Posted on 12/13/2012 2:15:52 PM PST by neverdem
Over the next couple of years, Barack Obama wants to raise the national debt to $18.9 trillion or so.
John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the congressional Republicans want to raise the national debt to $18.4 trillion or so.
The present leadership of the Republican Party has gone from making the case that government is the problem and the American people are the solution to making the case that Democratic controlled government is the problem and Republican controlled government is the solution.
By giving up on making the case that government is the problem and pivoting to “Democrats are the problem,” the Republican Party has failed the American people. Historically, when parties lost, their leadership went and hid for an appropriate amount of time under a rock after an acceptance of blame and a resignation.
The present Republican leaders in Washington, instead of hiding under a rock, have taken to standing on the rock and demanding conservatives self flagellate. Neither John Boehner nor Mitch McConnell are visionaries. They are survivors. They survive by recognizing the biggest threat to them and trying to befriend it or neutralize it.
Right now, both see conservatives as their biggest threat, not Barack Obama. Why? Because while Barack Obama maintains the White House, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell maintain their positions of power. They exist for power, not for vision. The visions they articulate are routinely backpedaled. Remember the pledge to nowhere the House Republicans concocted in 2010 as a second coming of the Contract With America? Within two months of returning to the majority they’d already ditched their pledge faster than a frat boy fleeing a one night stand. Only conservatives wish to hold them accountable for their breach of trust, thus conservatives are the threat.
The very same Republican leadership who paved the way for the rise of the Democrats in 2006 through moral opaqueness on the role of government in the lives of Americans now seek to shut up and shut out the conservatives who continue to loudly point out that the size and scope of the federal leviathan has grown too unwieldy. More troubling, with the removal of the several of the critics within the party from key committees and a clear message that loud voices of conservatism will not get plumb committee assignments, the incoming freshman class and even the current conservative leaders in the House of Representatives have rolled over.
Let us not kid ourselves. The Republicans intend to strike a last minute deal to cave. They will. They are going blind in the bathroom over the idea of bifurcating tax cuts so Barack Obama can veto the tax cut for high income earners and let the rest slide through. It is, as usual, a too clever by half compromise from the GOP, which has spent more time out negotiating itself to the left than negotiating with the Democrats.
The compromise is no longer the issue. It will happen.
The issue is that the Republican leaders who will be in charge in January are the Republican leaders who were directly complicit in the construction of the fiscal cliff and were directly complicit in getting us already to $16 trillion in national debt. Democrats are not to blame; both parties in Washington are.
Obsequious praise for small government does the Republicans no good when they too are in favor of big government in their actions. And having two leaders as the face of the party who have both been in Washington since 1986 does no good restoring credibility when these multi-decade residents of the swamp wink and smile that they really do think Washington is the problem.
Is it any wonder the American people have come to the conclusion that government isn’t so bad when the party of small government keeps expanding it too? The leaders of the party are the message, not the words. And the message does not resonate because they do not practice what they preach.
Until the Republicans change their message, they will keep losing. Changing the message means changing the men. Will 16 Republicans in the House be brave enough to stand up and say the party needs a new Speaker of the House?
This is not about the compromise. This is not about the fiscal cliff. This is not even about removing Amash, Huelskamp, Schweikert, and Jones. This is about beginning again anew — a process that cannot happen when the faces of the Republican leadership have been in Washington since 1986 expanding government while preaching the need for limiting it.
If you had any evidence of that you would have produced it by now.
Don't confuse politics and bad government with surviving, you aren't going through anything unusual, just get a job and keep struggling to improve your life everyday, with luck maybe you'll have it easier in 30 or 40 years.
You don't really want to hear all of our tough life stories do you? How would you like to be in your situation and not be 26, but instead be 56, or 66?
Judging from your words, my guess is that you are going to have serious problems in life.
If you had any evidence of that you would have produced it by now.
And yet you go on repeating it with no evidence at all.
I would submit that every presidential election since 1980 and every congressional election since 1994 has been "about the Republicans".
If they governed well -- and conservatively -- they won. If they governed poorly, they got defeated.
For example, in 2006, the Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the Democrats didn't win; Trent Lott and Denny Hastert and the Republicans lost. The GOP had proved itself unworthy of governing.
Examine every election after the above start points and tell me otherwise.
Eric, Eric, Eric...Spellcheck is not your friend.
A fruit is called for, not a trade.
Had we given away more last year, we would be giving away even more this year.
Weakness is weakness.
Gosh, the romneybots are showing up.
The Nation has failed the Republicans, who, whatever they may be, aren’t Marxists like Obama and his gang.
Your points are well-made and I do not refute them other than to say there is a difference between getting elected and doing good for the country. I’m not questioning the election successes of the Republican Party; I’ve been quite happy with some of them. I helped elect some of those members of the RP.
If you read what I wrote in that post with the assurance that I speak as a conservative American loyalist and not as a Republican Party member, past or present, then you can see that I’m more interested in what’s Constitutionally good for the USA, that builds up and maintains the foundations of our Nation, than in just one Party winning elections for power, prestige, money, and show.
If you live in a Democratic-dominated open primary state, like Massachusetts, you just might be an independent or "unenrolled." It allows you to vote in either primary.
Once upon a time when there were still conservative Democrats running in Massachusetts and Republicans couldn't win anyway, it wasn't a bad deal.
Anyway, my family were "unenrolled" or independent during the Reagan years. We voted for Reagan anyway.
That is a form of lying to these people.
Pretending that I have been asked to produce evidence for the claim and have never done so.
I don't dispute that. I was merely pointing out that, when the Republican party governs conservatively, they win. When they don't, they lose. <
I believe this reinforces your point; it doesn't attack it.
Sorry, more to the point the Nation has failed the Nation, as someone stated earlier.
Don't post about me and not ping me. Romney has been deeply involved in politics all of his life. His first job in politics was as a teen intern.
Romney was the fourth republican governor in a row in a state that prefers GOP governors, in fact he gave up his supporting of democrats, democrat fundraising, and voting, to reregister republican in October of 1993, for the reason of running for office in Massachusetts.
It's quite simple: They don't believe what we believe.
They are creatures of Washington. They want to run the government, sure. But they'd prefer running a big government over running a smaller government.
When you boil the problem down, it amounts to Washington vs The Rest Of Us.
It was a rhetorical device, Laz. :)
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.