Posted on 10/27/2009 5:02:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Sometimes party loyalty asks too much," said JFK.
For Sarah Palin, party loyalty in New York's 23rd congressional district asks too much. Going rogue, Palin endorsed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava.
On Oct. 1, Scozzafava was leading. Today, she trails Democrat Bill Owens and is only a few points ahead of Hoffman, as Empire State conservatives defect to vote their principles, not their party.
Newt Gingrich stayed on the reservation, endorsing Scozzafava, who is pro-choice and pro-gay rights, and hauls water for the unions.
Scourged by the right, Newt accused conservatives of going over the hill in the battle to save the republic, just to get a buzz on. "If we are in the business about feeling good about ourselves while our country gets crushed, then I probably made the wrong decision." How Scozzafava would prevent America's being "crushed" was unexplained.
The 23rd recalls a famous Senate race 40 years ago. Rep. Charles Goodell was picked by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to fill the seat of Robert Kennedy in 1968. To hold onto it, Goodell swerved sharp left, emerging as an upstate Xerox copy of Jacob Javits, the most liberal Republican in the Senate.
In 1970, Goodell got both the GOP and Liberal Party nominations, and faced liberal Democrat Richard Ottinger. This left a huge vacuum into which Conservative Party candidate James Buckley, brother of William F., smartly moved.
Assessing the field, the Nixon White House concluded that, with liberals split, Goodell could not win. But Buckley might. Signals were flashed north that loyalty to the president was not inconsistent with voting for Buckley. To send the signal in the clear, Vice President Agnew described Charlie Goodell to a New Orleans newspaper as "the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party."
The former George Jorgensen, Christine had undergone the most radical sex-change operation in recorded history.
Liberals went berserk, calling on New Yorkers to rally to Goodell, who began surging, at Ottinger's expense. Buckley scooted between them both to win. Hoffman may also. But even if he does not, Palin, a conservative of the heart, did the right thing.
And the GOP has been sent a necessary message.
For, according to Gallup, 40 percent of Americans now identify as conservatives -- only 20 percent as Republicans. If the GOP is not the conservative party, it will never be America's Party.
But what does "conservative" mean in 2009? And where do conservatives come down on the great issues? For what the right is against -- any repeal of the Bush tax cuts, the $787 billion stimulus, Obamacare -- is much clearer than what the right stands for.
In 2010, this may not matter, as the Obamakins rule the roost and will be held accountable, and Republicans can unite around what they oppose. Year 2012, however, is problematic.
Then the party must declare itself. And the reality is that the GOP remains a house divided.
What, for example, is the conservative view of the war in Iraq and the Bush economic policies that cost the party both Houses of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008?
Why did President Bush leave with 27 percent approval? Did Bush policies the GOP once applauded have anything to do with it?
Was Bush free trade responsible for the decline of the dollar and the loss of one in four manufacturing jobs? Is globalization still good for America and NAFTA the deal of the century?
What is the conservative position on reaching out to Russia, as BarackObama has done, on bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and on canceling that anti-missile system Bush planned in Poland?
"We're all Georgians now!" John McCain declared. Are we?
What is the party position on a "long war" in Afghanistan?
For if America has soured on the war and opposes more troops today, will America be enthusiastic about soldiering on in 2012, after 1,000 or 2,000 more American dead have been shipped home?
Do Republicans support negotiating with Tehran, or cutting off gasoline and starting up the escalator to air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities that are today under U.N. inspection?
Will the GOP propose to stimulate the economy with tax cuts after four straight trillion-dollar deficits? Will the Bush line, "They'll pay for themselves," still be credible after Bush's deficits?
If the largest federal outlays are for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense and interest on the debt, followed by education, housing, homeland security and transportation, where would the GOP use the knife to balance the budget?
According to Gallup, America is moving closer to the Republican position on regulations, abortion, guns and union power. But half of all Americans now favor cuts in legal immigration. Are Republicans willing to call for a moratorium on immigration to tighten the labor market and force wages up? Or does the Chamber of Commerce still call the tune?
Ronald Reagan arrived with new ideas that fit the needs of his time. Where are the Republican ideas that fit the needs of this time?
Newt is irrelevant!
Newt - Hell no
Sarah - Hell yes!
New GOP? - Seeing is believing.
Pat is usually more coherent than this. It’s hard to make any sense of this article.
