Can (and should) the Republican Party be saved
Don Quixote on Aug 11 2009 at 4:01 pm | Filed under: Republicans
I lied a bit when I said I’d taken a break from blogging. At Bookworm’s urging I did write one American Thinker piece with ideas on how to turn around the image of the Republican Party. And, boy does the old GOP need an image make-over. As Bookworm likes to say, the problem is in the branding. I’m a good example. I’ve been a Republican for 30 years and I’m still uncomfortable saying so. It’s almost something I feel I have to apologize for or justify.
So, the first question is, can the image of the Republican Party be restored, so that Republicans can be proud to be Republicans? What concrete steps should be taken to accomplish this? Keep in mind the Republican Party has been the minority party for most of our lifetimes. How can such a long-sailing ship be turned around?
The next question is, if you think the Republican Party cannot (or should not) be saved, what do you believe will replace it? What do you want to replace it? What concrete steps should be taken to accomplish this? Keep in mind, there hasn’t been a successful new party in the United States in 150 years. How could one be created now?
I’m looking for very practical suggestions here. Somehow we need to present an image, either of the Republican Party or of a new party, that can compete with the Democrats’ image of a caring, compassionate, warm heart. I’m not asking how we tear down the Democrats. I’m sure we’ve got lots of ideas on that (and maybe I’ll ask for those later in this vacation). But, for now, how do we build up an alternative? As always, I look forward eagerly to your ideas and thank you for them.
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The Townhall meetings are the image. The party of Liberty, American values of freedom of dissent and freedom of speech (and state repreatedly what those values are), small government, state rights, and Respect for the Individual. Reagan energized people by focusing on what is good about America and being proud of it. Americans felt good about themselves voting for Obama in no small part to heal the wounds of racism. Unfortunately, Obama blew his credibility here with his stupidity regarding the Gates affair. His foreign policy of apologizing to the world for America and kissing up to rogue regimes causes shame and disillusionment. The Republicans need to be very POSITIVE about this great nation and represent, WE, the People, as opposed to our current, I, the President, and We, the Congress leadership.
It’s almost something I feel I have to apologize for or justify.
That’s cause of the social environment and propaganda outlets like the New York Times.
What concrete steps should be taken to accomplish this? Keep in mind the Republican Party has been the minority party for most of our lifetimes.
The Republican Party has been the minority party because they don’t seek power for its own sake. Thus they don’t tend to aggregate power to themselves, allowing sustainment processes to be initiated. Instead, power flows from them pretty fast, as was the case in the South after the Civil War ushered in Republican governments in the South to protect the liberties of newly freed slaves. That didn’t last long.
The first steps that must be taken are the purges of specific individuals in the Republican party. They tend to make self-serving deals with Democrats in exchange for power and re-election guarantees. While all politicians tend to need to do that, these Republicans provide cover for Democrats in the greater propaganda war. They are also an intelligence and security air hole.
There are also mid level managers and organizers, such as McCain staffers. They also have to go. Their ability to internally sabotage Republican campaigns and to inform upon Republican candidates because of greed or bitterness is too dangerous to allow to flourish.
The concerns of people like Ozzie must be taken into account. If the Republican party is going to be blamed for everything the Left does, and the Left pardoned on the same points, then the Republicans might as well adopt successful Democrat tactics of power and control.
Independence should be the key – Cutting the apron strings to set you FREE!
Just as parents raise their children to be independent, think for themselves, hold down a job, study and plan their future. We want them to be able to make decisions without having to confer every little detail with us. We all know we won’t be able to hold their hand forever.
Guess, I’d have to go with the idea of letting the voters grows up and stop looking to Mom & Dad (Congress/Senate) to make choices and decisions for them.
Since my approach means weaning the public off from an all too powerful central government. We should begin with a steady, clear and calm discussion covering all the key points of interest. In fact, Republicans (will get to a name later) should be identified with Town Hall Meetings, easy voter access to their representatives and the representatives ability to bend to local voter interests and needs. This is a geographically big country and the needs of the N.E. Corridor may not be the same as the South West when addressing specific needs of a community, in other words the importance of States Rights. The ‘party’ should of course maintain the usual important appendages of a central government. This means that a ‘politician’ has to be willing to relinquish the ‘image’ and ‘mindset’ of being anything more than someone who represents the voters of his/her district/state.
