself to a role?
Worse yet, to define yourself as a "classical Liberal"..
Classical Gas is all I give you.
I know you are happy in your liberal world, glad you FEEL good about yourself.
There are lots of liberals, out there and here, that have just oh so many solutions to all of the problems.....
And not one deals with reality.
But that is ok, my "Classical Liberal" FR friend, free speech is your friend.
Keep FEELING good about yourself and your ideas that just know are correct.
Meanwhile, the rest of us that deal in reality, will take care of the stuff.
....Indeed, if the player is constantly yammering about how he will only play if he agrees with the gameplan and so on, the team won't draft him or will look for the chance to cut him or will look for ways to replace him so they don't have to rely on an "unreliable" player...
I just want to make sure you did not misunderstand me, given my excellent English that is very possible -lol. You seem to have interpreted my comments as meaning "I," as in ONE PERSON ONLY, me.... "My beliefs, my feelings, etc," NOT AT ALL.
When I say "I," I mean "I" as part of a group... hopefully a group large enough to make a difference, such as the Evangelicals and others who share the same concerns although not necessarily religious people; like me:). In fact I would like to call it the Social-Conservative Party... (hmmm... has a nice ring to it doesn't it :)...
Ok, let's get serious: using you team analogy - although we are forcing the issue cause you get PAID for being a team member :), but let's try anyway, If "I" were the only idiot in the team causing trouble, I would not only be ignored but probably kicked out the team in no time. However, if 30% of the team, have the same strong feelings as I, and willing to take some kind of group action... THEN, they command attention.
If 30% of us - Huck's army for starters :) - abstain from voting for Macaca, we might make the difference and the message will be loud and clear.
That concurrence is mine. See, that’s an answer, not a tirade with just what NOT to do.
I like Duncan Hunter. Didn’t happen. McCain was successful with the McCain-Feingold nightmare, shows me he is a very successful, evil politician. He’s shut down the 1st amendment, and he is anti 2nd amendment. He calls himself a Republican, but he is really a dictator. Better to have a Dem in the White House with a somewhat balanced congress than to have 8 years of this guy making the schmooze to congress and the rest of the country to make it OK for Awnuld to run for Pres. next with the same kind of ego-maniacal, “I’m the King and will have my way” approach to leadership.
I have, in the past, voted the R ticket, just to see the party win whenever possible. I believe that a majority of us conservatives have. This system is failing conservatives. It has shown me that both parties are steering us toward one world socialism, the Republicans are just moving us a little slower. It’s time the party fractured and out emerges a truly conservative party, Hopefully, many registered Democrats would be on board for that too.
Sounds like I’ve been hitting the pipe, doesn’t it?
And let’s not forget that this is not “vote for the Republican” then sit back passively and fume.
When conservatives were unhappy with the Meyers nomination, they raised all kinds of hell. We should go into this committed to do that again when necessary, and comitted to “educating” our congresscritters that we expect them to hold the president accountable, ESPECIALLY if he is in “our” party.
The idea that it’s better to be in the minority is just crazy. We have zero chance of influencing the administration then. But if we let our congresscritters know we EXPECT them to be on McCain all the time, we will start to change the culture in Washington AND keep positioned to influence things.
My battle cry is “Remember Harriet Meyers!” By that I mean: remember, if we hadn’t had a Republican president, we would have never been able to raise enough hell to get a Supreme Court nominee ditched. At the same time, our outcry provided political cover to Bush & the administration-—everyone in Washington understands that that amount of constituent outrage boxes in politicians and gives them power.
We can and must do that again whenever necessary. And, again, the only chance of such grassroots political pressure working is within our own party, when our R congresscritters can go to the R president and say “we’re not going to lose our jobs for you.”
Thank you and spread the word!
I wouldn't say it sounds like you've been hitting the pipe. However I personally don't see a conservative party emerging that has any kind of chance. Just my opinion but I don't see it happening.
I also don't agree that McCain is truly evil.
I didn't find any candidate that I truly fell in love with this year. Fred Thompson interested me but he really didn't run a campaign that drew people. He had a good chance but just didn't put himself across.
It is what it is. The teams that played the Patriots after they clinched the playoffs early in the season had "no say" in whether the Patriots went to the playoffs, either.
As I have said, even if our system were not winner-take-all, there still would likely be a "political viability" cut-off (the Rats have 15%), which none of the more conservative candidates consistently reached. What does that tell you?
Further, even if we had had a national primary day, and, therefore, you (as you define it) had had "your say," and McCain still won the nomination, it appears you still wouldn't vote for McCain in the general. Therefore, it's specious to argue that the problem is that you had "no say." Your complaint is not about the process, but simply against the result.
No.
If you want an example of how a candidate emerges despite the fact that there is truly a party-Establishment and media-favorite candidate, look no further than Barak Obama.
When he started this race, he was basically in a Duncan Hunter position in the party, except that he had somewhat more name recognition and had given an excellent speech at the last Rat convention.
But the Witch was THE candidate of the DNC, the party elites, Hollywood, the MSM, the superdelegates. She had raised hundreds of millions of dollars and collected piles of political IOU’s. Her husband was the de facto leader of the party. She had HUGE, global name recognition.
But the Rat base did turn to her, they turned to Obama. And there is NOTHING any of TPTB you cite could do to stop the grassroots from emerging THEIR candidate.
Compare what happened at the grassroots level in the GOP. To wit, nothing.
No one did or could keep the GOP grassroots from emerging a candidate, including one of the more conservative candidates who actually applied for the job (Hunter, Thompson, etc.). But hardly anyone voted for them.