The media are going to plant Newt as the GOP candidate for 012. A sure loser.
Will we let them? Again?
Newt who?
Party loyalty? Newt?
He praises HIllary as the smartest woman in the world on health care.
He snuggles up to the global warming tools.
Now he’s trashing the tea party Americans.
Go away little man.
I disagree (respectfully) that Newt is irrelevant. To be sure, I am for Hoffman and I am piqued by those who give up our conservatism to pragmatism. That being said, I like to hear everything and Newt is a good thinker. I believe we (Conservatives/Republicans) will win again because we can listen yo other points of view.
my fear is a democratic win. but so bee it... NO MORE RINOs
and if Hoffman were ever able to pull a win that would be huge for Sarah
He sets the premise, but goes nowhere with it. He simply asks a lot of questions.
Easy, they won't stop America from being crushed because a democrat is a democrat even if they run rino.
Newt, like many educated rinos, is over the line in many of his personal and public decisions and is a typical middle of the road atheist and therefore will do the same things George Bush did and the domestic problems would get worse.
WTH??? Bush economic policies did not cost the party both houses in 2006! The economy was booming!
Why did President Bush leave with 27 percent approval?
Duh, ummm, could it be that manufactured polls kept insisting his approval ratings were low?
How is electing a Republican, who is really a Democrat ,calling herself a Republican doing anything save our country.
It’s time Newt and the rest of these RINO turds woke up to the fact that Conservatives MUST vote for Conservatives.
If we lose some RINO’s in the process, so be it , they werent helping us anyway.
Even should Hoffman lose but come in 2nd, that would be a major defeat for the RINO elites. The downside, of course, would be a Democrat win in a Republican district. But that would clearly be the fault of the Republicans promoting a Democrat in all but name. They've given their base no clear choice.
Nobody should ever fear to vote his first choice, at least on a first ballot, and nobody should ever hold any public office with less than 50% of the vote.
There should also be a None-Of-Above choice on all ballots for public office and if that choice ever wins, then the other candidates should be barred for life from holding any public office and the parties sponsoring them should be barred for at least ten years from sponsoring candidates for that particular office. The penalty for running dead wood for public offices should be severe.
Another item on such a voters' bill of rights should be something which would eliminate voting fraud for all time and if that means getting rid of the secret ballot or at least limiting it somehow or other, so be it, we're paying too high a price for it. Somehow or other it has to be possible to check up on votes when there are questions or evidence of fraud.
One last item on such a list would be a provision that when a president is impeached and removed, his VP goes out the door with him and the office is either vacant until the next election or an emergency election is held to fill the office for the remainder of the current term. Granted removing a president should be difficult but it should not be impossible and if we couldn't remove Slick, we'd not have been able to remove Hitler or Nero either.
What happened in 98/99 was that Trent Lott simply refused to hand the presidency over to Algor with a year to go on Slick's second term, for obvious reasons. The situation should not be possible.
It is difficult to inject BDS into every other sentence and remain coherent.
Newt is irrelevant!
And we Conservatives can not say it soon enough and let him know NOW, that his trial baloon he let out over the weekend is nothing but hot air and he will NOT have our support.
8 Years of "Compassionate Conservatism" a RINO-filled, big-spending, go-along-to-get-along Congress as well as a weak-kneed, DemoRat-Lite RNC, is what we DON'T need and will NOT support.
NOTICE TO ALL REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS OR WHO INTEND ON SEEKING OFFICE: NO MORE RINO'S!!!
Newt just voted, it wasn’t for the founding principles of this nation, therefore, it was not a vote for liberty!!!
One, the conservatives are now awake and want no part of a 'moderate'.
'Moderates', such as what Newt has evolved into, are what got us into the mess we are in now.
Secondly, the conservative voices in the party are sending a message, "Pick and back the candidates who hold real conservative values or watch a lot of us choose for ourselves." Sarah, Pawlenty and a whole host of other conservatives backing Hoffman, have made that very clear.
Thirdly, 'moderation' gets us nowhere, and little respect. Newt drank the kool-aid, and is now trying to position himself as one of the 'leaders' of the party. Sarah, and others are re-defining the direction. Either the GOP, Steele, and other 'middle-of-the-road' Republicans follow, or get out of the way. Elitism in the party MUST die.
Newt the irrelevant. You used to have a set, where did they go? Never mind, we don’t care.
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