Posted on 05/11/2010 4:32:18 PM PDT by TitansAFC
TARP is, of course, the prime (but certainly not only) reason offered by Bennett’s opponents as to why he had to be torpedoed in Utah. The problem, as Dave Weigel notes: A lot of Republicans voted for TARP and not all of them are notorious RINOs. Why, here’s one now… RN: You’re not facing opposition in South Dakota. How have you finessed this issue — how do Republicans explain why they voted for TARP?
[JOHN] THUNE: There was a tremendous, broad support in South Dakota among the small business community, the financial community, the South Dakota pension funds, the governor — there was a tremendous amount of support at the time for taking the steps that we took. I think a lot of people would dispute or take issue with how it was used. But people felt like, even though many disagreed with it, we took the steps necessary to prevent the economy from a complete meltdown.
I’ve been watching the Bennett thing play out for the past few weeks and can’t figure out how he came to be seen as some sort of McCain/Graham/Frum/Brooks/Kathleen Parker hybrid who had to be purged post haste. I get the political logic of dumping him — the seat is entirely safe so there’s no risk in replacing him with a more conservative novice nominee — but the idea that Bob Bennett, who flew almost completely under the blogosphere’s radar until recently, is some sort of archenemy of the right is strange. Correct me if I’m wrong but what’s really going on here is (a) the grassroots wanted to flex some muscle by beating up an incumbent, (b) Utah’s caucus system gave them their best shot of doing that, and (c) in order to get people motivated, the resident Utah incumbent had to be depicted as the second coming of Nelson Rockefeller or something. Right? Again, it’s no big deal since the seat is safe, but if voting for TARP is a mortal sin, you’d better be prepared to excommunicate some people you like. Exhibit A: Enjoy the following video flashback from the C-SPAN archives. September 29, 2008.
Exit question: Is Bennett going to go the Lieberman route and run as an independent? If he does, he’ll do so without NRSC support. Looks like Cornyn’s finally learned his lesson.
Demint - enodorsed Romney Santorun- endorsed Fiorina Thune, Pence - TARP Paul - open borders (flip-flopped last run) Coburn, Inhofe, Kyl - Endorse Fiorina Rubio - open borders
There's nobody left by the standards of the anti-Palinites!
Thune has to answer ultimately to his own constituents. If they resent his vote on that issue, they’ll let him know at the ballot box.
Time to change my tagline. God I am so sick of gutless spend monkeys.
Anti-Palinite=Don’t worship every step she takes and won’t defend her for every single little thing.
I’m a RINO — I supported TARP.
Nope. Anti-Palinites = people who won't hold other candidates to the same standards to which they hold Palin, just because they dislike her. Also, people who go out of their way to attack Sarah Palin, a Conservative, on Conservative websites.
True. But he joins Palin now in the TARP cheerleading section. They both need to stay on the sidelines and let real conservatives compete.
I’m only a RINO on major election days....The rest of the time I hate all the socialist MuthaF’ers in DC.
He's unopposed in his race this year and has a multi-million $ war chest he won't need to use. He's running for president. Book it.
Of course you did. Because Mittens did.
It's about equivalent to measuring who is a bad person by using Keith Olbermann’s “Worse Person in the World” segment as a reference.
Good, God. I’m not talking about particular candidate.
We had no choice but to do it.
The banks/financial institutions have paid back the money with interest.
It may have not been run the best way, but it worked.
TARP1 was probably one of the more conservative fiscal actions of the federal govt:
1. Bush spent barely half of the allocated funds $380 billion rather than 800 billion.
2. The funds were specified to known entities unlike anything under Obama.
3. The funds had to be paid back.
4. The funds had to be paid back with interest.
5. The bush funds have been paid back.
I don’t believe in unicorn conservatives. Tarp1 was a reasonable response to dem and soros goons trying to destroy the economy prior to the election.
He voted for Health Care Reform didn’t he?
Never mind. *shakes head*
Funny. I like lots of conservatives:
DeMint, Hunter I , Hunter II, Chaffetz, Pence, Tancredo, Steve King, Bachmann, Jeff Sessions, Jim Inhofe, Ted Poe, Mike Rounds, Ollie North, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, Gunny Pop, DeVore, Vaughn Ward, Jesse Kelly, Henry Hyde, Franks, Hayworth, Issa, Rohrbacher, Hoekstra, Blackburn, Sam Johnson, Cubin, Doc Hastings, McMorris, West to name a few.
BS. It was a worthless boondoggle.
Well, that’s your opinion.
It’s a FACT.
Thune? Damn
The GOP is led by RINOs, that is why we have the Tea Parties. Remember we were talking about taking the GOP back? Has not happened. Instead we are already making excuses for RINOS.
The US is dead meat.
None of them.
