http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqzNl1lfRS.I&refer=worldwide

Better dust off your resume Tim

Personally, I don´t think so. But then I´m not running around all panicky telling people to reinvent their party and movement because the big O lied his way to victory. At the same time, Bush was a two-term winner and we are supposed to be ashamed of him and all he represents? I´m not, for the record. Not at all.

The South is an area that’s seeing more growth than the Northeast.

Let me elaborate on that;

The northeast is a failure due to liberal policies. A moderate conservative like Rudy was needed to clean up NYC or it would still be a gutter in a 3rd world country. But, does that change the voting habits in NY? Hell no. So, Northerners move to Florida and start introducing their destructive policies here as well. They are like locusts, having destroyed the environment they were in previously, they bring their crap here without any consideration that they ARE the problem.

Just the fact that there are Republicans that berate people in the South as “regressive” tells me all I need to know. Any time you want to compare intellectual prowess or accomplishments, you let me know. You are an ignorant arsehole (ever been to the South?) to think that you are somehow superior to us just because you live somewhere that calls itself “progressive”. Its typical leftist class warfare, just in case you didn’t realize that you’re a leftist.

Look in the mirror and then go join the Democratic party, you’ll feel better about not having to lie about who you are anymore.

barkolounger on March 17, 2009 at 5:12 PM

barkolounger,

I don´t quite understand what the example of Merkel should tell us. I live in Germany. Merkel is not conservative. She is a cautious, basically decent politican who usually tries the steer the middle path. Which is fine. I like her. She is not a reflexive socialist or anti-American like so many Germans.

But there is nothing that would qualify her as a conservative, not on social issues, not on economic or security issues.

Unless of course NOT being a doctrinaire leftwinger makes you a conservative by default.

I do not agree with that because it would mean that the left gets to define and redefine where the middle ground is. And suddenly someone like Merkel gets called conservative. That is a game that we must never play.

If I have a problem with your comments, it is that you seem to concede that. Liberal get to define what is normal and that means they get to define what is out of bounds. In the end, we will be told that all our positions are too radical.

But nothing leftists say and do, however disgusting, ever seems to taint the Democrat party or diminish their electoral chances. Somehow the foaming-at-the-mouth manicas (who are much evident on the web) don´t alienate or drive away anybody. Obama gladly took their money and help. Is it possible that the other side understands that you do not win by ceding ground? And that blog comments are for keeping the base fired up, not to sway voters out there? The average voter doesn´t follow politics anyway. Maybe your zeal to clean up a couple of blog comments is a bit excessive?

If you’re a “moderate” Republican, would you vote for a far-right Republican, vote the Democrat or not vote at all?

If you’re a far right Republican, would you vote for a moderate, vote for the Democrat or not vote at all?

I think what the moderate members of the Republican party fail to realize is that the population in the middle is exactly that, in the middle and thus split between who they will vote for (look at a bell curve please). Assuming the country is center-center (which, its normally assumed to be center-right), that 50% of the middle cannot overcome the 50% of the middle + 100% of the left unless they can secure 100% of the right.

Perhaps the “moderates” believe that the country is now center-left, which I believe is a huge mistake. Just for the sake of educating yourselves, go back and look at the newspaper articles in 75-76 and again in 79-80 and read what was said about Ronald Reagan, about how the Ford Republicans (moderates) said he was too far right, and how he would never appeal to the middle…two landslides later, they were shown to be the fools they were. You know what is said about people who don’t learn from history?

-sigh-

People like you would rather give every single vote that doesn’t conform to your rigid version of conservatism to the Democrats.

I guess people like you think Stephen Harper, or Merkle should stand for a more rigid conservatism rather than govern from the center right.

barkolounger on March 17, 2009 at 5:12 PM

You are quite close here RINO, we will NOT change our principles to sway voters, which is what will WIN voters, not lose them. You assume that because we adopt rigid principles, that the “center” will *not* vote for us because of it. You are the idiot.