Party name/change: Independence Day Party
I also am not comfortable referring to myself as a Republican. I am a Conservative. People know what that means.
Who knows what “Republican” means anymore?
What I would suggest:
1. The party should still be called “Republican” because Americans are leery of third parties (traditionally, we have been – although that could change depending on how bad things become).
The machinery is all there – we can’t waste time developing everything from the ground up. We just need to focus on what DOES need to change.
2. Create a core set of principles and beliefs. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT. If this is not done, there is no point of doing anything else.
3. Purges a la Y’s suggestion. They are most necessary and should be based on whether or not a candidate / operative adheres to the vast majority of principles / beliefs.
4. We need to put our money where our mouth is and support key candidates. We need a way to identify which candidates around the country stand the most chance of winning and support them.
More (much more) needs to be done to convince others to join us. This is a hard one that we discussed at D. Lemeiux’s house. A whole book could be written about how to do this!
Do we really need to refer to them as “purges”? doesn’t exactly carry the best connotations…
Probably the most obvious need, but I’ll say it anyway- the repubs need to start articulating their own ideas instead of simply railing against the Democratic ones.
I’m looking for very practical suggestions here. Somehow we need to present an image, either of the Republican Party or of a new party, that can compete with the Democrats’ image of a caring, compassionate, warm heart.
How about “Compassionate Conservative”?
How’d that work out?
Republicans/Conservatives will always be a minority because our goal is to limit government power.
Democrat/Liberals goal is to expand government power to give more suff to more people.
Which one sounds more appealing to the average Joe? It’s only when liberal power becomes so egregious that the middle rises up in protest. When liberals are more incremental, the middle just shrugs and goes along with it.
It used to be that the political party had “Platforms” with “Planks”–statements of beliefs about different things.
Instead a mush of soundbites, there were concrete statements of position.
We need a Platform–a place where we stand.
What does the party think about taxes, find the relevant plank and took at it.
Health care spending, find the plank.
A place where we stand and everybody, standees, and inquireres can see whatg the planks say.
It is the propaganda arm’s job to make public perception favorable to Republican actions.
I, however, only have to answer of how and when and by what means. That, does not require propaganda or sugar coating. It just requires adequate means and methodologies. That’s simpler and harder at the same time than propaganda and PR.
Internal communication in the form of memos and interpersonal team meetings will always differ from communication with an external public body.
If “propaganda”, “tactics”, “internal memos”, “interpersonal team meetings”, and differing vies of “an extrnal public boady” is what Republicans are about, I want no part of it.
That gets us people like the McCain clan.
“republican” as “name tag”.
Bah.
the repubs need to start articulating their own ideas instead of simply railing against the Democratic ones.
Few people understand Republican or conservative ideas, which includes Republican politicians. This is a secondary side effect of Democrat education changes.
People under 32 years of age would have a better chance to convince or educate each other on matters of conservative principles than the party does. The party, like any higher echelon autocratic organization, is removed from the interests and heart of the people. This distance enforces misunderstanding, data loss, and slowness of reaction speed.
Education comes from personal initiative, not sitting through 4 years of college listening to indoctrinated talking points and De-constructed American Grief History. It’s no solution for Republicans to replace Democrat ideology with a different belief system. There’s no long range benefit to simply graft one set of irrational beliefs with another set. The Republicans cannot change the corrupt system through telling people what they ‘think’. And they can’t change how people think through words, either.
Propaganda will work, in the short run, but Republicans and conservatives are never and will never be as good at propaganda and psychological warfare as Democrats. Some of the grassroots movements, such as HotAir however, provide promising guides. But they aren’t mainstream, even on the standard of a Peggy Noonan (which I would purge, assuming I can’t buy her with sweet Reagan/Obama rhetoric)
The only people worth a damn in the Info war are either military intelligence specialists, COIN operators, or classical liberal defectors from the Democrat gulag. Everybody else, sad to say it, hasn’t been paying enough attention to the tried and true tactics of Mao and Alinsky and Stalin and Lenin. America doesn’t have enough time to educate them either, even assuming Republicans could do this on any systemic organized basis. They’ll learn as we go, you know. Just like Obama has been. On the job training.
And just like on the job training, some people are on the more advanced track compared to others.
That gets us people like the McCain clan.
Your philosophy is already closer to Obama’s centralized order plan than most Republican’s. You’re actually closer to McCain’s belief about triangulating through compromise with Democrats than you are to the activists for drastic systemic change of the corrupt political process in America.
