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Social Conservatives Fight for Control of the Republican Party
LA Times ^ | 10/28/08 | Peter Wallstein

Posted on 10/28/2008 11:00:34 AM PDT by lewisglad

A focal point of the GOP fight is the selection of the next chairman of the Republican National Committee -- the party's power center for fundraising and strategic thinking.

Conservative champion Rush Limbaugh, who often provides the rallying cry to the party's most ardent supporters via his radio program, last week laid out a similar warning, suggesting that a McCain win would do little to deter conservatives from pushing for major changes.

"One step at a time," Limbaugh told his listeners. "We're going to drag McCain across the finish line -- then we start rebuilding the conservative movement. It's going to happen whether he wins or loses, but especially if he wins too."

Party insiders are pushing for the party to name Michael Steele, the African American former lieutenant governor of Maryland, as its chairman to help the GOP broaden its appeal.

Both meetings are precursors to the Republican National Committee's winter meeting in January, when the new chairman will be elected by the committee's approximately 160 members.

"There is a new blood in the party that is interested in communicating the message of the party -- the conservative message," said Kim Lehman, executive director of the antiabortion group Iowa Right to Life, who in July defeated a state legislator for one of the state's seats on the national committee.

Former California GOP Chairman Shawn Steel, a newly elected committeeman, described his colleagues as "mostly dynamic and frustrated conservatives that really want to see a dramatic change for the RNC in the way that it communicates to Americans."

Even in a year of Democratic strength, there are some positive signs for conservatives. Gay marriage bans, for example, stand a chance of being approved by the voters in two big states, California and Florida

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: christianvote; gop; homosexualagenda
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To: Fox_Mulder77

Whew...man oh man I hope he gets it. He’s SUCH a gem and he can help rally the troops, so to speak, in the House. We’ve got a good nucleus now with the ones who voted against the bailout.


41 posted on 10/28/2008 12:55:15 PM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: lewisglad

We socons can’t even control this social conservative website.


42 posted on 10/28/2008 1:22:25 PM PDT by Kevmo (I love that sound and please let that baby keep on crying. ~Sarah Palin)
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To: TChris
it was the Republican voters who nominated John McCain.

Before the nomination was sewed up, most Republicans voted against McCain, even though most of the early primaries were in less conservative states. As you may remember, a fair number of them were open primaries with many non-GOP voters, who voted heavily for McCain.

George H. Bush was nominated because he was Reagan's VP and ran as Reagan II. George W. Bush was nominated because the expected leading conservatives, Quayle and Gramm went nowhere, leaving nobody but Keyes to oppose Bush on the right. It was a sequence of unfortunate events. It was not as straightforward as you imply.

43 posted on 10/28/2008 1:34:53 PM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (White Trash for Sarah!)
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To: misterrob

I was wondering the same. Anything is better than the socialist conservatives we have been seeing lately though.


44 posted on 10/28/2008 1:41:51 PM PDT by John Robie
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla
It was not as straightforward as you imply.

I think FReepers are well-informed enough to know that it isn't a simple process, and I certainly never intended to imply that it is.

I was responding to a post which had attempted to place the blame for Bush I, Bush II and McCain on The Party. It's precisely because the process is not straightforward that such blame is unhelpful and misguided.

The idea was presented as if those conservatives who refused to vote were right to do so, and that it's all the Republican Party's fault. I strongly disagree, and urge disaffected conservatives to become more involved, campaign for and otherwise support conservatives, and never EVER refuse to exercise your priceless right to vote just because you don't love any of the choices.

Anyone waiting for perfection in a candidate had better run for the office himself or change his attitude. No career politician is ever going to make everyone happy.

45 posted on 10/28/2008 1:47:21 PM PDT by TChris (So many useful idiots...)
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To: lewisglad
"One step at a time," Limbaugh told his listeners. "We're going to drag McCain across the finish line -- then we start rebuilding the conservative movement. It's going to happen whether he wins or loses, but especially if he wins too."

Rock on Sir Rush.

46 posted on 10/28/2008 1:59:54 PM PDT by TheFourthMagi
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To: St. Louis Conservative; calcowgirl; TommyDale; raybbr; Condor51; TADSLOS; 3AngelaD
I want the David Frum’s, the Michael Gerson’s, David Brooks’s.......out of the party.......I don’t want them anywhere near the leadership or influencing the leadership.

Amen, baby. And don't forget little Billy Krystal, dumbhead Douglas Feith, and that disgusting cabal of pukeneos. These termites have been eating away at the party structure far too long.

The nincompooneos were obsessed with religious cleansing of the party; they kicked so/cons to the curb. The pukes sucked off loser after loser----Giuliani, Mehlman, Martinez.......the list goes on and on.

Worst of all, the stupeneos led us over a cliff into Iraq......effecting massive transfers of US wealth into Mideast hellholes (and into the pockets of war profiteers).

Chief Puke, Richard Perle, is actually going into the oil business in Iraq-----thanks to blood spilled by young Americans, and his cut of trillions of US tax dollars.

