Posted on 04/30/2009 7:33:36 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
Over a year ago, Mitt Romney was losing primaries to John McCain, and conservative pundits from Ann Coulter to Rush Limbaugh predicted the end of the GOP – Coulter went as far as promising she would campaign for Hillary Rodham Clinton if McCain became the party's nominee.
By November 2008, the GOP had embraced a nominee who had considered switching parties twice, had opposed tax cuts, and had failed to advance an aggressive shift in a foreign policy that left the GOP discredited in an area it had always trumped in.
It's not that McCain's willingness to reach across the aisle was condemnable. On the contrary, had McCain been able to do that as a conservative, he would've had more than tepid support from voters.
It also has less to do with the reasons conservatives disagreed with him when they should have found common ground. For example, McCain angered many conservatives when he opposed the federal ban on same-sex marriage.
Here in New Hampshire, congressional candidate Grant Bosse was among the few Republicans who understood the importance of leaving some decisions for adults to make with God and their state, not judges and the federal government.
It's precisely the reasons many couldn't support McCain – even conservatives who stuck by their guns and refused to send him to the White House – that merit serious reflection.
So far it's difficult to sense the fundamental message shift required for the GOP to make inroads in 2010 and 2012, but it seems no state is better poised to nurture these than the state of New Hampshire.
They key to doing this successfully? Allowing New Hampshire's libertarian spirit to infuse the GOP grassroots and allowing that to spread nationally.
(Excerpt) Read more at nashuatelegraph.com ...
Ping!
I prefer that the GOP infuses with the Constitution Party!
Agree completely. Be the real party of small government in all its forms. Unfortunately the GOP's proven track record of being the party of big government, huge deficits and welfare state expansion will be hard to escape.
The GOP needs a CONSERVATIVE infusion. Conservatism is a three-legged stool — free markets, national defense and traditional values. Abandoning any of the three spells doom for the Republican party.
The GOP generally offers libertarians nothing but scorn.
But they can't win without libertarians, either.
Embraced? Hardly. If it weren't for Palin, McCain would have had EC numbers in the Mondale zone.
I agree with that. Libertarians have a bunch of stuff that I dislike, and in my experience have no interest in compromising. Of course, I’m hard to please — I’m upset with the Republicans because they compromise too easily with the Democrats, and I’m upset with the Libertarians because they refuse to compromise with Republicans. I’m a curmudgeon.
Some libertarians earn that scorn.
The hell it is!
“Yes” to the title of this article.
Me too. But I just wish the constitution party would get some better economic understanding.
Language...Culture...Borders...you bet!
So do I...but whether it is the Constitution or Libertarian Parties that the GOP tries to join forces w/ would be a major improvement to what it is these days.
I agree the GOP needs a “small l” libertarian injection.
The biggest issue is fiscal conservatism and small government.
A true fiscal conservative -— cheap son of a bitch, is almost (almost) always pro-life, etc.
The only thing the GOP needs to do is to run out all the RINOs and faux conservatives. Then the party will regain all the moral authority and principles it once had!
I agree with the general theme of this article. The answer isn’t to move to the “center”, in other words left. The answer is to define real core principles in line with what the 70% of sane people in this country agree with. Glen Beck took a shot at it with his “core principles and beliefs”.
In conjunction with that, the Republican Party has to come back to terms with science. Science is not the enemy, true science tells us about the reality around us. That isn’t to say science is misused _by both sides_ for political purposes, but that is what should stop. In particular, Republicans should ally with reputable scientists to debunk catastrophic anthropogenic global warming as an ongoing process.
Having a robust intellectual basis would do a lot to help the Republican Party at this point. We also need a vigorous, impeccable, and intelligent candidate who isn’t Mitt Romney. ;-)
I’d like to see Sarah go in the VP slot again, with four more years of experience (and hopefully education) under her belt.
“is misused”
Sorry, that should read “isn’t misused”.
The traditional value of America is FREEDOM.
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