While it is no secret that the Republican party is in disarray, yesterdays special election in Mississippi should not dampen the GOP’s spirits, if anything it should enlighten them. While the media and the DNC will taught this victory as the con…

. . . Whether it is cleaning up the Republican party or starting something new, at some point, the work has got to replace the complaining! And we need to have as much motivation and drive for the sake of our families and principles, and for this nation,, as libs have for their own pursuit of power!

JellyToast on May 14, 2008 at 7:37 PM

You’re right, JT. Stop kvetching and start working to elect conservatives to every office you can!

There are two conservatives running for John Faux Kerry’s seat in Massachusetts this year:

http://www.jeffbeatty.com/

https://www.jimogonowski.com/splash
(watch whole splash video)

Both look promising. Don’t know yet which I’ll support, but yes, it sure as hell is time for a (ahem!) change here!

At any rate, I’m not sure why we’re all surprised and forlorn about this. How many Don Youngs, Trent Lotts, and Larry Craigs do we need to have before we figure out that perhaps, there’s a problem with the congress critters?

The rhetoric of folks like Obama wouldn’t be so resonant if it didn’t stand in such stark contrast to the sleazeball Republicans we’ve been electing in the name of a “better than the other guy” mentality.

TheUnrepentantGeek on May 14, 2008 at 6:07 PM

And having people like the sub-humanly stupid abomination Trent Lott as one of the leading faces of the Republican Party is so fantastically dumb it tells you just how clueless and broken the party is.

I’m not parroting the Kos kids here, but Bush has been a disaster for the country and for the Republican Party. Even when he’s right on policy he’s such an arrogant, fumble-tongued nitwit that he damages the policy with his inability to clearly advocate for it.

Once in a while, he gets fired up and makes a good speech but then he’s right back on his dead ass for months on end making dumb jokes at photo ops. He couldn’t sell ice water in the Sahara. Yes, the media are a tough opponent but someone like Reagan or even Newt Gingrich could work through that. Bush can’t.

The purity wars inside the GOP are doing what many of us feared and predicted, decimating the GOP as America dumps the “true conservatives” and goes with conservative democrats. Those are the choices we have seen in the last 3 special ele…

If we remove the moderates and make ourselves ideologically pure, we won’t be able to carry a national election, though we might get some local ones and maybe even some statehouses.

If we remove the politicians who keep dirty money in their freezers, maintain multiple families, and are competent only at fundraising, we will gain the confidence of the political center and carry elections at all levels. We have to have higher standards than the Democrats and we have to live up to them.

Having a marriage break up in public isn’t a disaster; keeping a second wife and her children secret is. Having a homosexual child isn’t a disaster, even if that child is a Democrat; laundering money through your freezer is.

For the sake of the Republican party and the sake of the country, people who do those things should be convinced to retire before the fewmets meet the fan.

RINOs; we wonder why Rinos are so quick to side with Dems. It’s because most RINOs WERE Dems!! Trent Lott, Arlen Specter et al; they became Republicans when the Dem party took a sharp left turn in the 70s & 80s. Other than that they’ve behaved like Dems because at heart they never stopped being Dems.

Arlen Specter is such a tool. With all the serious issues facing the GOP this joker wants to conduct a federal investigation into “Spygate” in the NFL!! Even if the investigation/hearings have to wait until he finishes his latest round of chemotherapy!! And I’m supposed to take him seriously because he has an R after his name? I shake my head when I think of my fellow Pennsylvanians dumping Santorum but re-electing this fool.

I’m sorry folks, I know this comment is all over the map, but watching McCain trying to imitate Kermit singing “it ain’t easy being green” is just too much!! Try as I might, I just can’t picture this buffoon as President. Those of you who predict a McCain landslide in Nov., well I just wish I had some of what you’re smoking. We are going to get our butts handed to us in November. Just when I thought I’d psyched myself into voting for McCain, he takes another idiotic turn.

