The electorate of 2008 was beaten to its knees with the above lunacy. The Democrats were like an insane, neurotic spouse who screamed and cried in their faces, until they finally just gave up and let the Democrats have what they wanted. The lack of effective leadership from the Republicans, and the generally weak and self-indulgent performance they turned in from 2004 onward, made it work. Voting against the tide of the media and culture is always an uphill battle for the electorate, and in 2008 the Republicans and McCain gave them no compelling reason to fight that battle.

Doctor Zero on April 27, 2009 at 10:14 AM

I couldn’t have said it better. Even though, Obama outlined exactly what he wanted to do with the economy, health care, the environment (cap and trade), the war, and that somehow wasn’t enough red flags raised. Even the lowly plumber who got Obama to spell out “spread the wealth around” wasn’t enough to for conservatives to seriously consider their vote.

The disingenuous MSM deliberately chucked their journalistic credibility under the bus and sacrificed their industry just to placate the coronation of the One. As the print media drowns in a sea of their own irrelevance with the hope the One will reach out and save them before eventual oblivion. Like the other bailouts, to be run under the direction and guidance of the Ones wishes.

We are gonna be in a world of hurt.

‘I’ve never seen the grass-roots quite as motivated, concerned and angry,’ said Steve Scheffler, the head of the Iowa Christian Alliance and the state’s RNC committeeman…

Thank God the assessment of the state of the GOP isn’t done by someone with a screaming bias towards social issues.

when Obama starts tacking left, they need to pull him back if they can.

Terrye on April 27, 2009 at 7:16 AM

Since it is sailboats that tack, I would say that the proper patriotic response is to heave to and pour as many water buckets into the boat tacking to the left as possible.

Sort of like that arms smuggling ship that mysteriously sank. Protecting the cargo was apparently not priority one. Protecting the political existence of this deceiver is an illusion since he has already thrown away anything worth protecting. So pulling him down is the proper way to go.

Had the FISCAL CONSERVATIVES been given first priority during time in majority, we would NOT be in the current situation. Progressives just don’t jive on fiscal conservatism; but they certainly manipulated the social conservative Washingtonian pork spending spree.

Fiscal conservatives have already granted social conservatives first lead on moral grounds. Now, on moral grounds of justice, the social conservatives owe the fiscal conservatives the same support with our united thrust. E pluribus unum.

maverick muse on April 27, 2009 at 8:02 AM

I don’t believe the two halves of conservatism can ever be separated. Fiscal conservatism always seems to collapse without the moral imperative of social conservatism behind it, because liberalism is explicitly marketed as a moral imperative: it doesn’t matter that liberal policies have an unbroken record of spectacular failure, and every problem they supposedly “address” just gets worse as more tax money is thrown at it… you have to support liberalism because all other approaches to economic and social issues are evil, selfish, and greedy. Liberalism is based on the devout belief that submitting to morally correct policies (as defined by liberals) is vastly more important than following policies that would effectively improve American life. Presented with a program that would eliminate poverty and hunger, but make a particular businessman or corporation very rich in the process, liberals would recoil in horror.

Since leftists are always judged by their promises, rather than their results, and their programs become permanent bleeding wounds in American society long before their utter failure becomes apparent, it is essential to make the case against them with moral authority and urgency. The socialist promises welfare paid for by the bottomless deep pockets of outrageously rich class enemies, with the implication that the super-rich can easily afford to pay for everyone’s free ride, if the government forces them to stop hoarding their money. The statist promises society will be improved by wise regulation, designed by moral and intellectual demigods like Barack Obama. The multiculturalist assures the voter that the world will hate us unless we elect liberals who bow to the wisdom of other nations, and accept their criticism of greedy, arrogant America. The environmentalist says that refusing his demands will destroy the planet, leaving a barren wasteland for our children. These premises are amplified to a deafening roar by liberal control of education and the media.

You can’t fight that by showing the public some spreadsheets and quoting Milton Friedman, no matter how accurate those spreadsheets and quotes might be. Even if Obama’s policies have brought utter economic ruin by 2012, you can’t run an earnest fiscal conservative reformer and expect to win, unless the moral degeneracy of liberalism is addressed. You won’t be able to sell a purely financial criticism of Obama, when an emotional and poorly educated electorate is told by the other side that your true motivations are racism and greed, the poor and downtrodden will be destroyed if any of Obama’s policies are touched, and those policies are not untouchable and eternal parts of the federal government anyway.

