May 03 2009
Silly GOP Outreach Is Laughable And Preachy
Update: John Cole notes how the purity wars keep distilling the conservative movement into oblivion by how the definition of ‘moderate’ keeps changing in defining ‘true conservatives’.
Once Collins and Snowe are drummed out of the party, the definition of what is “moderate†will change yet again. The music will stop, and Lindsey Graham, with his ACU rating of 90, will find himself without a seat because he isn’t conservative enough.
So true. But only those who will be pure and true to the cause will be left standing – in the irrelevant minority! – end update
OK, I was a huge Michael Steele fan, but now that he has gone into the ‘true conservative’ (their name for themselves, not something I made up) fever swamps he is sounding as incoherent as they do:
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appealed to the political middle Friday to join his party but added that the party itself wouldn’t moderate.
“All you moderates out there, y’all come. I mean, that’s the message,” Steele said at a news conference. “The message of this party is this is a big table for everyone to have a seat. I have a place setting with your name on the front.
“Understand that when you come into someone’s house, you’re not looking to change it. You come in because that’s the place you want to be.”
A table where we are ridiculed and muzzled? ROTFLMAO! Dude, we are the ones who fund your message and swing elections! What makes you think we want to come into that???? Not until we see a complete cleaning of the house. Otherwise, enjoy the echo chamber. Most of us are already out of the house – gladly out of the house.
How about you folks get a grip and start listening to Peggy Noonan (who I have lost a lot of respect for over the last few years, but who is talking common sense on this subject):
Another way to put the question is: Can the party, having accurately ascertained its position, and recognizing shifting terrain, institute a renewed and highly practical tolerance for the many flavors of Republican? Can it live happily and productively with all its natural if sometimes warring constituent groups?
It must.
Here’s the point Steele and the deflated ‘true conservatives’ forget. If we are in a coalition it is a house we all own together. We all sit at the table as equals, speak as equals and treated with the respect of equals.. If the true right cannot stomach that there is a small shed out back they can squat in, but the mainstream political kitchen table debate is happening in America’s house, not in the ‘true conservative’ shack.
AJ, You wrote:
“What makes you think we want to come into that???? Not until we see a complete cleaning of the house ”
You have become what you hate.
Previously you have made some excellent points particularly regards immigration reform.
Now however you have become A Pure Moderate, someone who fetishizes moderation and equity of distance between the wings. This is essentially an abandonment of principles..if the nations mood changes then your standards change as you desperately search for a position in the middle.
You jumped the shark for me when you criticized the lack of mourning on the right when Specter left for a party more in tune with his vievs. This is a guy who had NOTHING in common with the core values of big or little “R” republicanism…who voted for the stimulus bill which was an utter rejection of the basic principles of conservatism…and has so much so that only a handful of republicans actually did so.
The republican party is a big tent there is a lot of room for argument and debate, as I understand it the areas where we, in theory, agree are these.
Government at all levels should be smaller, less intrusive and less intrusive. (In practice This means fewer unfireable unionized govt employees.)
To the maximum extent possible issues that involve government should be handled at the lowest possible level.
The military should be funded better than what is perceived as adequate because surprises happen.
We need to be as self sufficient as possible on energy.
People should take responsibility for their actions thus the government should not act as an enabler for idiotic behavior…this last GENERALLY TENDS to go hand in hand with a conservative take on social issues as conservative values evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to weed out teh dumb…but of course to the extent
…that my rant is thwarted by fumble fingering the keyboard and posting prematurely it looses its impact.
Anyway…the anger you have displayed recently in your poosts is as bad as anything that Glen Beck has pulled…worse in some ways because Beck seems to at least be having a good time where as you are just seething because thevrubes…the stupid stupid rubes…do not think the way you do.
The stupid stupid rubes have different values that arent as urbane and sophisticated as yours..the stupid stupiud rubes are stupid bescause they don’t purge their stupid stupid party of those people that arent like you. They need to go for the center and in many cases abandon their beliefs.
That is what I’m getting when I read your blog now and it hurts.
It hurts because you ARE right on immigration, you ARE right that the tone taken by Beck and others is counterproductive. And though I don’t think you’ve ever said it I’d bet you agree with me that Hannity is as dumb as a box of hair.
But the only thing that has come across lately is the sort of provincial sneer of the Palin haters seasoned with anger and contempt.
