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 ...
Some conservatives argue privately that an Obama victory would clear out strategists and policy thinkers from the Bush era and the McCain campaign, leaving the party in a better position to rebuild itself as a contrast to the Democrats, who would have control of Congress as well as the White House.
Glad to see some real planning is going on behind the scenes in the rank and file to start eradicating the cancerous rot, aka RINO's, that has been eating away at the Republican party since Reagan left the Presidency. I learned as a child growing up in the southwest that a fish always starts to rot from the head down. Cut off the rotten head and the rot stops. Hopefully there is enough of Reagan's brand of conservatism inheritance left to salvage and start to rebuild on for our future.
Personally, I want all the David Frum’s, the Michael Gerson’s, David Brooks’s, and the Colin Powell’s of the world out of the party. I’ll take their votes and their support, but I don’t want them anywhere near the leadership or influencing the leadership.
Agree 110%.
I'm sure you can the door for yourself.
Palin’s not running for President; McCain is. If you really think she and her ideas are going to have any force in a McCain administration, you need to step away from politics to something like square dancing.
Palin has NOT engaged conservative voters who have stayed home the last few elections. Many see McCain as Obama lite. Even those that don’t are sick and tired of holding their nose to vote for so-called conservatives who run the country like liberals when elected.
If the so-called independent voters were really that strong, we’d have had President Gore for the last 8 years.
>>the Republican voters who nominated John McCain.<<
Ummm ... you’ve made my point. Conservatives didn’t nominate McCain. He was nominated by non-conservatives and so-called moderates and was the only serious candidate by the time many primaries came around. I’ve already conceded that we didn’t have many good conservative candidates this time around, but to the extent we had anyone that was a good conservative, he quit! I didn’t have a chance to decide whether Romney or Huckabee (or whoever else) would have made a good candidate because they quit before the primary I voted in.
I’m quite aware of how the process works. I don’t think YOU understand what I’m saying. Its a dual point: conservative voters are staying home because they don’t like moderate candidates and the ones they do actually vote for — whether they ran as conservatives or not — act like moderates in office. We went from Ronald Reagan landslides to sweating out or losing almost every election since.
>>To see whomever you believe is the “right” man in office, you need to campaign for him and convince the majority that you’re right.<<
I’m sorry. I really didn’t realize up until this comment I was dealing with someone who either thinks on a very basic level, or just wasn’t paying attention to why I posted what I did (i.e. didn’t read what I responded to). I feel like I’ve wasted my time answering your post, but I guess that’s my fault and not yours.
Let me see if I can make my point clear to you: if the Republicans want to win elections, they will stop nominating moderates like McCain, AND they will start demanding their elected officials (unlike Bush) behave like conservatives in office.
I don't buy your assertion that the Republican Party only nominates moderates. There were much more conservative options than McCain, but as I watched, each one was shot down over smaller problems than McCain has. So, rather than getting someone with 70-90% conservative credentials, depending on whom you pick, we got the one hovering in the 50% conservative zone.
Too many die-hard conservatives are completely unwilling to compromise at all and cause such deep divisions over comparatively small things that the moderates win out.
Voters who want candidates who are more conservative will need to learn to live with candidates who aren't perfectly conservative, whatever that means.
When it comes to elections, the strength of unity sometimes must outweigh the purity of idealism.
Steele is fairly conservative but this crap has to end.
make no mistake
this election is about ideology, aside from wealth redistribution fiscal is down the list
you ignore that at your peril, the left sure doesn’t...never has
For those on the extremes of spectrum it is about ideology. But for those in the middle, this election is about who can distance themselves the most from the mistakes W has made over hte past 8 years.
Sorry, but a significant percentage of votes(enough to sway an election) are not going to be FOR Obama, they will be votes against W. Deal with it. And thank W’s lust for war with Iraq when America goes down the crapper in the next 4 years.
If Obama get’s elected it will be due to an infantile grasp of history by the American electorate, a whole slew of people who want a chunk of someone else’s pie, a media coup, and a bunch of so called “social conservatives” who want to cling to a false sense of righteousness rather than show some spine and do the right thing for the country.
