Voinovich: The GOP’s been taken over by southerners
posted at 9:59 pm on July 28, 2009 by Allahpundit
This ought to go over well.
“We got too many Jim DeMints (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburns (R-Ok.). It’s the southerners. They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr.’ People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?’,” Voinovich said.
Salon notes that Voinovich is not the sole Republican speaking out against the regional isolation. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty acknowledged last year that the Republicans were facing increasingly difficult competition in large parts of the country, including Voinovich’s Ohio.
“We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states,” Pawlenty said.
Dan Gilgoff thinks he’s using code to take a shot at evangelicals. I don’t. It’s more a matter of cultural divides complicating the idea of representation. The more like you your government spokesman is, the more comfortable you’ll feel that he or she’s looking out for your particular interests. It’s not a question of religion, it’s a question of everything that informs regional differences. But Voinovich will be pilloried anyway for bringing it up, partly because he’s got a record as a RINO and therefore is presumptively wrong on everything and partly because rural “authenticity” is such a powerful meme these days in grassroots politics. The south, being the font of rural authenticity (of which “traditional values” is a key ingredient), is basically beyond reproach, so in theory you really can’t have too many southerners. Exit question: Is Massachusetts/Michigan Mitt the solution?
Blowback
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It will happen. They won’t stomach Obama’s march to the Left much longer. I know there are at least three Blue Dogs who re considering switching parties. Once Obama drops below 50% approval, we will see more than that.
rockmom on July 29, 2009 at 12:26 PM
This is supreme irony. In a thread about Voinovich attacking his fellow GOP Senators with pretty and crass hyperbole…..we’re fighting each other and doing the same damn things.
Stop and think for a moment.
Texas74 on July 29, 2009 at 12:27 PM
That would be fantastic. I will believe it when I see it.
Texas74 on July 29, 2009 at 12:29 PM
Interesting.
Having a group of voters express their values = “catering”
When a group of voters aligns with a party should determine whether they are allowed any influence.
Here’s a thought: maybe we should join with anyone who shares common cause with us. We could call it a “big tent”. It might even prove a winning political strategy.
Of course, we would have to pay the price of listening to them, and allowing them to express their values…
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 12:34 PM
Nor is that any kind of free society, when they want to control personal behavior so much that they can ban dancing, ban drinking, close shops on sunday.
Just because I believe in small Federal Government role, does not mean I want big government on the local level either.
firepilot on July 29, 2009 at 12:37 PM
yeah, but listening to the evangelcals on here, it sounds like any times anyone who is non-evangelical or non-christian needs to get to the back seat of the GOP bus.
firepilot on July 29, 2009 at 12:38 PM
I hate to point out the obvious contradiction in that statement…
actually, that’s wrong…I LOVE pointing out the stupidity of that statement.
And it also is a declaration that you DON’T approve of freedom.
Sheech…
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 12:40 PM
That’s hilarious! As a NON-religious person mysef, it is apparent who is supposed to take the back seats…and STFU.
You’ve made your position VERY clear.
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 12:43 PM
I do not approve of Freedom? yeah, thats exactly why I am a small government, pro-defense Republican. Somehow because I am against towns making too many laws in attempts to control behaviors just because its the values of the city “fathers”, than somehow I am against personal freedom.
Plenty of cities and states have abused their powers by making ridiculous laws government personal behavior, all in the name of values. Go tell them they are the ones against Freedom.
firepilot on July 29, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Yet of the two individuals arguing with you the most, one is NON-religious and I am an athiest. Sorry, but you need to quit making up events that did not happen.
Just curious, why not be a libertarian?
ClassicCon on July 29, 2009 at 12:46 PM
They aren’t YOUR values, so they are “ridiculous”.
They should not be free to codify THEIR values, because you don’t share them and don’t approve.
You have no earthly idea what you are talking about, friend.
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 12:47 PM
Now you are just being childish. There is a concept known as a community standard. These change back and forth over time.