It hurts because your analysis of Obamas missteps are spot on…and yet when the Republicans try to define themselves as in opposition to those very missteps you lambaste those who criticize its facilitators on the “R” side as purists.
I’m frustrated too…but I think you are hurting your own argument as much or more than Beck is his.
Am I saying we should be cheerleaders ..no….you’ve done a stirling job on the immigration front and LGF has tirelessly pointed out things like Jindals support for creationism is schools but the contempt and bile that has drifted into your tone of late is only going to drive awauy any potential converts certainly been off putting to me.
Err…and I’ll meat u hafwai… I promise to pruufreed my comints bewtter frum nao on. 🙂
Brickmuppet,
I am a redneck with family roots back to west by golly virginia.
The ‘rubes’ are DC and NY talking heads who have no clue about main street America because they are part of the political elites who pretend to be one of the masses.
Brickmuppet,
One other thing. Since the far right launched the civil war for control of the conservative movement, they must of known there would be some like me near the center who would gladly engage with all intentions to win the war.
Since compromise is forbidden (per the ‘true right’), then one side must be decimated in order for a new coalition to arise.
Those are the terms we have been given. No compromise. Fine – no compromise. That means showing America why the true right is completely wrong and a waste of their time, and convincing them that the only path forward to oppose Obama’s folly is a centrist coalition who can come together, compromise, and be an agent for a new, brighter future.
No compromise means no seat at the real table.
Steele never impressed me.
AJ, Brickmuppet is right. Your stridency undermines your arguments as much as the stridency of your opponents undermines theirs.
The problem as I see it is that the politicians in DC are trying to describe what is going on in the country with political speech, when what we need is common every day talk about why we are going in a direction that has really bad consequences. I think that is why Sarah Palin was such a big hit. Nobody needs to call anyone a socialist or a fascist. Even I could explain why big government will cause more unemployment, higher taxes, and that universal medicare is not free, that green energy might be desirable, but it will cost every household tons of money, and greater unemployment.
Some politicians are really good at saying things in a way that includes lots of people and some are not. The bunch of Republicans we have at the moment aren’t very good at it. Obama is really bad as well. The tongue lashing he gave the financial community the other day was down right disgusting and completely unnecessary. But dems have always been about divide and conquer and are masters at it.
I’m a little worried about the Republicans, but I think someone will come along who can articulate what we all know to be true without stepping on anybody’s toes. For me that person was Fred Thompson. Instead of getting in the muck with immigration, he said, I’m sure we can find a way to work with immigration, first we start with closing our borders and then we open wide our gates.
I like the admonition, never talk badly about people of your own party.
In the end, after all is said and done, we can either be part of the problem or be part of the solution. And frankly, imho, EVERYONE could use a dose of this reality.
Imho, we need another George W. Bush just about now. He was elected TWICE with WIDE support. Wonder how that happened with the country being split into Left, Center, Right….Imho, he said what he believed and he told people NOT to vote for him if they disagreed with what he stood for. Straight on, he told us who he was and it was refreshing. His integrity oozed from his every pore, imho. And THAT is why the left had to destroy him.
How I do miss him….:(
Me too ive……..did you know he worked really hard to bring the Country together. He had real bipartisan support for his first tax cut and “No Child Left Behind”. I feel like I’m playing cat and mouse with this President. As a politician and a man he is one heck of a guy.
I won’t donate to NRSC now because they are looking to campaign someone against Pat Toomey.
I think we need fiscally conservatives. I don’t care much for the extreme religious fanatics. Somehow or other, we need the “separation between the church and the state” but then we need both.
Having George W. Bush in the office as long as he is not being attacked AND we showed more support…that would be great.
But there wasn’t much support the whole time except for 9/11. We never did allow Bush to be the president of our own country.
Brickmuppet, how can you say that moderates do not have principles? These are the people that decide elections, and this is why they will not join the GOP. They will not belong to a party where they are not welcome, and at worst, insulted. A moderate has displays more principle and integrity than either wing. A true moderate is a person who does have principles- he/she places their country first and the needs of the Republic. An ideologue sees everything through a prism of the ideology to which they subscribe. Consequently, they are blinded by the self-righteousness in which they believe their views are always correct, and all those that differ are somehow less intelligent. This holds true on the far right, and most definitely, the left. However, although the left hates anyone but their own, they don’t openly state their hatred for the center.
How Republicans Can Build a Big-Tent Party
It’s the Democrats who won’t tolerate a diversity of views.