The fact that you decry the McCains, is, of course, a novelty.
There is nothing wrong with McCain’s clan. His problem is of a personal and individual origin. His wife actually has better political instincts than the man does.
“republican” as “name tag”.
And in the end, you’re getting lost in the stream. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything you tried to quote in the above.
What a great start to the discussion, and, Lulu, I want to vote for you! Larry S., I hear what you are saying, but what, in you view, should Republicans be about?
As clarification, my 9 is in response to CC’s 6.
Btw, McCain’s tactics consists of decrying a ‘political attack’ on the part of Bush in the 2000 Presidential primaries.
Now if this guy can complain about Bush being mean (this is Bush we are talking about, after all) then obviously McCain’s standards of ‘tactical limitations’ were pretty stringent if even Bush could fall foul to it.
Anybody using McCain’s Rules of Engagement concerning what is allowed or not allowed in political debate, was going to get blown up by an Obama. No contest.
I guess, when it comes down to it–I don’t much care what Republicans are about–I’m looking for a party that believes in small representative government (look up each or those words, or at least reflect for a moment on each of them independent of the others. Small. Representative. Government.)
Not Service Bureau.
The tradition of the Republican part is close to that and would take less to recocver than anybody else.
But I’m not going to drive a 24-mile trip to vote for another Nota S. Badas.
I have no clue as to how my views resemble Obama’s. Or is this a “We have always been at war with Eastasia” thing?
I can not think of a single thing I have ever said that suggests “centralized order”.
And “compromise” is not a part of my beliefs at all. I can’t imagine a rational being thinking “some degree of wrong” is a good thing.
I also self identify as a Conservative, with a Libertarian bent.
I agree with Larry Sheldon, the party must have planks on which to stand. Without solid footing, one will fall for anything.
Reagan possessed the ability to speak over the media, directly to the American people. The only current politician I see with the same ability is Palin.
I am not saying Palin is the savior of the party, only that more people like her need to be found and promoted.
At this point, the Republican party leaders are more in the way than any help. The primary system needs to be changed so that the RINOs can be weeded out and we do not get saddled with another McCain or Dole.
I am in more agreement with Larry about small government. Being more of a pessimist, I believe it to be unlikely that we will return to a smaller, leaner government.
With the leeches of society being on a voting par with the producers, I am afraid that we will never out vote them again.
Here’s the 2008 Republican Party platform. Anybody have a problem with it?
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=78545
BrianE: I didn’t know there was such a document! I thought I listened to the whole convention and I missed mention of it or what it contains. (I’ll tell you candidly that I am suspicious of anything from a UC depository, but I’ll take it at face value and read it through.)
And since it contains more than 3 words, I am certain to “have problems” with it.
But I am bothered especially since I presume that McCains actions, particularly his abuse of Palin, are in concert with it, there are going to be real issues with which to differ.
Democrat incumbents are very interested in setting up the price of politics so high and so in favor of dishonesty and corruption that nobody like Palin would sign up. They’d have to be insane or imbalanced to do so. Or just really really mad at Obama’s policies.
I have no clue as to how my views resemble Obama’s. Or is this a “We have always been at war with Eastasia” thing?
You’re unlikely to find any organization that doesn’t use memos or PR offices or other avenues of communication. Decrying such tools shows a preference for centralized authority.
Those tools are for de-centralized teamwork. You don’t like em, you can always go with Obama’s fiats and take overs instead.
This was mentioned before on the Birth Certification issue.
I don’t much care what Republicans are about
Points for honesty here. Neither does McCain, actually.
I think I’m tired of having my words reduced to sound bites and then twisted.
See ya.
People’s definition of small government seem very variable.
I’d be curious to see what they actually visualize as ‘small’ in concrete terms. A destroyer is smaller than a carrier, but there’s a big difference between a destroyer with loaded guns and a carrier with empty decks.
Larry,
Here’s the Republican Platform in pdf form.
http://www.gop.com/pdf/PlatformFINAL_WithCover.pdf
I suspect that most conservatives would find the document acceptable, with the possible exception of the traditional marriage plank. I get the impression that libertarians have learned to live with the pro-life plank.
We are a country that has been blessed with incredible affluence for decades. And in addition to that, we have accumulated staggering amounts of debt, meaning we increased the incredible affluence even more… at a terrible long term price.