I would agree that social conservatives need to be equally mindful of fiscal conservatism, because offering the moral argument without fiscal restraint turns them into “compassionate conservatives” – socialists who just have different spending targets. However, if a sizable number of fiscal conservatives “run screaming when they hear the Jesus talk,” I would submit that is a problem with the people running and screaming, and it’s one they had better get over, pronto.

Apathy. Apathy is what brought the beast into the highest office of power in the world. No one did their homework, no one questioned, no one challenged. Even our candidate, didn’t challenge the one, because it could be viewed as racism. They used guilt as a tool to make Americans feel that objective truth is wrong. Victims. Everybody is a victim. As Michelle Obama says, we’re ignorant of our own beliefs.

We did have a republic and we didn’t fight for it?

No, we were, to coin a phrase from the Pharaoh Obama, we were bamboozled.

Kini on April 27, 2009 at 4:54 AM

I think the apathy was mixed with a strong dose of weariness, which allowed the Democrats to capitalize on fear. The voters of 2008 were exhausted from the relentless pounding of the media and popular culture, which spent eight years trying to pin them to the mat and make them admit voting for George Bush was a horrible mistake. Literally everything Bush did was painted as stupid or criminal, with his effective leadership in the War on Terror, and the nearly miraculous recover of the economy after 9/11, ignored to the point of invisibility. On economics in particular, the strong growth following 2001 was The Greatest Story Never Told, and the public was hit with such a confusing narrative of the War on Terror that they just don’t know what to think.

For eight years, the psychoses and superstitions of the Left were blasted into the voters’ faces from every direction: the 9/11 attacks were probably a sinister plan by Bush and Cheney, and even if they weren’t, nothing like that would ever happen again – it was a unique natural disaster, like a tornado knocking over a skyscraper. Actually, 9/11 didn’t really happen at all – you never see pictures of them any more, right? We’re less safe because Bush dared to fight the terrorists and launched his indefensible and doomed invasion of Afghanistan, where the brutal winter and invincible Pashtun warriors would create Another Vietnam. But then we defeated the Taliban with remarkable speed, so the liberal action line became that Afghanistan was The Good War they supported all along, and the real outrage was Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq to steal its oil for Halliburton, crushing its peaceful kite-flying people and turning them into insurgent freedom fighters. Bush created a nation of brave Minutemen battling our evil Nazi soldiers – so named by prominent Democrat Dick Durbin, who you will note is still infesting the halls of Congress. Of course the soldiers are innocent, childlike victims of Bush’s evil… all Democrats love the soldiers, but Bush turned them into brutal killbots who just kick in the doors of Iraqi houses for no reason and shoot everyone inside. We should have surrendered to al-Qaeda immediately, as top Democrats repeatedly stated. Then General Betray Us lied to Congress, but luckily the Iraq insurgency magically collapsed for no particular reason, so there was certainly no reason to think about the War on Terror when casting your vote in 2008, except to remember Bush is Hitler and only a Lightworker could heal the damage he has done and make the world love us again.

The electorate of 2008 was beaten to its knees with the above lunacy. The Democrats were like an insane, neurotic spouse who screamed and cried in their faces, until they finally just gave up and let the Democrats have what they wanted. The lack of effective leadership from the Republicans, and the generally weak and self-indulgent performance they turned in from 2004 onward, made it work. Voting against the tide of the media and culture is always an uphill battle for the electorate, and in 2008 the Republicans and McCain gave them no compelling reason to fight that battle. When the opposition tells the voters they can have all their problems solved, with everything paid for by faceless rich people who have plenty of money to spare… and voting against their candidate is racist and will probably bring about a Great Depression… you have to do something besides assure the voters that your opponent is a splendid fellow and wait for people to realize how self-evidently sensible your platform is.

strangelet on April 27, 2009 at 9:36 AM

Jacka$$: You are a troll. You have no respect for anyone. Why don’t you go get some psych help and then maybe you can get some R-E-S–P-E-C-T

As we work things out, instead of focusing on that individual’s and our flaws, his and our failure to treat the reform conservatives as the be-all and end-all of the conservative intellect, they can mediate a little – politely – while trying to bridge the gap between the base’s passions and intuitions and everyone else’s prejudices.

I just
I just had an epiphany, Highlander.
tyvm, lol.
Its all about teh RESPECT isnt it?
LIke how the commentariat only found Couric funnie in AllahP’s autotuning mock…….when Hannity + Angry Gorilla was obviously the funniest.
The SNL mocks on Palin really stung, didn’t they?
Well…..I think she’s your choice, and NOW instead of shredding her and mocking her the conservo intelligentsia should be trying to fix her, help her, right?
Instead of pissing and moaning about how impossible she is and how stupid the base is to insist on her, gtf up to Alaska and help her, give her some decent advice, educate her on foreign policy.