ClassicCon on July 29, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Man, you are determined, allah! Post a story about a weak, pathetic, dishonest professional politician and then in the last sentence try to slander Romney by linking him to the aforementioned sleaze. These are the kind of thought patterns that give you awat=y as a liberal.
Where did you mention that the names this creep spewed out and the region he is slandering are mostly right to work states and if you want a good job you don’t have to bow to some union thug to get it and the way you keep it is not by attending every union meeting but in doing a good job? Maybe without that environment we have a better chance of keeping our politicians on the up and up. by the way, if you yankees don’t like the south by all means keep all your new york and michigan brethren from moving here. They have already ruined a good part of my state and given me a voinovich type of politician as governor in charlie crist.
peacenprosperity on July 29, 2009 at 12:51 PM
I am more libertarian, like the GOP used to be in regards to many issues. I do believe in limited government, for both social and economic issues. The GOP has moved in a more social conservative direction in the last 30 years as the Social Conservatives and Evangelicals moved from the Democratic Party to the GOP. But the GOP has moved more left economically lately too since late 90s.
I just want a party that espouses smaller government in both economics and personal issues.
firepilot on July 29, 2009 at 12:52 PM
Really? When was that?
I think it’s apparent you want a government that is “value free”.
And you HATE freedom and pluralism as expressed in communities with values different from your own.
But that was…and still is…the brilliance of Federalism as expressed in the Constitution. (See 10th Amendment) We are SUPPOSED to be a place were LOTS of values are expressed. NOT a place devoid of values.
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 12:57 PM
As Rush would say, I think Voinovich has accidentally swerved into the truth, if only he understood it.
Voinovich makes the common mistake of assuming that all Southerners* are white. This is not the case, of course.
He further assumes all white Southerners favor and vote for Republicans. It pays to remember that this is also not the case – more importantly why it isn’t.
In addition, I think Voinovich is at least implying that non-Southerners, because of their prejudices, won’t vote for a white Southerner. That is, they think white Southerners are all stupid/ignorant (hence the “errrr, errrr” comment), hopelessly parochial, and/or racist. Obviously, Voinovich is wrong about that, too, at least concerning Southerners in general.
People like Voinovich, and, alas, many contributors and posters on this site, believe that Republicans need to be more ‘inclusive’ – or as they would say, they need to build a ‘bigger tent’. I think we would all be better served by them instead appealing to the voter’s better nature. Specifically, by setting out to prove that the Republican party already includes one of the few remaining minorities it is ‘PC’ to discriminate against, white Southerners – and further that the only people who have a problem with white Southerners, as a group, are, themselves, stupid/ignorant, hopelessly parochial, and/or racist.
*Let me hasten to add that you may freely substitute redneck, hick, trailer-trash, bumpkin, Alaskan (apparently), Okie, etc. for Southerner, it all works the same.
Knott Buyinit on July 29, 2009 at 12:57 PM
No, not at all. Values and morality are not something that has to be codified into law, in order to exist. Why does everything on the personal level have to be into law? Putting your personal values into law, makes you for personal freedom than someone who does not want their own values into law?
You have more personal freedom and more room for your own values, when the government is not into putting its own values into law. Segregation used to be the values of people. Was that freedom?
What if people who had values opposite of yours got into power and starting putting their own values into law? Would putting values into law still be a good idea then?
firepilot on July 29, 2009 at 1:07 PM
Is it your thesis that they are? Where?
Why, yes, it was. Freedom does not have to be expressed in a way I would approve to still be freedom. People often abuse their freedoms in ways of which I disapprove. That is part of the ambit of the freedom/responsibility equation. See?
If they were localized values in their community, or came to be the norm in a community in which I lived, yeah. I would have the right to try to persuade against the offending law. I might loose, in a democratic process.
I would have the option of finding a place where my values were more in line with the community.
Under you model, you assume some power that would homogenize the US according to your idea of “right”. Sounds like a collectivist notion to me.
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 1:21 PM
I don’t want a “governing” party of Republicans. They, in general, are just as corrupt and slimy as the Democrats. What I want is for a group of people with integrity to stop the Governmentization of my life. Jesus.