If I said that I was going to lower taxes across the board, get government out of our lives, enforce the 2nd amendment in areas I’d seen it weakened, and place originalist judges on the SCotUS, do you think that people in the center would be more likely to vote for the tax-n-spend Democrats instead? Voters typically have to decide which candidate best represents their views and is best for their country/family. Elected officials that pander to the middle are a guaranteed failure because they don’t differentiate themselves from the *promises of the left* enough to give anyone a clear choice. By abandoning the social positions of the far right, you are GUARANTEEING that you will not win their votes or that they will not vote. By taking up the center, you must fight for center with the left which will already have sewn up the left.

You idiots just don’t learn. The left won because they stood on the left during the primaries and then moved to the center during the general. McCain stood in the center and stayed in the center gaining no one on the right until he picked Palin. If Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney had been the candidate, they could have then shored up their gaps with their pick (if the far right was weak, then get Palin, if the center was weak, get McCain), even McCain (or his team) knew this, thus the Palin pick.

Newsflash to the elitist morons cracking on Palin: You can’t win from the center.

Sultry Beauty on March 18, 2009 at 4:29 AM

+1

us enough votes to win outside the regressive south?

Ef You.

You need to form a new party arse-licker, call it the Populist Party. You go take that centrist ground with no social principles and read your daily polls…and take David Frum with you. You make me more sick than the libs, because at least I expect the libs to be against us, trying to tear down this country at every turn. You RINOs, or maybe you’re PCs (Pretend Conservatives), stab us in the back at every turn. Not to mention your elitist attitude guarantees me that you’re a PoS.

Philosophy and principles win, not policies that change with the blowing wind. Not that I care what you do now…and I really don’t give a flying f@rk if I win or not, because I don’t think winning without my principles is a “win”. Your type of thinking is a disease in the party because you stand for NOTHING (which means you’ll fall for anything)!

You do know why Americans are fed up with politicians, right? They don’t trust them. They don’t trust them because they know they’ll bend over for anyone with enough cash because they are UNPRINCIPLED hacks, and likewise will move wherever the polls tell them to stand. Congratulations, you have discovered the absolute surest way to lose every election between now and the end of time. You think you need to appeal to the “center”, and yet you don’t even know where the center is, let alone what will draw out the voters that will make a difference in an election.

Simple quiz for you:
How many voters on the right would (a) vote for John McCain, (b) vote for Barack Obama, (c) not vote, (d) vote for another candidate?

How many voters in the “center” would (a) vote for John McCain, (b) vote for Barack Obama, (c) not vote, (d) vote for another candidate?

How many voters on the left would (a) vote for John McCain, (b) vote for Barack Obama, (c) not vote, (d) vote for another candidate?

It isn’t rocket science; at best McCain and Obama split the center. Because Obama is a leftist, he gains ~100% of the left. Because McCain is a centrist, he gains ~50% of the right only because that 50% are concerned enough to try and counter the Obama left votes (holding their noses while doing so). Numerically, the 50% of the right can’t defeat a 100% of the left, so the centrist LOSES, every time.

idiots

Quit lecturing the Socialist Trolls that pretend to be Republicans.

There’s great fun to be had, occasionally, poking slow, stupid things with a pointed stick. ;)

If they were Americans, you’d have nothing but disdain for them, too.

Huh? How does that even make sense? Oh wait, that was another loyalty type test wasn’t it?

Nope. It’s pretty easy: if a Harper- or Merkel-type were governing here, they just wouldn’t be as cool as Barack in your view.

Those friggin’ “religious zealots” pulled Dubya over the finish line in 2004.

Yes indeed they did. But at what cost?

Oh, my! By winning they LOST!!! Er, YOU lost.

Could it be at the cost of future elections, and the decimation of our party? Nah…It’s all the ‘rinos’ fault.

Sad.

barkolounger on March 17, 2009 at 6:10 PM

Which is why part of me would like to see a completely “moderate” ticket in 2012. Let it get pummeled on its own.

B/c until then we had an anemic sloppy seconds candidate and zero party leadership from the outgoing administration.

barkolounger on March 17, 2009 at 6:10 PM

Bush wasn’t even invited to the Republican convention. But you knew that didn’t you? Both candidates ran as ‘not Bush’.

There’s that “us” word again.

Jim Treacher on March 17, 2009 at 7:28 PM

Yup. Him and The Voices. ;)

Have you ever stopped posting the bile for five minutes to consider electoral strategy that will win us enough votes to win outside the regressive south?

There’s that “us” word again.