This is the image of a country of a formerly Great People grown very soft.
It’s understandable that the current political equation for “the conservative Party” is to make it quasi-soft, quasi-Democrat. But you lose at that game to the democrats, because they will always have the better birthday party, and all the free gifts.
Until the bill comes due.
Obama is just the culmination of the “i want it all now and i want it all for free” impulse that has been sweeping those many soft, cocooned-from-reality Americans. They’re getting a terribly rude awakening right now. I don’t know where it will head.
I’m waiting for a responsible party to emerge. That will happen when the majority of its candidates are responsible. And mature. That for sure is not the Democrats. And right now, it’s not the Republicans either. I’ll keep waiting.
Any attempts to remake the Republican Party as a quasi-Democrat-lite party won’t appeal to me at all. I’ll just tune it all out, keep on grumbling, and keep on waiting. Because The Party Is Over.
Here’s a bumper sticker idea: “I’m with Lulu!” Very eloquently put, Lulu…my Gadsden Flag flies over my garage, so my whole neighborhood knows where I stand and many receive an education on the flag and what it means.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_flag.
“It’s almost something I feel I have to apologize for or justify.” — DQ.
And if you were a Democrat…would you also feel a need to justify or apologize?
I, too, prefer to refer to myself as a “Conservative” because there are a lot of elements in the Republican Party that frankly embarrass me (personified by the Trent Lotts and Mark Sanfords, perhaps). But there are many that I find elevating (Newt Gingrich, a philosopher who should never become President).
However, I find that most people have no idea of what the Republican party stands for or its history. Take race. The Republican Party was (and is) the party of racial equality. Always has been. However, Republicans began losing the battle when they failed to define blacks as a victim group and preferentially give them government support in exchange for their compliant votes (thereby refuting Martin Luther King’s “content of character”). Preferential treatment on the basis of ethnicity, gender or skin color is abhorent to Republican principles and should be. However…when you explain the Republican Party’s history in black emancipation to people (or the Democrat’s history in keeping black people down (including the welfare state and destruction of the black family), most people are amazed. Nobody ever told them!
Americans have been nursing at the liberal breast for so long that weaning them off the ‘sour milk’ of entitlement programs can only be accomplished at the state level.
It has become impossible to get the attention of our local representatives since they are constantly in a pissing contest with one another once they are firmly in the grip of ‘National attention’.
The root of some of the problems are the absence of term limits. If we put them on the Office of President, we need to do state-to-state with our reps. Both parties are fed up with out of control spending.
GM is a good example of what happens when the top drawer of executives kept producing cars that no one wanted to buy, while they continued to feed their coffers at our expense – Dissociative Disorder.
The party/group/politician that starts addressing the disorder will have the ear and allegiance of us.
You need something explosively big to create a new party. It might be a person, who almost managed to break through the media stranglehold on the system, or it might be an issue, such as abolition. The conservatives seem woefully short on people, so our only hope is a galvanizing issue. Obama’s ham-handedness and the Dems’ manifest fear of the people might be creating those issues.
The problem here is similar to having founded America as a political entity – which is easier … to start fresh with a blank slate, or reform an existing entity.
Could England have been reformed to allow it’s colonies the freedom to develop as it is today? I don’t think so. You have to tear down before you can build up, and in a nation, that usually means a civil war of some sort. Actually, I’m convinced that Obama intends to destroy the country so that it can be rebuilt as a socialist/communistic political entity, so maybe we’re on our way. Maybe the civil unrest that is likely to occur is the key to wiping the slate clean and beginning over. Maybe.
I think it would be easier in some ways to start a third party. You start fresh and establish your basic principles, learning from the errors of others. The problem with this is the time factor and the years it takes to establish sufficient backing to take control. Just as it’s easier to take over the country with a strong central government and just a few people in charge than to take over 50 states each with its local control, it’s also easier to take over the organization of the party than to establish a new party. The problem is taking over the party. The Leftists have done it to the Dems, but it’s taken them about 50 years to do so.
I don’t think we have 50 years. I suspect we have to get the GOP back in power and then work on replacing the leadership. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I’m not crazy about that option, but I’m even less crazy about the possibility – probability – of civil war.