Aquateen Hungerforce on July 29, 2009 at 1:33 PM
What you and I want is what you and I are going to have to take. The Political Class cannot do it.
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 1:39 PM
Then let the South go.
on fire on July 29, 2009 at 2:10 PM
I love my southern red state…
ladyingray on July 29, 2009 at 2:21 PM
Its like I am in bizarroland. Since I espouse personal freedom, and individual liberty, and do not like it when groups try to use government to impose their own values on people, that I am somehow a collectivist?
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I would say the opposite would be more true. That when you have a group that uses government power to impose values, thats certainly more of a collective ideal.
How you equate more individual freedom as collectivist, well thats slightly way out there. Next you will be equating hard core liberaterians with Mao.
firepilot on July 29, 2009 at 2:29 PM
On another forum we had big racial argument going on with a Black Muslim. I maintained that post Civil War economic/political system the Democrats had in place was not really based on race, but on class. I also pointed out that most slaves in world history were not African and that many were European going back to Ancient times (Sparta, Athens, Rome, Medieval Islam, European serfdom, etc.); also I believe that the majority of white southerners were under the thumb of the the southern PTB as well-not just black folk.
He didn’t like that. He posted a question as to how a black man wearing a suit would be treated walking down a Southern street vs. a white man in a suit in the late 1800′s.
I didn’t respond because the thread was getting too volatile, but I was thinking of responding like this: The black man? I don’t know. Most I think would think that he was a well to do black man…just because you don’t think they existed doesn’t mean they didn’t. The white man-either he’d be known as a respected member of the community regardless of how he dressed, and if not they’d think he was going to church or a funeral or something like that.
But, if that white southern man were in Chicago, suit or not, once he opened his mouth and revealed his southern accent he would immediately be looked down upon.
Discrimination is not based solely upon race, gender and sexual orientation. It is complex and multi-faceted.
Dr. ZhivBlago on July 29, 2009 at 2:44 PM
That when you have a group that uses government power to
imposeEXPRESS values, thats certainly more of acollectiveconstitutional ideal.FIFY.
At the Founding, many of the States were islands of differing religious doctrine. Some of them taxed their citizens to support the state-sponsored religion.
Is it your contention that they were examples of the collective?
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 2:46 PM
Where did Booker T. Washington live and work?
Ever seen any of the anti-Irish cartoons of Nast?
Ragspierre on July 29, 2009 at 2:49 PM
We get at least one reminder daily–some times several in a day–that today’s GOP is loaded to overflow with boobs, hacks, incompetents and failures. Cryin’ George is just one of many, unfortunately. Boy, does this country need a better opposition party.
james23 on July 29, 2009 at 2:56 PM
Voinovich = Arlen Sphincter Midwest.
cjk on July 29, 2009 at 2:58 PM
The connotation of the Voinovich speech is that the GOP has been taken over by ignorance and bigotry, represented by southerners.
As a born Mississippian and a current Louisianian I can categorically state that there can be no greater ignorance or bigotry than what was contained in his speech. He rails to the far end of tolerance by stating we’re the intolerant ones. Funny, I thought Republicans are all about big tents. Apparently for everyone but Southerners. Fine, we’ll leave. Let us know the next time you win a national election.
itsspideyman on July 29, 2009 at 4:45 PM
Cool. The solution is clear: cut the south loose and compete in the NE and the Pacific coast. I look forward to seeing that newly revamped and reoriented GOP roll to victory after victory.
ddrintn on July 29, 2009 at 4:57 PM
I agree. To these types, “big tent” means addition by subtraction. Brilliant!
ddrintn on July 29, 2009 at 5:09 PM
Me thinks Voinovich has gone senile
CWforFreedom on July 29, 2009 at 6:20 PM
Didn’t Ohio vote him out of office?
mmcnamer1 on July 29, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Originally posted by Kaffir
Say………did you actually ype that last sentence with a straight face?
manofaiki on July 29, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Dear Sen Voinovich,
Please die of a painful cancer soon.