R-E-S–P-E-C-T!
;)

Yes libruls are so stupid, and conservatives are so smart, just keep on believing that Jethro, your side is always right.

athensboy on April 27, 2009 at 7:22 AM

We were right:
1952-1960
1968-1976
1980-1992
2000-2008

So, little moonbats, read a effin’ history book. No party remains in power forever.

Are YOU nuts! What you are hearing from “ordinary” people out there is T R U T H. They don’t need a psychiatrist – they need Conservative Representatives with stones…..The Messiah IS repeat IS a danger to this country and I can hardly open my eyes in the morning either – but not out of fear of The One – he’ll get voted out soon enough – it’s out of fear of so-called Republicans who say we conservatives need a psychiatrist!

Yes libruls are so stupid, and conservatives are so smart, just keep on believing that Jethro, your side is always right.

athensboy on April 27, 2009 at 7:22 AM

If your side is so smart, why don’t you have the money to pay for your idiotic plans, except from taking it from my pockets by force of law? It ought to be easy for libs to set up businesses to fleece conservatives (maybe by selling us shiny stuff with NASCAR logos?) and be able to pay for all your crap plans. Then, we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in complaining about the cost because you’d have gotten the money in a fair transaction.

Ah, who am I kidding, that whole paragraph went so far above your head I might as well have written it to the pig that was ground zero for this new swine flu. Current-day liberalism is based on collectivism and multiculturalism. There is not a single smart idea in the corpus of ideas related to those two ideologies. The only logical conclusion is that liberals do not have a single smart idea. That said, it’s possible that some liberals are smart and have been taken in by dumb ideas. That’s about the best case scenario. It’s also not impossible that a large group of people with stupid ideas could take over a large country via legal means, which is clearly what has happened here in the US.

I’m not saying the GOP should abandon social issues entirely. But put them on the back burner and concentrate on fiscal and national defense matters”

DITTO. The way the American family is structured, or unstructured right now, a platform of social values – most individuals are going to say – “that doesn’t look like me.” Fiscal responsibility, national defense, and alignment with the constitution – this looks like all Americans. Also, the more the Repubs stress the social issues, the more they are on the hook to uphold these principles. And it just not in the politicians DNA to uphold social principles. The Dem politicians never make such absurd claims to social morality, so affairs, drugs, whatever, is not an issue they own and don’t need to uphold.

angryed

They are all important and none of them need be on the “back burner”. Sounds like you just don’t want to be associated with “social cons” and want them to shelve their core beliefs which, by the way, include the same fiscal and defense concerns that you have.

Conservatives need to take a lesson from Reagan and learn how to express themselves and get out their message without alienating so many people.

Terrye on April 27, 2009 at 7:16 AM

Listening to Lynn Cheney, for example, regardless of how well one expresses an ideology contrary to Obama’s followers, Socialists have presented the alienation a priori.

Consider the comparative response, then vs. now, of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” message.

I’m not saying the GOP should abandon social issues entirely. But put them on the back burner and concentrate on fiscal and national defense matters.

angryed on April 27, 2009 at 7:47 AM

The initial GWB president spent all of its political capital on social conservative issues. Given the majority in both House and Senate and a President to push the agenda and sign on the dotted line, aggressive social conservative FEDERAL legislation failed.

When addressed LOCALLY, where the social issues belong, conservatives win and lead. The progressive tendency to throw all responsibility AND POWER into Washington’s hands is not the Republican Platform, anyway.

Had the FISCAL CONSERVATIVES been given first priority during time in majority, we would NOT be in the current situation. Progressives just don’t jive on fiscal conservatism; but they certainly manipulated the social conservative Washingtonian pork spending spree.

Fiscal conservatives have already granted social conservatives first lead on moral grounds. Now, on moral grounds of justice, the social conservatives owe the fiscal conservatives the same support with our united thrust. E pluribus unum.

Nomen est omen.

/Professors eschew the “boy” tag of a student.

Republicans will be on the losing end of elections for a long time as long they focus first and foremost on social issues. I can’t begin to tell you how many discussions I’ve had with people who have said, yea I’d vote for Republicans because I want lower taxes, more economic freedom, etc but they scare the shit out of me with all the Jesus talk.

I’m not saying the GOP should abandon social issues entirely. But put them on the back burner and concentrate on fiscal and national defense matters.