Somewhere along the line, I want to add to the Constitution an amendment that says that every law, every institution created by the government will have a sunset deadline, and that a _new_ law – not just a revote on the old one – must be recreated and passed. I’d suggest a sunset period that jumps a voting cycle or two. Senators are in office for 6 years per term, I think – so maybe 8 years would be a good time limit. Maybe also “no law will be passed that is over 100 (or some other fairly small number) pages in length.”
In my dreams…!
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/08/12/2009-08-12_billionaire_feds_give_out_175m_to_aid_neediest_students_around_the_state_its_fre.html#ixzz0O0QbsRMW
Apparently the going rate for a vote in New York is $200.
I don’t think the Republican party can ever be as compassionate as liberals, and our mistake may have been in trying.
Like the authoritative parents we have been cast to be by George Lakoff, our best chance is to administer tough love, hoping that our wayward children will eventually tire of their wanton ways.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
As to conservatism, can someone name the last conservative Republican president?
There’s no point in waiting for reforms to happen. No party in the current Democrat corrupted system of law and government authority can ignore the political advantages that current Congressmembers hold.
And it is not just the inherent advantage of the incumbent, nor is it the advantage of having more money to spend on campaigns, as Obama did vs McCain.
Lack of term limits, political corruption, the increase of government authority over both private and public sector servants, means that there is more money and power and influence to be had in the machine of the government than ever. Corruption and backroom deals have always existed in American politics. Check out Teddy Roosevelt’s elevation to VP and then President, specifically how the Republican party leaders reacted. But corruption is one thing. A government that promotes corruption by requiring it to govern, a culture that hides corrupt Democrats from the public, and an enforcement arm of Unions, Thugs, Lawyers, and Elite Aristocrats like Soros and Edwards, however, is another thing entirely.
You aren’t going to get a grassroots movement, i.e. party, out of the mix, precisely because it will be aborted while still in the Womb. And if ever it gets birthed out, the Obamas will ensure that it gets left out without support: to die of ‘exposure’ as the old Romans and Spartans used to do.
The key goal here must be the destruction of the Democrat power base. This includes all leakers in the CIA and in the Executive branch. Certain lobbyists, but more importantly certain lobbyist laws that allow politicians to benefit. The influence of Soros money must also be cut off. McCain’s so called ‘campaign finance reform’ actually did the opposite. The media must also be hammered, crucified, or whatever is required.
A lot of things have to be done to negate the organs of the Democrat power machine. It’s not just people that are the problem, but the system and the rules they exist in.
By the way, I multiplied the total number of students reported against 200, and only got 162 million. What happened to the other 13 million? A rightful ‘skimming off the top’ for certain bought and paid for administrators, friends, or lobbyists?
Also, Soros is now subsidizing people’s welfare. That is consistent with the way rich aristocrats, back in the day, patronized their serfs and artists. All wealth and money comes from the rich and the powerful, cause you are nothing but a peon, a serf, a landless nobody. You don’t get a say, cause the money isn’t yours.
So at the same time that the government is promising to hammer the rich because of the envy of the poor, the poor is being systematically being conditioned to accept hand outs from the rich.
Who’s really in control here? The ‘people’s government’ hammering the rich, or the rich?
I don’t think the Republican party can ever be as compassionate as liberals, and our mistake may have been in trying.
The article successfully paints Democrats and Democrat policies as being beneficial to the poor and disenfranchised people of America, while at the same time successfully portraying the Republicans as being only interested in partisan gain and meanness.
I don’t care who you are. Don, Book, Neo, Bush, Palin, or George Washington himself, enough of these propaganda hits on your brain and you’ll turn: meaning you’ll have negative reactions, the way the propaganda designed it to be.
Much of propaganda deals with conditioning, not reason or debate. It’s not there to debate or make you think about issues. It’s there to make you feel a certain way, react a certain way, think a certain way about certain subjects. It is very controlled. Not boisterous, chaotic, or moblike at all.
The problem here is, people who refuse to publicly recognize that they were snookered in the past will never be able to build up enough defenses for the present or future.
Denial is not the way to make your mind mentally tougher. It just sort of delays the onset of the problem into the future. So that when things blow up, they blow up very large and high.
I went to several sites and couldn’t find school supplies costing any more than $50 and if needed throw in another $25 for a calculator, if required.
I guess Soros is just ‘purchasing’ another generation to nurse at another entitlement program – setting the stage for “Where’s my school supply money?”
Taking a cue from Y’s comments…the new Dem logo: Hammer & Suckle
A pair of Nikes is at least $100.