Pukeneos also foisted amnesty on the US, saddling us with millions of drug runners and criminals undermining US ntl security........and conniving Third World lowlifes using multiple stolen identities who have destroyed our economy.

"Tell you what, pukes---if you don't like the new Republican party----too fricking bad."

47 posted on 10/28/2008 2:30:52 PM PDT by Liz (Q. How long does a US Congressman serve? A. Until he gets caught. Carnac (Johnny Carson))
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To: Liz

I wish you’d learn to say what you really think. ;-)

Go ahead... let it out! LOL.


48 posted on 10/28/2008 2:41:22 PM PDT by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: Liz

I might come back to the Republican Party if there is a purge to rid the Mehlman/Martinez/Giuliani/McCain elements after 2008.


49 posted on 10/28/2008 2:49:44 PM PDT by TommyDale (I) (Never forget the Republicans who voted for illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007!)
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To: lewisglad
The real problem with the religious right is that, in the long run, its religious vehicle won’t carry it home. If it ever ended abortion, restored school prayer, outlawed sodomy and banned pornography, I suspect, most of its followers would simply declare victory and retire. But having accomplished all of that, the Christian right would have done absolutely nothing to strip the federal government of the power it has seized throughout this century, restore a proper understanding and enforcement of the Constitution and of republican government, prevent the inundation of the country by anti-Western immigrants, stop the cultural and racial dispossession of the historic American people, or resist the absorption of the American nation into a multicultural and multiracialist globalist regime.    -Hermes, from Wise Man's Heart 
50 posted on 10/28/2008 2:50:10 PM PDT by Harrius Magnus (LIBERALS: We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.)
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To: TommyDale

Welcome back, babe——b/c a purge is about to happen.


51 posted on 10/28/2008 2:55:47 PM PDT by Liz (Q. How long does a US Congressman serve? A. Until he gets caught. Carnac (Johnny Carson))
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To: 1L
Republicans didn't hand McCain the nomination. It was the media and independants.

The media gushed over McCain during the primaries, knowing that he is weak candidate who would do very poorly in the debates, not be nearly aggressive enough as a campaigner, and be generally unappealing to the republican base. Howard Dean himself was quoted as saying the democrats were most afraid of Romney and were glad that McCain got the nomination. And he is right. Romney killed McCain during the debates and Obama would have looked like the inexperienced Marxist fool he is if he had faced Romney in debates.

Independants were allowed to vote in many of the primaries, thereby handing McCain victory in several winner take all states. The republican party needs to change how its primaries operate such that only Republicans can vote. That way we won't end up with a pandering RINO who real Republican would generally not support.

The media has played this to perfection for their candidate and only a “perfect storm” has allowed Obama to get this far. And it is still possible, though not probable, to stop him.

52 posted on 10/28/2008 2:57:27 PM PDT by PAR
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To: calcowgirl

Yeah——it’d be hard for those dumbhead nincompoopneos to figure that all out. ROTFL.


53 posted on 10/28/2008 2:58:45 PM PDT by Liz (Q. How long does a US Congressman serve? A. Until he gets caught. Carnac (Johnny Carson))
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To: TChris

With those points I’m in complete agreement.


54 posted on 10/28/2008 3:01:55 PM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (White Trash for Sarah!)
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To: Liz

If social conservatives cannot regain control of the GOP, I will just remain an Independent until a New Conservative Party becomes operational.

(You called me babe!) :blush:


55 posted on 10/28/2008 3:02:19 PM PDT by TommyDale (I) (Never forget the Republicans who voted for illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007!)
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To: TommyDale
I might come back if there is a purge of the Republican Party to rid the Mehlman/Martinez/Giuliani/McCain elements after 2008.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.---- Marcus Tullius Cicero Roman Statesman Speech in the Roman Senate - 42 BC.

56 posted on 10/28/2008 3:04:31 PM PDT by Liz (Q. How long does a US Congressman serve? A. Until he gets caught. Carnac (Johnny Carson))
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To: TommyDale
(You called me babe!) :blush:


57 posted on 10/28/2008 3:11:38 PM PDT by Liz (Q. How long does a US Congressman serve? A. Until he gets caught. Carnac (Johnny Carson))
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To: Fox_Mulder77; SE Mom

Greer....I really don’t like that guy. He’s our Lindsey Graham.


58 posted on 10/28/2008 3:24:53 PM PDT by darkangel82 (If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. (Say no to RINOs))
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To: americanophile
The LAT trying to drive wedges between wings of the GOP. Ignore it people. Social conservatives, like all other conservatives are united in trying to elect McCain at the moment. If we don't win this election their won't be much of a Republican Party. The Dems would have us fighting over the scraps. To hell with them, we are one party, and we win or lose together.

Word.

59 posted on 10/28/2008 3:25:52 PM PDT by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
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To: Citizen Blade

You believe W. was a social conservative? Wow. I know the media has been trying to paint that narrative since 2000 but I’m not buying it.


60 posted on 10/28/2008 4:08:35 PM PDT by Minus_The_Bear
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