I feel it is my duty to vote, but I’ll be voting for the down ticket candidates. Cong. Paul Kanjorski has found time to devote to the home scene now that the GOP has chosen Lou Barletta to run against him. For those of you who haven’t heard of Barletta, he is the Mayor or Hazleton…….a mayor who has tackled head on the problem of illegal immigrants and what they can do to a city.

If there is one topic that politicians ignore at their peril it is the subject of illegal immigration. Here in the Keystone State that is one issue that has ignited both Democrats and Republicans.

*Emergency action is needed to preserve the Republican Party, and if they don’t take this seriously, if they avoid the hard truths of what they’ve become, they will face a CATASTROPHIC defeat in November.

It’s too late for that. Any sudden shift toward actual conservatism now will be viewed by conservative voters as nothing more than ‘throwing the base a bone’. We’ve already been down this road. They talked a conservative game the last couple of elections, and played a liberal game once assured their place in office. The time to act was two years ago….not now, not a week ago, or a week from now. If they believe that they can do a 180, and start cheer-leading conservative principles now…..it’s further proof in my mind that they view their constituents as a bunch of naive, and easily fooled rubes.

McCain doesn’t get it. Boehner doesn’t get it. Hannity doesn’t get. The party is fractured, it’s every man for himself, and unfortunately too many people are willing to keep these self serving bums in office. There is no party platform.

It’s come to the point that the most convincing argument for voting the Republican ticket the GOP is offering up is that Obama, (or Hillary, assuming her arm twisting skillz are up to the task come the Dem convention), is worse in some areas than McCain.

I will no longer vote for the slightly less reprehensible candidate in any election. The GOP can bank on that. They can play their ‘big tent’ games, and try to convince me that it’s the only way to put a conservative in office….I don’t buy it. I see true conservatives out there, electable conservatives. I’ll save my vote for them.

…what WOULD it take for the GOP to listen?

linlithgow on May 14, 2008 at 7:23 PM

I think the colossal electoral beating they’re about to take in November ought to get their attention…

If it doesn’t it’s simple natural selection; they couldn’t evolve and adapt to their surroundings and they become extinct.

Right now, November’s looking like a sort of Bibo Event for the GOP. A fraction are going to make it, but only a tiny fraction and only just barely.

It’ll be good to clear some deadwood.

Less chance of a wildfire…

I know people bounce back, and they’re hopeful this will be a turning point. I hope it is. Thanks again for responding, I appreciate it.

That is so sad. But hang in there, people do survive these things.

Just found out a childhood friend of mine who has been battling a rare cancer had to have his leg amputated today; I think he just celebrated his 38th birthday. If you can keep him in your thoughts, prayers… whatever it is you do… I’d appreciate it. He’s got 3 kids and a wife and doting brother and mother too. Tragic story, hopefully this will stop the problems.

I listen to people and gas prices is what is really pissing them off because it is what effects them. Most Americans do not know or care what Federalism even is.

The problems, in order of importance:

Gas Prices
The MSM’s ability to pound the right and cover for the left
War going on too long
Pork
Immigration

Lower gas prices would change the entire equation. That isn’t likely to happen soon. Immigration is lower on the list because the MSM wants it. They can’t use it as a club vs the right.

Patrick H on May 14, 2008 at 12:56 PM

The Republicans’ loss of any sort of adherence to the principles of freedom, small government, and federalism is what I think the problem is. And that’s completely brought on by themselves and us for voting for them in the primaries. Not that they’re all bad, though. Gas prices will have some effect on the next election, but long-term I don’t think they’re the main problem. If they are a problem, and if the RNC had any sense about them, they’d be a problem for the Democrats. Think of all the clips and statements by Dem’s against drilling, refining, etc. for the past many years (decades?) that could be strung together for ads. The refining thing may have to be blamed more on lefty environmental groups, but I know I’ve heard several current leading Dem’s ruling out drilling in Alaska. The one potential problem is we didn’t allow drilling when Republicans controlled Congress and the Presidency, but I can’t remember how much of that was the Democrats obstructing with filibustering and what not. If they did filibuster, so much the worse for them.