By JIM DEMINT
Sen. Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democratic Party this week is no reason for Republicans to cheer. But his reason for leaving — he faced an unwinnable primary election next year — is no cause for soul searching. There is a question Republicans do need to ask: What is it that binds our party together?
In the wake of two successive electoral defeats and the likelihood of a 60-vote Democrat majority in the Senate, what does it even mean to be a Republican today? Moderate Republicans are right to remind conservatives that they cannot build a center-right coalition without the center part. And conservatives are right to remind moderates that Republicans only succeed when we rally around clear principles.
The real mistake is that Republicans became more concerned with staying in D.C. than reforming it.
Despite notable successes at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave., it seems to me that Republicans in Congress and in the Bush administration forgot a simple truth. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you aim for principled reform, you win elections in the bargain; if you just aim for elections, you get neither.
No Child Left Behind didn’t win us “soccer moms,” but it did cost us our credibility on locally controlled education. Medicare prescription drugs didn’t win us a “permanent majority,” but it cost us our credibility on entitlement reform. Every year, another Republican quality was tainted: managerial competence, fiscal discipline and personal ethics.
To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a “big tent” party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — must be freedom. The federal government is too big, takes too much of our money, and makes too many of our decisions. If Republicans can’t agree on that, elections are the least of our problems.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124121871475178899.html#mod=rss_opinion_main
AJ,
You still think DeMint is “an idiot”? Much as I like Noonan, DeMint said it much better. Bush, Romney & Cantor try to rebuild, expand and rebrand, and you’re critical of that effort. Do you have anything positive to say?
Kudos to Brickmuppet. AJ, take a deep breath and understand that the constructive criticism re: your tone and rage comes from regular readers and fans. A lot of us have gotten “a grip” to borrow your words — it’s you we’re worried about.
Right now different factions of the Republican party are more engaged in criticizing each other than in producing any concrete leadership. The several articles on this site (and many others) demonstrating this.
While I agree that the “puritans” have done considerable damage to the Republican Party, much of that damage is being continued by the various factions flinging mud at each other.
I would say to simply ignore the “puritans” and go about posting on how the Republicans can get us out of the mess we are in. All I am reading on the right are criticisms of others on the right. Nobody is putting forth any ideas. If they aren’t criticizing each other, then they are criticizing the Democrats and again offering no alternatives.
Being against something does not produce anything. Being FOR something does.
Goldwater,
No, I really meant DeMint was a genius when he said he would rather have 30 true believers than a governing majority. That’s pure political genius!
Yeah I have a lot positive to say – the true conservatives are self destructing and making room for real leadership. I find that great and it brings hope to America.
Republicans cannot do squat as long as they prefer purity over political power. Why should I waste time trying with those who do not want to change? Why should I lie to my readers and claim the GOP can save us from Obama and the liberal dems?
Sorry, I don’t lie. I am all for the fringes losing and the centrist coming to power.
CP,
Let’s keep MY record straight here. I have never, ever been a Republican. I have been and independent since 1982. I have no allegiance to either party of screw ups.
If a party cannot attract my support and strength, that is no a problem with me!
AJ,
Wow … that’s an interesting response … twisted and irrational, but interesting.
I was always Libertarian until I got tired of them running nut cases for office. Actually, the only reason I finally registered as Republican was so I could get the sample ballot and voting information. In California, that information is sent by the parties and not by the State. But it didn’t bother me since I had been voting for Republican candidates for several years anyway.
The Modern Whigs appear more along my line of political thought. If I see candidates for that party on the 2010 ballot in my state, I might consider changing my party registration.
Dude, you’re quoting John Cole? You might as well link to the Daily Kos.
AJ at FREEREPUBLIC, this is interesting.
Spotless Days……A Blank SUN….
05/03/2009 3:48:42 PM PDT · by TaraP · 16 replies · 357+ views
Spaceweather ^ | May 2nd, 2009
Spotless Days A spotless day is a day without sunspots, a day when the face of the sun is utterly blank. Spotless days never occur during Solar Max when the sun is active, but they are common during solar minimum, the opposite phase of the 11-year sunspot cycle when the sun is very quiet. By counting spotless days, we can keep track of the depth and longevity of a solar minimum. By the standard of spotless days, the ongoing solar minimum is the deepest in a century: NASA report. In 2008, no sunspots were observed on 266 of the year’s…