So, from a conservative perspective, where do we draw the line for withholding support from a potential Presidential candidate? Which issue, combination of issues, or number of issues are you really willing to sacrifice for a win?
1. Abortion?
2. Gay Marriage?
3. Amnesty?
4. Limited, constitutional Government?
There are some thoughtful posts here. Really, we need to bring the infighting to a screeching halt.
Unite or die. That should be one of the two fundamental principles of the Republican Party for the next four years.
The other is that we must become the Latino Party. Not the Amnesty Party. There's a difference. The Latino vote, and the Latino community, are not monolithic. We must be the party of LEGAL Latinos.
With a few exceptions (the ones who have family members who are here illegally and want to become citizens), legal Latinos aren't very happy about the idea of amnesty. When a Latino immigrant comes here and is willing to work for a lower wage, someone who's working for a higher wage usually gets displaced. And that person is usually a legal Latino. The legal Latinos see illegal immigration and amnesty as threats to their livelihood.
The problem here is that a handful of Republicans choose to discuss this issue in an extremely insensitive, almost racist way. Latinos have a very finely tuned radar for that and it turns them against us. In my opinion, when Romney said the word "self-deportation," he lost the election. The Democratic Party has thousands of operatives who speak Spanish fluently, and are telling Latinos that Republicans are racists. Remarks like "self-deportation" hand enormous amounts of free ammunition to those operatives.
Similarly insensitive and bona fide stupid remarks about rape and pregnancy by Akins and Mourdock cost us two Senate races that we should have won. Always remember that when a Republican candidate says something stupid and insensitive about women or minorities, that remark is going to be put on the air on MSNBC more often than Rachel Maddow's smirk, from that moment until the election.
I think we can afford to give one inch on abortion and amnesty. On abortion, allow exceptions for rape and incest. On amnesty, allow people to apply for citizenship if they have been here for at least 10 years, if they've never been convicted of a crime, and if they're working. Compromises like these aren't really compromises, because they'd still get rid of about 95% of all abortions and 80% of illegal immigrants. But they'd gain us enough votes to win instead of losing.
I would rather win than lose.
So the devil is now on the dance floor. Will you dance with the devil to ‘win’?
“Refining” a message doesn’t mean you give up your principles. The day you do that, you become the enemy within.
We don't need to wrap our arms around them ~ they need to learn from us and put away their silly superstitions and nonsense about los caudillos on white horses.
I"ve proposed a fix in the immigration system ~ a return to national origins. This time we give the Mexicans 90% of the legal quota for the next decade ~ but they've got to get rid of all the illegals here first ~ including illegal Mexicans.
At the end of that time we eliminate national origins ~ and do not reinstate family reunification ~ which amounts to the same thing.
You don't have to, but you do have to wordsmith the message properly.
For example, the mantra for years has been that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. We can talk about the "rare" part without getting into trouble if prefaced with the notion that it should be "safe, legal, and rare". Its the opposition's phrase. They can be held to it.
Everything else can be handled in a similar manner. It took a ratchet effect of slow, small, and steady changes to get us to where we are now.
It will take a ratchet effect of slow, small, and steady changes to get us to where we want to be.
One of the major problems WE have is that we want it all, right now, immediately, on the table, and ready to eat.
That isn't reality. It took a long time to get here and it will take a long time to dig ourselves out.
How we do that, however, is up in the air.
Your lack of understanding truth, just lost- the last election for President of the United States. At least you, are not alone. Congrats.