I would say that conservatives threw McCain under the bus first chance they got…along with just about everybody else, including George Bush.

The right went nuts, over the cliff crazy. First of all we hear people say that Bush is selling us out to Mexico, which means that either a good deal of the base is paranoid or a Republican President has decided to light a match to the Constitution. Neither of which inspires confidence. Then we have Dubai, in which we are to believe that a good deal of the Republican base is paranoid OR the Republican President wants to sell our ports to terrorists so that they can kill us all.

And then you wonder why people are not voting for Republicans?

A long time ago an old guy told me that when Republicans win the Right thinks they run everything and then go crazy and piss everyone off and the Democrats win. And then the Left thinks they run everything and go off the deep end and the Republicans win.

Maybe the guy knew what he was talking about.

I think Republicans need to do some fiscal conservative, strong national security, social conservative kind of issues. They also need to stop eating their own. That is whay Democrats are for.

As for immigration, thus far Tancredo and his ilk have bombed. People want a secure border, but they do not want the fanaticism.

Show me the person who repeatedly tells of how the obstructionist democrats in the senate stopped the President’s energy plan which would have had us drilling for more domestic oil back in the beginning of his administration, then blasts democrats for today’s high gasoline prices coupled with diminishing food crops and I’ll show you a real leader. Don’t bother looking. That leader never showed up.

America gets the government it deserves, and after this election cycle we will all suffer the consequences of the severe sloth exhibited by the majority of Americans as democrats [I include McCain in this group] lead us down the road to another multitude of disasters.

My advice: Best suck it up. It won’t get better anytime soon.

I have been getting solicitations in the mail from some Republican newcomers who appear to be promising. Many of them are military veterans.

The best way to send a message of term limits is to bounce out the old guard, regardless of their party, and rally around the new talent.

Let’s man the phones, pound the pavement, dig into our wallets, stuff the envelopes, and distribute campaign literature. Let’s head out to college campuses to spread the conservative message, so that young voters see the value of low taxes and less regulation in offering them a brighter future. Channel that youth energy and technology expertise in order to utilize their knowhow in internet messaging and fundraising.

Let’s urge business people, economists, and scientists to run for office, so that we are not beholden to the good-old-boy club of lawyers who make laws.

We need to effect the change from the bottom up with grassroots efforts.

I do the same. When they send me solicitations, I send them back with notes saying I don’t support “Democrat Lite” or some such.

Had a kid call a few weeks ago; started off asking what was important and I told him – illegal immigration, lower taxes, cuts in spending, not happy with the bailout. Then he went on to ask for money for some fund to help conservative candidates. I asked for names and he couldn’t easily produce them. I asked what they thought of John McCain and he said he didn’t know. He finally produced some names and I know he mentioned Kyl, someone like Ted Stevens (wish I could remember who), and McConnell.

I was annoyed; why after all I said, would I support McConnell – who had worked on the bailout compromise and praised it – and Kyl, who tried to ram illegal immigrants down our throats? He didn’t know his politics and was trying to use ‘President Obama’ scare tactics. I was vocal, refused, said that the only thing McCain/GOP at this point had going for it was Iraq, and with McCain we would continue the policies that got us into trouble in ‘06. He tried in particular to scare me with Obama taxes and I said they would be bad but 20 million illegals and more on the way was already costing me money and would cost me under McCain too.

I really don’t know why they send us requests any more. We were good size donors during the President’s re-election cycle, but you’d think after emails, calls to the RNC, sending things back with notes and refusing and lecturing phone solicitors they’d get the message in SOME form. Sounds like other people are doing the same, which begs the question, what WOULD it take for the GOP to listen?