The Republican Party stands on the brink of an epic comeback. Dropping to near-third-party status in 2006 and 2008 in Washington and in state houses around the country, things looked very, very bleak for the GOP.
But the Obama administration’s overreach, and the Democrat-dominated Congress’ ham-fisted pettifoggery in enabling the overreach, and the spontaneous uprising of millions of people, including many “swing” independents with a bad case of political “coyote uglies” for the Democrats, are what’s causing the Dems’ problem. The National GOP is not.
Now, a lot of people – including, until the last year or so, me – misunderstand what the national Party is supposed to be for. It is in charge of fund-raising, logistics, and support for national GOP candideates. It is not the ideological clearinghouse for the GOP as a whole; that’s the candidates’ job.
So as messed-up as the National GOP seems to be, what with staffers going to lesbian strip joints and Michael Steele showing his malaprop collection (granted, with the connivance of a media that likes its’ black people to be quiet and stay on Democratic political plantation), that’s not the problem. Or at least not much of it.
The Democrats are bleeding right now because the American people want something other than an eternity of debt and a future of servitude to the government.
And except for some uppity conservatives – Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn and a small legion of others – the party’s response seems to be “we’ll get to fixing things when we get around to it”.
Look, I get it; politics is about compromise, and right now the GOP, being a superminority party in Congress, is having to fight like hell to even get bad compromises. That’s life, when you lose elections.
But when it comes to life after January, 2011? Now is not the time to compromise. Now is the time for a bold, strong, clear vision that shows all those disaffected, disgusted people who are dumping the Administration and rejecting Pelosi and Reid that there is an alternative, not just ofay, incrementalist reaction.
More importantly, the party needs to not merely atone for its role in getting us here – the corruption and democrat-style spending from 2000-2008 that helped put the Dems in office in the first place; it needs to reverse that course in a way that nobody can mistake.
The National GOP and all of its candidates need a message that says “we are for stoppping the growth, rolling back the regulation, reinstating economic liberty, cutting taxes, re-limiting government, and undoing the damage of the past ten years”.
I’m getting that from Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Paul Ryan. We get it from Chris Christie. When we need it, Tim Pawlenty shows it.
We need a party of Chris Cristies, Paul Ryans and Sarah Palins; we need to show the American people that we are on a mission.
And for the most part, we are not.
There are millions of voters waiting to be convinced. I ran into hundreds of them at the Tea Party last week; they want to be convinced.
So convince them.
You might want to wait and see on Christie.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9F6RQ680.htm
Campaign rhetoric and governing are two different things.
MoN,
Perfect is the enemy of good enough. If he gets his way on the state education and pension budgets, it’ll be a huge win.
When did the Contract with America come out? I don’t think it was in April. I’m concerned that the R’s don’t have a plan, but if they do or are formulating one, it’s likely too soon to roll it out. The D’s have nothing and while we’re focused on the elections, I’m not convinced that most people are yet.
I remember hearing Rush, once, when talking about why Clinton won, saying that “we forgot we had to teach”. And I’ve always thought there was a lot of truth to that.
I’m seeing a lot of folks talking about how terrible what the Pelosi/Reid/Obama triumvirate is doing, but I see nobody explaining _why_ it is terrible. I see a lot of folks talking about how an oppressive government is destroying liberty, but I see nobody explaining why people would be better off responsible for themselves, and relying upon themselves, rather than as clients of an ever-present nanny state.
Most of the voters are younger than you or I, and they may well not ever have had explained to them why liberty is more important than security. Why individualism is superior to collectivism. They certainly were never exposed to these ideas in school.
The thing is, if we don’t try to teach, we’ll only be talking to those who already understand. And we can’t win elections that way.
We need to reach out to the middle, and to explain to them why they would be better off as free individuals, to convince them to say “no” to the multitudinous government handouts that the politicians are oh-so-willing to promise them.
And as far as I see, we’re not.
JD,
I’m going to write a post based on that comment. That’s excellent.
JD your right we need to reach out to the middle. We need most of all though to move the middle, to CHANGE the debate and even get the Democratic party to change in a more conservative direction.
The reason Republicans are out of power is that they spent and behaved like Democrats. When they did that they allowed the Dems to move even more leftward.
Mitch said: “Now is not the time to compromise. Now is the time for a bold, strong, clear vision that shows all those disaffected, disgusted people who are dumping the Administration and rejecting Pelosi and Reid that there is an alternative, not just ofay, incrementalist reaction.”
Dr. Mitch’s prescription for all that ails you: “More crazy!”
Also, Master of Nothing, Christie is one fat bastard. Rush thinks Christie should cut back on the doughnuts.
Hey Clownboy, I can see November from my house, and it looks pretty (I stole that from someone else)
Run along clown boy. The adults are talking.
Think you mean “the angry, far-right, teabagging, wingnut adults,” Mastur of Bation.
Regarding JD’s point, there is a distinction I infer between “reaching out to the middle” and compromising the message. By saying we should “teach,” we are acknowledging the necessity to bring independents to us, rather than drift toward them. I don’t think most in the party understand the importance of that distinction. It’s more work than saying or doing whatever it takes to snag more votes.
Along with teaching, I think the way to convince those who already know, and just are not convinced of candidates’ sincerity, is to frankly acknowledge the failures of the past, acknowledge we have not recently seen what conservative governance looks like, and project a willingness to fight for it beyond a campaign.
Bozo still thinks the human emotion “angry” should be banned, except for clowns that long ago lost their debating skills.
Paul Ryan was offering up ideas even when everyone else was afraid to do anything during the 2008 election cycle.. The roadmap has some good ideas.. Why arent are people trying to implement as many of them as possible now instead of being charter members of the “Contrarian society”?
The
Christie is one fat bastard. Rush thinks Christie should cut back on the doughnuts.
And the AP publishes:
In Facebook messages visible to the world — not to mention their students — the teachers have called Christie fat, compared him to a genocidal dictator and wished he was dead. The postings are often riddled with bad grammar and misspellings.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGTeutMM3f-Q6UsgYdc8NteWkxpAD9F6GDB00
Remember when Angry Clown used to say that with Obama the smart guys were in charge?
I learned this from Swiftee or K-Rod:
HaHahHaHaHaHa
Terry, in his volcano bunker, thinks New Jersey school teachers run the country.
No, I think you share a lot of opinions with stupid New Jersey schoolteachers.
What periods are teaching this year, Angry Clown?
Nothing educates like good examples.
Someone call detox…AssClown has made good his escape; again.