Graham, DeMint differ on strategies for GOP to regain power [the time for choosing is coming]

McClatchy / The Herald, Rock Hill, SC ^ | 2009-10-25 | James Rosen

[rabscuttle385]

WASHINGTON -- The national debate among Republicans over their party's future is nowhere sharper than in South Carolina, where Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint pursue distinctly different visions for restoring GOP primacy at the polls.

Graham and DeMint, who profess to be friends and live within an hour's drive of each other in the conservative Upstate, prescribe conflicting cures for the Republican ailments that led to sweeping defeats in the last two national elections.

Graham, a Seneca Republican elected to his second term last year, says the party must stop alienating young people and Hispanics and start promoting pragmatic, “center-right solutions” to the country's most pressing problems.

. . . . .

DeMint, a Greenville Republican seeking to win a second term next year, believes that young voters and ethnic Americans will flock to GOP candidates if they push plain conservative principles and offer a stark contrast to Democrats.

[rabscuttle385]

“The overwhelming majority of conservatives and independents appreciate the fact that their elected leaders are trying to solve hard problems,” Graham said.

“South Carolinians could care less who I work with,” he said. “Most people in South Carolina are looking for their elected officials to improve their lives, get the unemployment situation turned around and help our environment to get cleaner.”

Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments' programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
PATRICK HENRY

The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

A republic...if you can keep it.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

The doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, predicated upon the glory of man, and the corresponding duty of society, is that the rights of the citizens are to be protected with every power and resource of the State, and a government that does any less is false to the teachings of that great document, of the name American. Beyond this, the principle that it is the obligation of the people to rise and overthrow government which fails in these respects. But above all, the call to duty, the pledge of fortune and life, nobility of character through nobility of action: this is Americanism.
CALVIN COOLIDGE

The time for choosing is coming. Whose side are you on?

Send Lindsey, his buddy McCain, Scozzafava, and the rest of the RINOs to the back of the unemployment line!

Don't tread on me!

God save the Republic!

[rabscuttle385]

*Ping!*

[indianrightwinger]

when is the lo$er up for re-election?

sorry, if it is a poor question.

[rabscuttle385]

Lindsey...2014.

McCain...next year!

[BP2]

The choice is clear ...
absolutely no more damn RINOs!

[MestaMachine]

In a naturally born citizen heartbeat!!!
The tide is with us. McCain and Graham, Gingrich and Steele ain’t! Romney and Huckabee have their fingers in the wind half the time, and up their noses the other half.
RINONO as bad as ONONO.

[indianrightwinger]

He must be defeated in the primaries. Truly must be.

I will be donating big time to the primary challenger (even though I live in CA).

I will donate the maximum.

[KarenMarie]

Graham, as in Lindsey Granham, as is Goober??

The is no choice. He needs to go.

[Iron Munro]

We already know that Lindsey Graham's strategy of "Drop-Trou For Democrats" doesn't work.

[mojitojoe]

Send Lindsey, his buddy McCain, Scozzafava, and the rest of the RINOs to the back of the unemployment line!
_______________________
AMEN to that!

[FLAMING DEATH]

“Graham, a Seneca Republican elected to his second term last year, says the party must stop alienating young people and Hispanics and start promoting pragmatic, “center-right solutions” to the country’s most pressing problems...”

Dumbass.

[Lancey Howard]

Graham believes that government is supposed to “improve people’s lives”??
Wow. That simple pantload is more vain and arrogant than I imagined.

“Please make my life better, Mr. Lindsay. Please?”

[Wolfhound77]

“The national debate among Republicans over their party’s future is nowhere sharper than in South Carolina, where Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint pursue distinctly different visions for restoring GOP primacy at the polls.”

Why are they shaping the future? We need to be. Vote them all out in 2010. They were a colossal failure in 2008 and will eat each other trying to win in 2010 ensuring the Rats another year of victory. There has to be someone out there willing to run against these guys. There is no better time to get true conservatives on the tickets, the people hate congress right now.

[HarleyD]

Graham...says the party must stop alienating young people and Hispanics

The party should spent more time standing for principles and less time worry about "alienating" people.

[Semper Mark]

"Graham, a Seneca Republican elected to his second term last year, says the party must stop alienating young people and Hispanics and start promoting pragmatic, “center-right solutions” to the country's most pressing problems"

I'm not speaking of Americans of Hispanic descent, but the Hispanics that Graham is talking about would slit him from amnesty to elbow in a second,
given a chance.

But he doesn't care, because he has been paid for.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

The party should spent more time standing for principles and less time worry about "alienating" people.

There you go HarleyD! Problem solved and stated so simply!

It is the political consultants, the ones paid to get a candidate elected, who worry about that stuff. We need candidates strong enough to tell the consultants to just do the grunt work and let the candidate decide what he believes, not the other way around.

[ChiMark]

Graham should have been censored for his “angry white male”
remark.

Who is he courting? likely the growing Hispanic population
in Carolina the liberals in the northeast. Most certainly, he does not stand with conservatives.

[Lawgvr1955]

As Thomas Jefferson stated “When the citizenry fears the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the citizenry, there is freedom”.

[billmor]

Well Graham is pushing hard for Bernie of Weekend at Bernie’s while DeMint wants to see Bob Dole give it another try....

This is why the average people see the Repub Party with an average age as ‘Deceased’...How about some new blood, new faces and new ideas to get this country back on track...Tribal Elders may work best in other cultures but in American politics it’s the guy with the better mousetrap and better common sense that usually wins...

[maxter]

"Vote them all out in 2010."

No. There are a few very well worth keeping and Jim DeMint is one of them.