I think less people will support Obama going forward if one of his big plans goes down in flames due to public opposition.

darii on April 27, 2009 at 2:27 AM

May I suggest a target to push: Janet Napolitano.

She’s not a policy, but the MSM seem to have caught on that she might have made a big boo boo with the DHS report. If the Mexican Flu does go pandemic in this country, it will be her responsibility for studying it instead of taking precautions as many other countries have done.

And if she is so bad, who appointed her?

Loxodonta on April 27, 2009 at 2:38 AM

You’re right. Janet already accumulated 3 strikes; and Obama’s umping from his own play book. Three Strikes: She’s IN!

1.The report, one of Homeland Security’s periodic assessments, warned that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members
2. Napolitano drew criticism for flubbing an explanation of federal law prohibiting people without proper documents from crossing U.S. borders into the country.
3. 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. across the Canadian border. The Sept. 11 commission found that none came through Canada.

HOMELAND SECURITY
Apr 24, 9:42 PM (ET)
apnews.myway.com
By EILEEN SULLIVAN

Re: flu
Japan got it right, thermo-scanning people deporting transit from Mexico. The American liberty to infect everyone with what one person has was already documented with man taking cross-continental flights with virulent TB, against medical “advice”.

Obama provides yet another inappropriately delayed response, refusing to acknowledge the lab induced flu threat, refusing to take action to prevent or at least COUNTER the flu, while taking his 3-day-leave to decide what he thinks. Upon reflection, his spokesman says that the president maintains the right to change his mind in time.

An immediate international economic response to the flu scare is Russia’s banning meat imports from Texas yesterday. THAT benefits Obama’s agenda, to cause punitive damages to Texans.

This flu episode will take an unprecedented toll beyond lives lost, beyond economic warfare, enabling further authoritarianism from Obama and global socialists. This flu appearance coincides with another application of federal cybercontol (executive branch, military overlay of national cyberintelligence). The NEED to protect the military is real. The infinite length of MEANS that will extend from said protection is the concern as political opportunists abuse the “unintended” loopholes permitted.

By SIOBHAN GORMAN, WSJ

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to nominate the director of the National Security Agency to head a new Pentagon Cyber Command, which will coordinate computer-network defense and direct U.S. cyber-attack operations, according to a draft memo by Mr. Gates.

The move comes amid rising concern in the government about attacks on U.S. networks. The command will run military cybersecurity operations and provide support to civil authorities, according to the memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

NSA Director Keith Alexander, a three-star general, is expected to earn a fourth star when he moves to his new job at the Cyber Command. The memo doesn’t state that directly, but says that his deputy at the new command will be of a three-star rank. It isn’t clear who will succeed him at the NSA.

The Department of Homeland Security is charged with securing the government’s nonmilitary networks, and cybersecurity experts said the Obama administration will have to better define the extent of this military support to Homeland Security. “It’s a fine line” between providing needed technical expertise to support federal agencies improving their own security and deeper, more invasive programs, said Amit Yoran, a former senior cybersecurity official at the Homeland Security Department.

The new command is necessary, the memo says, because “our increasing dependency on cyberspace, alongside a growing array of cyber threats and vulnerabilities, adds a new element of risk to our national security.” At least initially, it will be part of U.S. Strategic Command, which is currently responsible for securing the military’s networks and waging attacks on the Internet.

NSA is referring calls to the Pentagon. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said cybersecurity is a major priority for Mr. Gates and his 2010 budget proposal calls for hiring hundreds more cybersecurity experts. The new command will be located in Maryland at Fort Meade, which is home to the NSA’s headquarters just outside of Washington.

Gen. Alexander sought to quell concerns about NSA’s role in domestic cybersecurity in a speech Tuesday at a computer-security conference in San Francisco. NSA didn’t want to run all the government’s cybersecurity operations but would help Homeland Security secure government civilian networks. NSA has “tremendous technical capabilities,” he said. “What we need to do now is learn how to use that.”

The CHIEF is now referenced as “a former senior cybersecurity official at the Homeland Security Department”. Former Chiefs resigned in protest of the abusive direction federal cybersecurity has been taking since GWB initiated the fascistic core layer of over-indulgent federal executive powers. They were dismissed by the press for having not fit into the brilliant Washingtonian manner of thinking, ironically the very ideology that the NYC native Janet Napolitano verbally repudiates in order to excuse her awkward representation of the Washingtonian, detached and above the Constitution.

the president’s poll #s rarely go up. that’s just the way of it.