I don’t know why they didn’t vote for them, but it’s not because conservatives are led by the nose by the MSM, or because conservatives make up their mind based on how many commercials they see on tv (which many don’t watch anyway), or because conservatives let someone “buy” their votes.
Think about the allegations you have made and who you allege was the victim of these allegations.
You make many allegations about the Party “funding” and “promoting” a particular candidate. What is your source for that? Are you sure you know where a candidate’s campaign funds actually come from?
Great post! And another “power of the people” move comes to mind in that of the amnesty immigration legislation!
So, I think our friend, fightinJAG, has the right idea. We need to bring up a conservative candidate “grass roots”, which takes a lot of money, and a lot of committed supporters that can leave their full time jobs for the long haul. It’s probably the American way in its truest form.
I really appreciate your civil discussion and think it’s helpful to this debate.
As for the analogy, there are two different phases here, I think.
One is the immediate scenario that the game is coming up and WILL be played. This is what I focused on.
The second is post-season, when the staff and so-on is reviewed. This is what you focused on.
I think what happens in the “post-season review” (when, under your analogy, the impact of the “message” of players’ dissatisfaction will be evaluated) depends on what happens in the game (what I focused on)!
I think it is a big risk to bet on the fact that up to 30% of the players will be dissatisfied. Practically speaking, if there were that many people who felt that strongly about stopping candidate “x” (in this case, McCain), we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place! There would have been enough votes and passion for candidate “y”-—but there wasn’t.
IOW, if what your analogy bets on is likely to occur, I think it would have occurred already. But it didn’t.
So now you are looking at a much smaller percentage (an unknown percentage) of players who are dissatisfied enough to quit. As you acknowledged, the smaller that percentage is, the more likely the only result of disrupting the game is that those players will get kicked off the team or at the least not relied upon in crucial games in the future.
And here’s the further risk: in the immediate scenario, the game WILL be played and the team has to find a way to win IMMEDIATELY. So, while it’s sorting out how to respond to its disgruntled players, it’s also out there actively looking for replacements-—replacements who, by definition, don’t have the same views of those who are disgruntled.
So, as those replacements come on board (in whatever numbers), they are still having the effect of consolidating the team around the very things that those who quit were upset about!
And if the team were to win without the quitters, or even come close-—BUH-BYE. Just like strikers take the risk that they will be replaced permanently, there’s a huge risk associated with trying to change the team’s direction by quitting the team.
My bottom line is this: It’s a BIG risk to try to win by losing.
Speaking of amnesty, I have personally heard McCain interviews in which over and over again he states he “got the message,” he now understands that the people “first want enforcement of the borders,” and so on.
IOW, we raised hell and he, being a thoroughly-trained in compromise Senator and knowing where his bread is buttered, and he is now saying “Okay, I understand the political realities here.”
We can and must do that again!
Some will say, “I don’t trust him” or “he doesn’t mean that.” I say, don’t be concerned with what he says, what he means, what’s in his mind or heart-—only be concerned with actions and the relative potential for influencing action.
Liberals concern themselves with intentions. We should focus on results.
If we raise hell and he listens, that’s a better result for us politically and it doesn’t matter WHY the president listened.
And, again, I note that there is NO chance whatsoever that any kind of hell we could ever raise on any issue would have ANY chance of influencing a Rat president.
Just heard Nader is in the race. Hope he appeals to the people on the Rat side who are making the same arguments as many here who want to quit on the party's nominee.
Interesting that many here claim "only the GOP, not the voters who quit on the GOP, are to blame if a Rat wins." From the Rat perspective:
Nader also ran as a third-party candidate in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. He is still loathed by many Democrats who call him a spoiler and claim his candidacy in 2000 cost the party the election by siphoning votes away from Al Gore in a razor-thin contest in Florida. Nader vociferously disputes the spoiler claim, saying only Democrats are to blame for losing the race to George W. Bush.
I would add this to your post:
The *first* thing that is necessary to the effort to emerge a conservative candidate is *realizing and accepting that we are responsible for doing so and able to do so.*
We have to push back against the complaint that it’s the GOP’s fault, the MSM’s fault, the system’s fault, the fill-in-the-blank’s fault.
In fact, it’s not even really a question of “fault.” It’s not about blame, it’s about responsibility. And we are responsible for USING the process to its fullest to emerge “our” candidate.
I have enjoyed your posts, especially your analogy about how Obama beat the Democrat establishment and your phases we need to go through.
I can't find a thing to disagree with that you have said.
The above part that I quoted is especially true in my opinion and it's nice to have someone put it more eloquently than I can.
Thank you for your kind words and for your thoughtful and insightful posts.
“Speaking of amnesty, I have personally heard McCain interviews in which over and over again he states he “got the message,” he now understands that the people “first want enforcement of the borders,” and so on.
IOW, we raised hell and he, being a thoroughly-trained in compromise Senator and knowing where his bread is buttered, and he is now saying “Okay, I understand the political realities here.”
We can and must do that again!
Some will say, “I don’t trust him” or “he doesn’t mean that.” I say, don’t be concerned with what he says, what he means, what’s in his mind or heart-—only be concerned with actions and the relative potential for influencing action.
Liberals concern themselves with intentions. We should focus on results.
If we raise hell and he listens, that’s a better result for us politically and it doesn’t matter WHY the president listened.
And, again, I note that there is NO chance whatsoever that any kind of hell we could ever raise on any issue would have ANY chance of influencing a Rat president.”
I agree. I look at it this way. McCain would do much less damage than Obama or Hillary. We can keep the pressure on and like you said, if he listens all is well. I believe McCain will only serve one term anyway.
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