Not one of them can pass the same purity tests you impose upon Sarah Palin every day at FR.
It all has to do with Palin worship. If she had endorsed DeVore the same rino excusers would be doing backlips telling us how rock ribbed she is and dissing Gnarly.
Not a one of them supports amnesty. Unlike Sarah.
Thats what irks me with Palin. She jerks people around, Thats because she is a republican really. Even Limbaugh said that. She is Tea party one day, then out shilling for McCain and Fiorina the next.
Taking this country back will take a lot more tham electing a bunch of RINOs.
I have backed off posting out of disgust lately.
The GOP screws up again? America is dead. I have yet to see the courage it will take to save the place. It will mean not buying the cult crap.
So NOW your only purity test is an immigration one (and one which, as usual, will begin and end with the lie that Palin supports amnesty)! (Take that, Open Borders Ron Paulites!)
And here I though it included endorsing RINOs, which they each have done.
Glad you cleared it all up! One one thing makes a RINO now.
Immigration is far from the only thing. I frankly hope she dosen’t run, so I don’t have to listen to the palinistas for the next 2-1/2 years.
How people vote and how their constituants see it is up to the individual states.
Besides, he wasn’t tossed out on the basis of one vote. He lot his connection to the people. They all need to be turned out when that happens.
Thune is close, but he doesn’t quite earn one of Rush’s cigars.
Bennett was not entitled to hold his seat for a lifetime.
Incumbents need to retire gracefully or be retired.
I didn’t get the chance to post my comment on your thread before it was pulled.
Job well done, BTW!
” ... I am so sick of gutless spend monkeys ... “
It’s not gutless that’s the problem, it’ CORRUPTION pure and simple IMHO
Sorry to hear that.
TARP was a necessary action done wrong.
It’s easy on a web site to claim we’d be better off if nothing at all was done. Reality speaks otherwise. Government isn’t good at doing the right thing the right way. But it is silliness to claim that nothing needed to be done.
Government made a mess of the markets, and government needed to step in and fix their mess. And done right, TARP would have repaid itself — it has largely done so anyway.
“worthless boondoggle” is by definition an opinion, as the words are both opinion words, not factual words.
You want to give facts, show the facts that indicate that companies would be better off without the government providing temporary financial backing. Or facts that show how the economy would be better now without it, or facts that show that money provided under the original intent hasn’t been paid back.
TARP was a necessary government action done wrong. Government screwed up the free market, and government needed to correct it’s mistakes. TARP did that, but also did a lot of bad things. we needed a TARP, and there were aspects of TARP that were exactly what was needed.
Nope. Wrong answer.
Half the people who rail against TARP are actually talking about the stimulus. Most of them were cowering in their basements watching the dow crumble and their money markets freeze when TARP was being debated.
Tarp, Snarp. I won’t be satisfied until every GOP candidate endorses reducing federal government employment by 10% in each Congress until it get back to the size it was in the 60’s.
TARP was wrong, wasteful and flat of stupid.
Regardless of what you say, the people are speaking and they are knocking down all those RINO’s who voted for it, one by one!
Now that's a FACT!
Why do you say she “jerks people around”? She said she was a “common sense conservative”, and when she attacked the “republican establishment” it wasn’t because they weren’t conservative enough, it was because of corruption.
She’s a lifelong republican. She’s a “maverick”, meaning she does her own thing, she doesn’t try to live some ideological litmus test.
I understand why some people want to claim she’s not conservative. But it’s silly to claim she is “jerking people around”. She’s a maverick — that’s what they do, their own thing. She’s made no secret of it.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Dude, When you post here......
Do not smoke crack when you are drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and chewing Nicorette gum.
Your comment is bizarre to say the least. No Constitutional government can survive people like you.
DeMint voted NO.
I have realized that offering reasons and well formed arguments is disorienting and confusing to faux conservatives.
Realize as well that some financial entities such as bear stearna were allowed to fail. There is no conservative history that you can point to that does not violate the abstract values that you keep appealing to.
I have found that even Reagan fails the rino tests of faux conservatives.
Me too. It’s easy to gloat about purity after your butt is saved from chaos.
Hunting witches is a FReeper sport however that is enthusiastically joined from a position of post chaotic safety.
You can come up with any ‘reason’ you want to justify bad behavior, but bad behavior is still bad.
Bailouts are real bad behavior.
For reasons stated it was demostrably good behavior. The abstraction games being played by the purists here are the bad behavior.
This is politics not philosophy.
It is the choosing of lesser evils.
People keep saying that.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
And please explain why some poor wage earner barely keeping home and hearth together has to have money taken out of his paycheck by force to pay for a ‘bailout’ of a company with far more assets than he has. And never even getting a chance to have a say in the matter.
Why?
You can’t preserve the Constitution if your ‘politics’ keep destroying it.
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