Swallow your pride and go vote for McCain.
the flaw in your logic though is that the left has hated W long before he did anything
they hated him from the second he got elected in an election they thought he stole
evereything he has done they have twisted into an excuse to hate him further
he’s done plenty I don’t like either and left the GOP in a battered position but the Left and media woulda hated him anyhow
Obama represents the most radical perspective we may have ever seen get this far in US politics. HE must be stopped.
You need to figure THAT out and DEAL with it.
I’d rather recover from Mccain than Obama wouldn’t choo?
Of course I would rather dig out after McCain than Obama. The problem is that sheeple in the middle are not hearing about how radically socialist Obama is, and they will simply be casting an anti-W vote.
>>Too many die-hard conservatives are completely unwilling to compromise at all and cause such deep divisions over comparatively small things that the moderates win out.<<
Make this same comment next week and then look in the mirror if there is a President-elect named Obama.
It isn’t the conservatives CAUSING ANYTHING. It’s OUR party, damnit! Republicans don’t win landslides with moderate candidates; they win landslides with conservative candidates and conservative principles. In other words, we don’t need moderates.
>>the strength of unity sometimes must outweigh the purity of idealism.<<
So you really think the party is unified behind McCain?
I disagree.
Party moderates were able to unite around McCain during the primaries, at the same time the more conservative among us were still quite divided by ideological purity tests.
Those who can unite on a compromise usually end up getting more of what they want. Divided purists, holding out for all of what they want, end up with less or none.
Conservative purists divide themselves into small minorities with absolute candidate litmus tests of one kind or another and virtually guarantee loss. The larger group of moderates who aren't as dead set on "the nominee must say/do/believe/support X" get more of what they want in the end by being willing to give up some of what they want.
The ones who insist on getting all or nothing are probably going to end up with nothing.
If you want to call that a party problem, then that's fine. Start your own party and work on winning some elections. Then you can't blame the party for nominating the wrong people.
“The ones who insist on getting all or nothing are probably going to end up with nothing.”
The GOP has a party plaform. It’s conservative...so it’s the RINO’s (moderates...whatever) that are not following it.
And nothing is exactly what conservatives have been getting for the last 25 years....the gop (Bush,etc) have given the left every thing they want. We don’t want it all....but we’d sure like some representation JUST once in a while.
If big tenters don’t like the conservative platform, it’s they who should start your own party and get honest about it. But THEY know they can get NO where without US. That’s why McCain picked Palin.
“Conservative purists divide themselves into small minorities with absolute candidate litmus tests of one kind or another and virtually guarantee loss.”
United moderates have practically guaranteed loss for the party. They have no core principles and therefore stumble around trying to find a message to deliver to voters. McCain has proven that exorbitantly the past month.
It’s interesting that in a recent blog post written by open-borders-obsessed Michael Medved, he already threw out there the idea that if McCain loses, it will be Sarah Palin’s fault for being a conservative.
Reading your posts in this thread, it sounds like you agree. Everything is conservatives fault. McCain can do no wrong.
Reading your posts in this thread, it sounds like you agree. Everything is conservatives fault. McCain can do no wrong.
Wow.
It's amazing how often people can't or won't simply read the post and take it for what it is.
I have never claimed what you say here. My claims are quite plain and simple to understand for anyone who will read them.
Conservatives fail, not by being conservative, but by being unwilling to compromise at all and fracturing themselves into tiny, permanent minorities.
Some refuse to vote for any candidate who would allow abortion under any circumstances, ever.
Some refuse to vote for any candidate who believes access to weapons should be restricted in any way.
Some refuse to vote for any candidate who believes that something short of wholesale deportation of illegals is a workable solution.
Whatever the issue, there are conservatives who will stubbornly die a martyr's death on that hill rather than compromise. While that single-issue stubbornness may make such a conservative feel better about their honor, or what ever, it will not win elections.
All I'm saying is that you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you're going to be a single-issue martyr, then don't whine about losing elections. Be happy that you cast an honorable vote and shut up.
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