Posted on 06/03/2011 11:22:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The candidate would know Americans are more worried about their jobs and their savings than abstractions like 'big government.'
To win the presidency in 2012, the Republican candidate will require certain strengths. Among them, a credible passion for ideas other than cost-cutting and small government. He or she will have to speak in the voice of Americans who know in their bones the extraordinary character of their democracy, and that voice will have to ring out steadily. That Republican candidate will need, no less, the ability to talk about matters like Medicare and Social Security without terrorizing the electorate.
Americans already have plenty of cause for fear. They have on one side the Obama health-care plan now nearly universally acknowledged as a disaster. A plan that entails huge cuts in health care—$500 billion cut from Medicare—that will nevertheless cause no pain, according to its architects. As the polls on ObamaCare show, this grand scheme appears mostly to have alarmed Americans.
From the Republican side comes an incessant barrage of doomsday messages and proclamations that the nation is imperiled by the greatest crisis in a generation—not, as we might have supposed, by our ongoing, desperate unemployment levels, but by spending on social programs. No sane person will deny the necessity of finding ways to cut the costs of these programs. But it's impossible not to hear in the clamor for boldness—for massive cuts in entitlements—a distinctly fevered tone, and one with an unmistakable ideological tinge. Not the sort of pragmatism that inspires voter confidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
How about the writer take another look at all the grandparents and even great grandparents raising grandchildren and great grandchildren?
Burden, my ass.
If I had had the money I paid into Social Security since I was 14, I would have spent at least some of it on Gold and silver coins, and that, even a fraction, would be worth many multiples of what I can ever expect to get from Social Security--especially since gold was $35 an ounce then.
Someone who be more lit'rate than Dorothy...
I disagree completely. That's exactly our problem. We've become a nation of central planners.
It's not the role nor job of the dam President to create jobs or control unemployment.
If someone said it's not my role, but I'm gonna cut taxes, regulations, and other Gov't interventions, and actually look out for the well being of the American citizen, then yes.
Democrat and Republican - two wings of the same bird of prey.
While you and me and everyone else were "putting money into Social Security" we were also spending much more money on big government nonsense. This is why we have a $14T National Debt.
It is simply false to say that we who are alive and working today have paid our own way and are entitled to a pension to be paid by future workers. We have not and we aren't.
What kind of article is this? Big Government is the problem. Everything is tied together, Dorothy and you know it so don’t pretend you don’t and stop shilling for a RINO. It’s unattractive.
Americans are worried about our national debt and agree we need to cut spending, but when the talk gets specific everybody points at everyone else and says “Cut his spending. Leave mine alone.”
That is why nothing that matters will get done until most americans feel the pinch in a very serious way.
They are, by any other name, democrats to a person. The question, "Do we want this block of votes...?" is patently absurd. We can not get the voter who is so completely self absorbed that he or she thinks Obama is doing a good job. All in all, a witless article Dorothy.
“He would especially avoid painting images of the pain Americans feel at burdening their children and grandchildren. This high-minded talk, rooted in fantasy,”
It is not a “fantasy” that current projections of the near future costs and deficits of Social Security and Medicare - entitlements that Grandma and Grandpa are told are their privileged rights - will, beyond any doubt, be painful financial burdens pressed predominately on our children and grandchildren - the working age population.
Maybe she is trying to say that “Americans”, and in that predominately Grandma and Grandpa, do NOT realize, consider or even “imagine” this “pain”, or do not care about it. On any one part of that score, she could be correct; and least in a public majority sense.
So, she could be correct to say that those who need to “imagine” this pain, do not, and therefor an argument based on the facts will not appeal to them. Again, on that score, she could be right, at least as a possible majority of the Grandmas and Grandpas are concerned. They, the baby boomers are the first generation who have worked their entire lives paying into and expecting to get back from the Social Security and Medicare plans.
The truthful, painful, argument is that they can admit that pain - paying 100% of currently projected Medicare and Social Securty costs, will fall MOSTLY on their children and grandchildren - and accept budget-cutting plan changes to soften that blow, or they can stick their heads in the sand WITH the Democrats and demand that nothing change, which will deny their children and grandchildren immediate relief while possibly insuring their eventual release from it all when the plans implode entirely.