This was a comment over at Steve Sailer’s blog. The question asked was what can be done to revive the Republican party over the short and long term, which is different question than Don Quixote asked, which is what can Republicans do to be proud to be Republicans.
I asked the question about the last conservative president, since Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush2 don’t fit the definition of a conservative in terms of limited government.
Maybe the question should be asked, under which Republican president did the federal government grow the most?
Another comment:
Kind of sounds like Y.
The only way to push through radical reforms that break the current corrupt system and institutions (made that way not by the Constitution but by its enemies) is to exercise broad and specific federal powers.
You have to fight fire with fire. When one politician uses law making and deal making to push through something like McCain-Feingold, you have to use law making to push through something just as critically mortal to Democrats: term limits. There’s no quid pro quo here. The one that does the mortal wound on a target first, wins, period. There’s no reload in this game of ours.
This is why Republicans are where they are at. Even though they got a majority and pushed through a balanced budget, it wasn’t permanent and it wasn’t an ‘ammendment’, and they easily lost it. They lost it cause they could loot the military of 1 or 2 divisions to pay for social welfare, after it was reformed during an economic boom (fake internet bubble), but it wasn’t permanent. They didn’t use their power to Break The System.
Nothing fundamentally changed. After a point, you start losing the ability to change the system, no matter who is elected. They will lack the power to Do Anything.
As a concrete example of how to shift large amounts of individual support in your direction, look towards the Sunnis in Iraq circa 2004-2006.
It’s not that the US Marines promised the Sunnis “less government” or “small government” or a “smaller occupation”. No, the alliance of mutual interests there (what politicians like to call compromise, but really isn’t as compromise is a means to an end, not the end goal itself of mutual interests) was forged from isolating Sunni interests and then providing for them, even against the majority Shia government, whom we also had to work with.
That’s not ‘compromise’. We didn’t compromise the sovereignty of the Iraqi nation, under Maliki, nor did we sell out the Sunnis to Shia death squads or prejudices or tribal blood vendetta.
We made a situation where they could work together, by using our power to ensure that the Sunnis don’t feel threatened by Shia or vice a versa. And we did so by killing a common foe, Al Qaeda.
Who’s going to be the Republican’s common foe when it comes to galvanizing Republican party support? We all know who the enemies of Democrats are, the common enemies of Democrats. And it ain’t the anti-women, anti-gay, anti-democracy, anti-town hall Islamists either.
Federal spending under the last 6 presidents.
Federal spending as a percentage of GDP:
Nixon- 18.58%
Carter- 20.25%
Reagan- 20.6%
Bush 1- 21.59%
Clinton- 19.63%
Bush 2- 19.71%
Obama- 26.23% (2009-2010)
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1903_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy10&chart=F0-fed&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=US Government Spending As Percent Of GDP&state=US&color=c&local=s
What this doesn’t account for is entitlement spending.
For all the bluster of the left about Bush 2′s spending it was in line with Clintons. Bush jr. passed largest increase in Medicare spending, large increase in federal education spending, $50 billion commitment to African AIDS. What did his compassion get for the conservative movement?
Would McCain have been any worse than the others?
We hold up Reagan as the ideal, but spending increased and we got an additional federal department.
Nixon was the fiscal conservative, but big government programs like Medicare, EPA were started under him.
Ultimately, Republicans need good House candidates like the class of 1994. All politics are local.
What also matters are the increase in GDP, unemployement, taxation policies, as well as the balance of powers between the 3 branches.
The Republicans could always have made the argument, after Katrina, that the Left raided the funds of National Guard units and other military branches for partisan gain over Iraq, and that this created a delay in offering Katrina refugees first care support and protection.
They didn’t. Cause they aren’t quite clear, yet, on the philosophical connections between government spending on welfare and government spending on defense. And for the ones that are, they lack sufficient propaganda apparatuses to take advantage of that clear and decisive line.
They were taken in by the media and the Left’s account of what Katrina was: the narrative. They didn’t create their own narrative, just as Bush didn’t ask for Republicans to sponsor a bill like No Child Left Behind. And if he did, obviously no competent Republicans stepped forward in time.
I’ve certainly thought the same things Don Quixote expressed in this thread.
It would be poetic justice if Palin moved to some Conservative/Reform party in 2012 (though I don’t think a third party is the way to go). But it would do much to settle the debate whether it’s religious conservatives that are a drag on the Republican party. That might be instructive.