Love,
Jesus
revolution on July 29, 2009 at 9:03 PM
Damn Yankee….. Really, do I go “errr, errrr”? Guys you should stop me and let me know next time. I’m sorry.
BTW, Voinovich?
As my momma would say: “Boy, you sure got some interesting grammar there!
Ahem: What the hell do they
gothave to do with Ohio?Rightwingguy on July 29, 2009 at 9:16 PM
Jesus is evidently not happy.
Rightwingguy on July 29, 2009 at 9:17 PM
You know, I’d rather see the Blue Dogs take (re-take?) over the democrat party. I remember a time when the dems were decent and patriotic. It really is better for the country to not have the extreme elements in control of the political dialog.
funky chicken on July 30, 2009 at 12:06 AM
Chekote didn’t tell anybody that they should leave a state, or leave the party, but a whole lot of social cons told him he was no longer welcome in TX, or the South, or the GOP.
It’s not the social moderates who are intolerant, folks. Really, just look at the behavior here.
funky chicken on July 30, 2009 at 12:20 AM
Come on. The whole subtext is “eeewwww…we gotta be free of these embarrassing southern Bible-thumping socons before we can ever hope to win again…” I’ve heard that crap over and over since McCain lost.
ddrintn on July 30, 2009 at 12:28 AM
Seems Allah’s replaced his innumerable atheist posts and David Frum links with ‘slam the South’ posts.
As for Voinovich, it’s no surprise that a weepy RINO from a rust-belt state with a failed economy would criticise what he hates and envies; namely southern states with a thriving industrial base, no unions and a few Conservative politicians willing to fight off the current march to socialism.
mizzoujgrad on July 30, 2009 at 12:35 AM
Born in Missouri, grew up in Pennsylvania, moved to Texas, went to school and now live in Georgia, and married a New Yorker. Am I a Southerner? Or a Yankee? Or even a Midwesterner? I’ve been called all of the above, and since my business is mostly located in California, I could end up there some day. Point is, I like things about every place I’ve lived, and I’ve also disliked aspects of all those regions. I’ve also found both Conservatives and Liberals in every location, and Religious and Non-Religious folks everywhere, albeit in differing proportions and styles. A HUGE number of people in America are transplants. WHY would we waste our time with regional prejudices? Is it just that we’ve lost so much national feeling and love for the United States that we’ve learned to prefer our state alone? America won’t last long that way. “A house divided cannot stand,” a wise man once said.
This loser Rep is guilty primarily of idiocy. I could forgive him his RINO-ism if he’d at least learn some tact.
Animator Girl on July 30, 2009 at 12:42 AM
I don’t see how the GOP caters to evangelicals. Evangelicals to the GOP leadership is just another voting bloc to be counted on at election time. But maybe someday the evangelicals will stop voting Republican in large numbers, and we’ll see how your fiscal-con socially liberal party does. Probably sort of like the Libertarian Party.
The socon issues that are constantly being wailed about as losing elections for the GOP are really non-factors in most of the past elections. If anything, things like being against gay marriage and showing a resistance to abortion-on-demand works in the GOP’s favor. Otherwise the Democrats would be fully in support of gay marriage everyhwere and abortion on demand. They know they can’t win that way.
ddrintn on July 30, 2009 at 12:43 AM
No part of that is funny or clever.
Jaibones on July 30, 2009 at 1:30 AM
Voinovich is entitled to his opinion.
I happen to like Senator DeMint.
I’m curious if both these senators were given one of those neverending mailers by the RNC that asks for your opinion with a number 2 pencil as you fill in the circles, how would these 2 stack up against each other? Would both of them oppose Cap N Trade?
Would both of them be inclined to apply capital punishment to certain criminals? Would both be for 2nd amendment rights?
If Voinovich would only say: I’m not an evangelical, but I believe in (the above) fundamentals of the republican party platform, I wouldn’t have a problem with these statements.
Its how Voinovich goes about telling his differences with DeMint that rubs me the wrong way. He’s basically throwing DeMint and those that vote or think like the man, out with the garbage to make himself smell like a rose.
