Posted on 10/15/2007 4:29:47 AM PDT by StatenIsland
I know, see #172.
Perfect explanation for what the Rooty Rooters are trying to do.
You seem to overlook what you yourself just said. The very fact that Hillary is a D and Rudy is a R means they must rely on different factions to support their own specific agendas. Rudy can't tick off social conservatives too much because he'll need their votes for his own proposals (whatever they may be). Hillary will essentially be able to do anything she wants with full support from a Democratic House and Senate.
Any action you take has consequences. Pretending otherwise doesn't make it so.
Mayor Guido Ghouliani is nothing but a Clinton Democrat with an annoying accent. Man, I look forward to Kerick as head of the FBI, Ray Harding as our Secretary of State, and Harvey Fierstein as Secretary of the Posterior, er, interior.
But it's not at evil as the greater evil...which is the whole point.
So, GO HILLARY GO !?
What about those who oppose Rudy because he's a gun-grabber, or because they would expect him to allow/encourage the most left-leaning states to enforce their will on the rest of the country?
Considering at least two much younger clones of Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably get onto the SCOTUS, possibly not.
This doesn't matter anyway, he won't get anyone like this past a Democratic Senate (and neither would anyone else). I'll settle for anyone to the right of Kennedy.
From what I can tell, Rudy is targeting primarily crossover votes from Democrats and 'base' those who will vote for any candidate with an (R) next to their names. If he gets in, he'll be much more beholden to crossover Democrats than to conservative Republicans.
I was thinking more of votes in Congress.
This brings up another scenario I was considering. Rudy is nominated. A portion of Social conservatives refuse to vote for him in the general election. He gets elected anyway somehow with these crossover voters. He now has even less of an obligation toward soc cons than he would otherwise. The Republican Party shifts more leftward.
A Republican Congress would be more able to oppose Hillary's actions than Rudy's.
He now has even less of an obligation toward soc cons than he would otherwise. The Republican Party shifts more leftward.
The Republican Party's leftward movement results from a belief that moving leftward won't cost votes. If half the population would vote for Stalin himself so long as he had an (R) next to his name, why shouldn't the GOP run Old Joe?
By contrast, if the GOP sees that they can run someone as far left as GWB while getting 35 percentage points from the GOP base, but moving left to Giuliani would drop that figure to 15 percentage points, then they would realize that there's a limit to how far left they could go before they started losing net votes.
Well, you fight like hell for your candidate in the primary. And, if a favored candidate isn’t there for the general election, you do one of two things: whine and leave the tent or suck it up and hold your friggen nose! Out of frustration of what I feel are narrow minded SoCons, I simply am entertaining the idea that maybe they should leave the tent so we can “get on with” the realignment. How does this sound?
Well, you fight like hell for your candidate in the primary. And, if a favored candidate isn’t there for the general election, you do one of two things: whine and leave the tent or suck it up and hold your friggen nose! Out of frustration of what I feel are narrow minded SoCons, I simply am entertaining the idea that maybe they should leave the tent so we can “get on with” the realignment. How does this sound?
I can understand that. Assuming Rudy G. gets the nomination, I'm still inclined to get him in for four years for the SCOTUS nominations, then using 2012 to hand it over to the Dems. At that time, we might have someone less objectionable than Hillary. Also, Republicans may be in a better position in Congress by then. Hopefully, someone else will be nominated avoiding the issue altogether.
With regret, I disagree.
Best regards,
Suppose you're the Grand High Pooh-Bah of the GOP, and suppose further that your objective is to maximize your political power; conservatism is relevant to the extent, and only the extent, that preaching it will encourage certain people to give you power.
If conservative voters would give you just as much support for running a leftist as for running a conservative, what reason would you possibly have for running a conservative? Why not run a hard leftist, so that you could receive broad political support from both sides of the aisle?
Now imagine that you're the Democrat Grand Pooh-Bah; your interests are a little different. Your goal is to have leftist programs get implemented. Ideally you'd have your guys in charge, but you have enough hooks at all levels of government that things will work well for you if a liberal gets elected, whether or not your guys are officially in power.
If you know that the Republican leadership and voters are as I described above, is there any reason why your optimal strategy wouldn't be to run a hard leftist? If you run a moderate, your guy, a moderate, would win, but if you run a hard leftist, the Republicans will run a leftist and so the winning candidate, even though he's a Republican, would be to the left of anyone you could have won with yourself.
I assert that controlling aspects of the parties' leadership are essentially as I described. I further assert that if Republican voters will favor their guy no matter what, provided the alternative is sufficiently hideous, that the optimal strategies for both parties are as I described.
Do you disagree with either assertion?
I would further assert that if voter behavior favors that strategy by the two parties, the leftward slide of this country will accelerate exponentially, and that the country would be doomed with such sufficient certainty that no other strategy could be meaningfully worse (if your Chess opponent has you in a 'mate in three', you're no more lost if you offer the opponent an immediate mate than if you extend the game two more turns).
Given those axioms, I conclude that either (1) the optimal strategy for Republican voters must be something other than blind support of the Republican candidate, no matter what the alternative, or (2) if there is no better strategy than blind support of the Republican, this country is sufficiently thoroughly doomed that no strategy is meaningfully worse.
What is the flaw in my logic?
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