People (not here) have suggested the party needs to tone down its stance on abortion and gay marriage to attract moderates. I don’t think the party has put emphasis on these issues (read the party platform) as much as the media uses these issues to drive a wedge between folks that know the fiscal policy of liberals will be ultimately ruinous but think that making a judgement on the social issues is “intolerant”.
Even if the party dropped those planks, the media would continue to remind folks that people in the Republican party (including some of the leaders) hold those positions.
This is to my point about Bush’s “Compassionate Conservatism”. For all his social do-goodism, all it got Bush was criticism from conservatives for not controlling spending and from liberals and the media that it wasn’t enough. And no social policy supported by Republicans would ever be enough for liberals.
McCain supported a border conrol/amnesty policy that netted him 31% of Hispanic votes in 2008. Bush did better in 2004 with over 40% of Hispanic voters, so in this case the Republican party stance of border control isn’t going to win many Hispanic voters regardless of the presidential candidates position.
I think the real issue with Republican party is the lack of a truly charismatic leader on the horizon. Palin is certainly charismatic, but lacks the ability to bring different sides of the tent together (at least at this point), compared to Reagan. I do think populism is the name of the game for the next few years and it will need to be someone considered an outsider.
What is really lacking is a politically saavy operative to bring together Republicans and independents similar to 1994. It may be time to bring back term limits, balanced buget and earmark reform with a kicker of border control to galvanize conservatives of all stripes.
Oh, and a coherent energy policy using real domestic energy sources not produced in Neverland.
If Bush wanted to be compassionate, he would have disassociated himself from the likes of Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and a whole slew of other Corruptocrats.
But somebody told him that he had to get along to go along, that he had to compromise, that he had to ‘moderate’.
Great advice. Probably from someone idiot like Peggy Noonan.
This may be why Republicans are reviled by conservatives and independents.
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetChartbook/Images/federal-spending_11-580.jpg
Of course, our pork was necessary spending, theirs is just waste.
“There were more earmarks in 2005 than from 1991-1999 combined.”
Here’ a series of charts from Heritage showing the growth of government by various metrics. (If you have the stomach for it.)
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetChartbook/Mandatory-Spending-Will-Increase-by-7538-per-Household-in-2009.aspx
Each go round of the ‘empowered’ squander their political capital (literally and figuratively) like a ‘junkie’.
It reminds me of those stories, we all have read, about the multimillion dollar lottery winners, who file for bankruptcy after spending their riches on everything they see and want.
The difference, of course, is that the government does not ever file for bankruptcy – it just creates the stress that forces other entities to do so.
BrianE – They’re all off the charts, both sides of the aisle. The ‘pork projects’ are a testament to the political incest see: Y’s comments post #43.
Unless and until there is someway to ‘kosher’ their spending habits – It’s little piggy went home with none for the rest of us.
The numbers present one dimensional slice of reality. The causality chains are more like 9th dimensional objects that people only see one small slice of it, as it intrudes into their perception.
What people think they perceive and interpret as real isn’t necessarily so. The same is true of citizens as it is true of Congresscritters.
This looks good…
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/14/what-we-want-from-the-republicans/
By the way…not exactly relevant, but a clear indication of the mentality of the present Congress. Remember – if all gun owners are registered, then in the event of civil unrest, the government knows _exactly_ who owns the guns. Think that’s what the 2nd Amendment had in mind? (unless the government knows because _everybody_ owns guns)
http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/2009/08/attention-gun-owners.html
suek..thanks for the link, but………..
The Republican electorate is not simply waiting for its chance to toddle up to the federal vending machine, stuff a trillion-dollar bill in the slot, and order its favorite snacks.
…..I am not so convinced post #46
Think that’s what the 2nd Amendment had in mind? (unless the government knows because _everybody_ owns guns)
I’m not for a draft, universal or selective. I’m for universal and mandatory gun training. They don’t have to own a handgun, they can be provided one, by taxpayer money.
That’s a boondoggle. But it’s a good pork project, people. It will help everyone, not just the porkies in one geographic locale.
It’s something the Republicans can say “we want to spend money on” as well as “this is a government solution we can back”.
It’s time we dispelled the myth about firearms. The Left has used this to good effect against hard working honest citizens for decades now. It’s time to break the Democrat power base on this score.
This is not about compromise. This is psychological warfare. You don’t compromise with the enemy in this situation.