Come on!
athenadelphi on July 30, 2009 at 3:45 AM
I dont think it is about being free of the Social Conservatives, just that the GOP should not be about Social Conservatism and evangelism.
I want to the GOP to bet back to its roots, of limited government, low taxes, and strong defense. Is that something that evangelicals cant get behind??? That is what the GOP was about.
And it does gall me, that the social conservatives who were latecomers to the Republican Party, are the ones who in their own minds have the right to decide who are true Republicans. I could be quoting here from Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, and other historic Republicans, and there would be a fair number of social conservatives here who would be calling me a Democrat, a leftist and a RINO.
firepilot on July 30, 2009 at 6:11 AM
Socially Conservative evangelistic type candidates work in the Deep south, but not any further west than the Texas Pandhandle and Oklahoma.
The GOP used to have a virtual lock on the entire Western US, when it was primarily about limited government and low taxes. But as Social Conservatives have became more and more the face of the Republican Party, a lot more people out west have became suspicious of the Republican Party and are voting Democratic more and more.
Social Conservatives should be able to get behind a Republican Party which is back to its roots of small government and strong defense. After all, that is what the Republican Party was about when the Social Conservatives defected from the Democratic Party to the GOP starting in the 80s.
firepilot on July 30, 2009 at 6:24 AM
We Southerners are too stupid to see what is good for us. I live in Texas, and this Statesman is from Ohio. Texans should all take note and see just how things are so much better in Ohio than they are here in Texas.
Liberals and moderates (like Voinovich) have created a Utopia up there in the North for all to envy.
Bleed_thelizard on July 30, 2009 at 11:55 AM
as a OHIOIAN!!! Good riddance to voinovich the cry baby RINO!!! We have a great guy running!!! Ganley for Senate!!! Voinovich is an idiot!! he was mayor of Cleveland… he beet out Kucinich..how hard was that? I take great delight in making sure Voinovich retired and will not run again!!
charmingtail on July 30, 2009 at 12:07 PM
That is a brilliant point. The U.S. is the most mobile country in the world. One fourth of all Americans move every five years. Who is to say which group is what? The danger is to play any region against another, when we are ALL Americans. We settled this argument 150 years ago. Let’s move on.
itsspideyman on July 30, 2009 at 12:40 PM
That really would not surprise me at all. These were semi-conservatives who ran as Democrats. The Democrats are trying to force them to take positions that will get them to lose during reelection or deal with the wrath of Rahm Emmanuell. Either way, their chances for re-election are slim… unless the switch parties.
jeffn21 on July 30, 2009 at 2:19 PM
them revenuers are talking smack about the south again? I sure hope we are not looking at the beginning of civil war II.
workingforpigs on July 30, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Liberals and moderates (like Voinovich) have created a Utopia up there in the North for all to envy.
Bleed_thelizard on July 30, 2009
Only thing worse than a Yankee is a damn yankee ( one that moves south and stays)
workingforpigs on July 30, 2009 at 2:44 PM
I don’t think the GOP’s had a lock on anywhere. My own deep-red native state went blue in ’92 and ’96.
Did we hear such griping about socons and evangelicals in the wake of 2000 and 2004? I don’t seem to recall much of it, except from Democrats.
ddrintn on July 30, 2009 at 4:59 PM
…there’s so much that needs to be said on this subject, what with Palin being pilloried as an ignorant “hick” from Alaska, and coming, as it does, on the heels of “Louis Gates-gate”, and the never-ending “conversation” about race and stereotyping….
…but it’s been out there for a while, there are six pages of comments (so far), and the bloggers so far have probably beaten this horse to death more eloquently that I, arriving late, can ever do….
…but I’ve just got to say something…if only about this….
…does our all-powerful blog-daddy join with Sen. V in thinking that the South is one long, boring loop of Larry the Cable Guy’s act? What does that say for the farmers of Ohio, then?
…tell me…just who should be in charge?
