Buy cheap soma. Cheap soma….

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.

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 30, 2009 at 6:24 AM

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.

…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….

…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. (emphasis added)

…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….

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

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.

Bleed_thelizard on July 30, 2009

Only thing worse than a Yankee is a damn yankee ( one that moves south and stays)

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

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.

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

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.

Liberals and moderates (like Voinovich) have created a Utopia up there in the North for all to envy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

revolution on July 29, 2009 at 9:03 PM

No part of that is funny or clever.

So unless the GOP caters to evangelicals, who were latecomers to the GOP anyways, then it is tantamount to expunging them?

firepilot on July 29, 2009 at 12:25 PM

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.

This loser Rep is guilty primarily of idiocy. I could forgive him his RINO-ism if he’d at least learn some tact.

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.

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.

It’s not the social moderates who are intolerant, folks. Really, just look at the behavior here.

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

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.

revolution on July 29, 2009 at 9:03 PM

Jesus is evidently not happy.