The fact is that the “Ryan plan” (as at least one reasoned idea) makes the good and truthful argument about Medicare and its looming deficits and then offers a positive outlook with elements to put more market-based incentives into the plan, and to also quits pretending the plan can continue, as is, without less drastic cuts unless those who can afford to pay more do so; keeping the plan as the safety net that everyone can fall back on as much as they might actually need to.
Then the author goes on to lift up a number of issues that I know are dear to Conservatives (myself included), particularly regarding the Justice Department under Mr. Holder, and foreign policy issues like our dropping support for Britain over the Falklands.
Yet as much as I know those are issues dear to many Conservatives, and correctly so; and as much as I wish everyone of them were an electioneering “barn burner”, I think THAT idea is fantasy - to think that they will resonate strongly enough with a currently very populist general public to be used as more of a core of a GOP POTUS candidate’s campaign, than a focus on our debt and deficits and where they come from.
It seems the RINOs actually do not want the long term deficit issues solved and the structural causes of them - big government and entitlements - reversed. They want to get elected on a platform of behaving like Democrats - distract the people using ANY other issues, kick the can down the road and let those who come later pick up the pieces.
Meanwhile, “later” is already here.
We can not get the voter who is so completely self absorbed that he or she thinks Obama is doing a good job. “ =======
I think you’re right, of course, but given the depressed effects of the economy and the heavy handed failure of Obama, there’s a chance we will get them whether we want them or not, I guess. :)
I don’t.
Its that government spending that is consuming the private sector and the jobs it provides.
The sooner people figure that out the sooner we are on the path to actual recovery - with jobs.
We, who?
If I had a dollar for every letter I've written and phone call I'd made urging votes against this crap, not to mention the time and money in support of candidates who were against it, I would be independently wealthy. It goes back to the days of the 4 cent stamp.
I don't want a pension, I want my money back.
And I'm sick sh*tless of being called a "burden" on my children and grandchildren when I work, pay my own way, am raising two grandchildren and for all practical purposes a great-grandchild.
I know d@mned well that we are not alone--there are a lot of grandparents raising grandkids.
So someone can stuff the obamacare death panel meme "useless old burden" where they'll need a proctologist to retrieve it.
I expect I'll work until either I can't or I'm dead, but I'm just p.o.ed about being ripped off, especially when I've hit the moving target maximum for a few years, only to have my savings gone because of some cockamamie government policy change just about once a decade shutting down the industry I work in.
Now, to portray those of us who have paid our way and are supporting three (or more!) generations as "old and useless" tells me someone has an agenda to promote, one that leads to death panels to get rid of the old coots--which really works well for the socialists--because we remember when they weren't running things.
Those who have never even tasted freedom think a little sugar on their slavery is sweet, and eliminating those of us who know the difference is an essential step for the totalitarians.
To win the presidency in 2012, the Republican candidate …
If the Republican candidates follow business as usual in the upcoming primary they will lose. Instead of slinging dirt at each other they should remain positive and only attack the Democrats.
Yes, you are right - the author is right in a Republican candidate has to be FOR something better in order to win. People are inspired by something positive more than they are moved by something negative - it’s basic salesmanship 101. Look at Barack Obama in 2088: he said, “Yes We Can!” and people were inspired to vote for BO.
I think the Tea Party has been somewhat successful in reviving the flame of Liberty amongst a disaffected citizenry. Harking back to the Founders vision is positive theme we can build on - if the RINOs would STFU.
LLS
That is the absolute truth. Palin, Cain, and Bachmann see this clearly. Mitt and the rest of the GOP hopefuls - not so much.
Instead of slinging dirt at each other they should remain positive and only attack the Democrats.
I agree, but with one caveat: we should expect, and even demand that our candidates tell the truth. Even if that means calling out a fellow Republican for transgressions against our conservative principles.
Even if that means calling out a fellow Republican for transgressions against our conservative principles.
If they stick to that. Just don’t give the Democrats sound bites to use against the Republican candidate in the election.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.