Who should lead the country? Who should lead the GOP? If the party has any values left (other than the prime directive they share with the Democrats, to wit, claw their way into power and retain it at all costs, with perks intact), who reflects those values?
“Hicks” and “hillbillies”, who’ve been the righteous targets at whom our more “sophisticated” Northeastern and Pacific Coastal neighbors have sniped with impugnity, are the last demographic who’re OK to “diss”. So, if some guy in an off-the-rack suit shows up on MSNBC saying “err, err” — sort of like he’s trying to find the right words to say something, sort of like it’s important to say the right things the right way — and finally speaks with a bit of Southern spice in his voice, he’s somehow “infecting” the Party of the Back Nine with his values, best quarentined behind quotation marks.
…so, who should be in charge? What region, what class (socio-economic or graduating generation from the Ivy League, you pick) is annointed by the Almighty to rule? What accent or “values”, once displayed, sees one hurled into the outer darknesss as a “rube”, exiled hence from the “smart” cocktail parties?
…those with “agri-cred” need not apply? The sowers of seed and drawers of water (and turners of bolts and diggers of ditches and hammerers of nails and raisers of our vittles) need not apply?
…so, I ask again: Who should be in charge?
…maybe we should ask Dave Frum…or Meg McCain…or Dave Bloomberg…or maybe Dave Brooks or maybe even Sen. V’s colleague from Pennsylvania, the newly-minted Democrat Arlen Specter?
…who should be in charge?
That’s the pesky thing about a Republic, Republicans. The people — those masses, usually unwashed — are boss…and, demographically and geographically speaking, more of ‘em are from the South and West every day…and their values are, unfashionably enough, traditional….
…damned people….
Puritan1648 on July 30, 2009 at 5:47 PM
The errrs bother him? Let me be clear…..this from a guy who’s president is Obamuhhhheeer?
proudteadrinker on July 30, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Rationalize this any way you want, the FACTS are that the GOP has put forth a candidate that was farther left in each successive election for President since Reagan left office, and garnered fewer voted in each election.
If you want to LOSE elections, keep pandering to the RINOs because CONSERVATIVES are fed up with RINOs.
Case in point, Romney, if the GOP nominates Romney they will LOSE, Romney is a fraud, just like McCain is a fraud, just like Rudy G. is a fraud.
You might take notice next year when these Rinos in Congress start losing their House and Senate seats because, frankly, voting for a RINO is the SAME as voting for a Democrat, in the House of Representatives, it would be WORSE than voting for some of the Blue Dog Democrats.
nelsonknows on July 31, 2009 at 12:21 AM
Does anyone actually thing there will be free and open elections in 2010 and 2012, with obama seizing the census?
nelsonknows on July 31, 2009 at 12:24 AM
And there it is again, anyone not a social conservative is a “RINO”. This faulty idea that social conservatives gave birth to the GOP. You all can keep saying it until you are all blue in the face but its not ever going to make it true.
I know all of you still believe it to be true, but then why did Social Conservatives give us that Democratic President Jimmy Carter, instead of voting for Republican candidate Gerald Ford? Because you know, Social Conservatives voted overwhelmingly for Jimmah Carter.
Social Conservatives are only a very recent addition of the GOP. So now that you all have joined up, you want control of the party, and threaten to go elsewhere if you dont turn into into primarily a evangelical Christianity values party.
Southerners are a lot more comfortable mixing politics with religion, as long as the religion is Bible Belt style evangelism (Atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Pagans go to the back of the room). Just because other Republicans do not have political meetings that resemble Church socials and open it with prayers, does not me are somehow less of Republicans.
The Democratic Party tries to use government to achieve their social values, but social conservatives want to also. Small government Republicans are the ones more opposite of the Dems, so quit with the calling small government Republicans as some kind of leftists and RINOs, that is utter hogwash. Is those in the GOP who see government power as a way to get your values into law, that have a lot more in common with the Democratic Party that you all would like to admit.
Someday, those of you who equate limited government with Leftist ideology, will see the utter folly in this.
firepilot on July 31, 2009 at 5:57 AM
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