What happened between "Permanent Republican Majority" and now.
By birdmojo Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (146) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
There's been a spate of diaries recently that talk about doom/gloom, etc. (For the record, I was pretty much in agreement with this assessment until the California ruling a couple of days ago.)
I'd like to point out that it wasn't so long ago that folks were talking about a Permanent Republican Majority.
And so I'm wondering... what happened?
Exactly what happened between then and now that changed "We'll be riding high forever!" into "there will be a permanent Democratic majority"?
Well... I'm one of those Libertarian nutballs so I'm sure that my viewpoint is probably skewed. But I'll look at various viewpoints that I've seen (mostly paraphrased from various posts on this website) and explore what could have been done differently.
What sticks out most in my mind was a post by... I wanna say Alexham... on the night of the Iowa Caucus. It was celebrating Huckabee's victory in Iowa and the content was something to the effect of "Hurray! Now the Republican Party knows that they have to treat Social Conservatives with respect!" Moreover, there were a handful of people who responded with something to the effect of "Amen!"
Well, at the time, my head darn-near exploded. I wanted to start yelling at the monitor "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!! THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS GIVEN YOU NOTHING BUT FOR THE LAST EIGHT YEARS!!!!"
But... after my blood went down... I said to myself, "Jaybird. You totally need to take a deep breath." I got a degree in philosophy, you see. One of the things I was trained in was in understanding that there are many different perspectives for any particular issue and to automatically assume that your opponent is bad/venial/crazy is, at its very best, lazy. At worst, it's bad/venial.
So I sat down and thought... what in the world could inspire someone to post such a thing given the last 8 years?
So I went to the Waffle House and sat down with a strawberry waffle after putting a buck in the jukebox and thought about it.
The main thing that struck me as a plausible explanation was that the Social Conservatives were dissatisfied. They were still thirsty... and with that insight, I looked at it through what I figured their eyes were. Abortion was still going on. Gay marriage had been shut down in various states, but it was still going on in Massachusetts. We were no closer to an FMA. We were no closer to an HLA. At best... a person could say that Bush had held the line. No progress had been made... but Bush held the line.
That post sticks in my head as part of what probably went wrong between "Permanent Republican Majority" and now.
Another typical post has been written by more than one person on this site.
Someone posts something critical about this senator or that one, about this congressman or that one, about this spending bill that Bush signed or that one... and the response comes: The Only Thing That Matters Is The War On Terror.
More than one person posted something with this fundamental message... and it was a good response to people complaining about fiscal issues or social issues. "Hey, I'm married, I have a child, my parents fly a lot, The Only Thing That Matters..."
Quite frankly, I found this unpersuasive. I mean, my mom is one of those sweet old ladies you've seen a million times. Pleasantly plump in such a way that you know that she knows how to cook. Quick to smile. A Kentucky twang... and yet my mother always seems to be pulled aside to have her bags tossed at the airport. Once upon a time, I accepted the argument that they had to pull aside a pleasant old lady at security so that when they pulled Ahmed aside and he started screaming "RACISM!!!" they could point to my mom and say "hey, we pulled that lady aside too. Please emotionally prepare yourself for a body cavity search." But my mom gets pulled aside and Ahmed doesn't.
This got pulled from not only Afghanistan (which, let's face it, 95% of the country actively supported) but to Iraq as well (which... well, let's not talk about Iraq).
Perhaps this, by itself, wouldn't be such a big deal... but this statement has been offered in response to the complaints given by folks complaining about such things as the budget, earmarks, and other things that fiscal conservatives are prone to complain about ad nauseum.
Noticing these two categories of post, I've come to the conclusion that this present crisis (namely, that there are serious discussions regarding the permanent democratic majority) could have been avoided with a small tweaking on the part of the Republican Leadership.
Keep the stance on Social Issues... but change the framing. Communicate that "We are holding the line. The democrats want to change where the line stands... BUT WE WILL HOLD THE LINE!!!"
This has the added benefit of pretty much forcing the new nominee's hand. Will he hold the line? Just ask the question. "Will you hold the line?"
This will keep the Social Conservative leg of the stool happy.
Regarding the Hawkish Conservative leg of the stool, the thing that strikes me primarily is a fundamental willingness to defend various silly things so long as the War on Terror is being fought effectively.
Which brings us (finally) to what happened between "Permanent Republican Majority" and now.
As you may be able to tell from the above insights... the Social Conservatives would not have been actively pleased with anything short of an overturning of Roe v. Wade. The Hawks, on the other hand, would have been pleased with more or less anything else that went on so long as the War On Terror was being actively waged on anything approaching a Jacksonian level.
I've suggested a minor tweak that could have been done on behalf of the Social Conservatives before. I've noted that the Hawks had their main issue pretty much covered... and yet, we're still wondering how we got here.
And we come to the issues of the Fiscally Conservative. Ah, the poor fiscal conservatives. What with the steel tariffs, the Farm Bills, the earmarks, the bridges to nowhere, the drug benefits, the no children left behind... well, it's enough for them to say "you know what, I think that if someone says 'The Democrats would be worse!' to me, I'm going to not believe them."
Which, I believe, is much of what happened in the past few years.
I've gotta say, I used to think that Bush did nothing but pander to the Social Conservatives... until I put myself in their shoes and I saw that, no, at best all he did was hold the line.
Then, I thought about the Hawks and came to the conclusion that, maybe, they'd be just as happy if we had pulled out of Iraq on the day of the whole "Mission Accomplished" banner thing that those people completely not associated with the administration put up... and left a note on Saddam's old throne that said "hey, next guy who sits here? Don't make us think it's worth the effort.", but, even so, they were happy enough as it was. Hey. The Democrats would be even worse.
But the Fiscal Conservatives were betrayed, betrayed, and betrayed again. When they raised objections, they were greeted with two basic responses. The Social Conservatives said something to the effect of "we're not happy either" (which confused the heck out of the fiscal conservatives, I reckon... it sure confused the heck out of me) or "the only thing that matters is the war on terror" (which, let's face it, is an argument that has diminishing returns).
An aggravating factor for why the Fiscally-minded wandered off the reservation is that doing so was *NOT* personal. It was business. Gridlock? Well, that's good for business. Well, better than a government that can't stop meddling and adding new and interesting laws, anyway. Certainly better than one that responds to stories of Reagan vetoing a highway bill because it had 150 earmarks by being told "it's a different time now, do you really think a President would want to have every budget bill he vetoes overturned by the House and Senate?"
And now... we're in a situation where there are diaries titled, of all things, "Marx Was Right" because they look to a dang-near permanent Democratic Majority.
We're in a situation where Fiscal Conservatives agree with Ralph Nader's statement that there isn't a "dime's worth of difference" between the two parties.
Now, as a Libertarian nutball, I look at the two parties and I see two parties who take a great, yet equal, interest in telling me how I ought to live my life. Perhaps they focus on different aspects... but both parties assert that they have the power to intrude.
And the arguments that worked so well way back when are failing in their ability to persuade anymore.
The Hawkish argument results in a person thinking about how, whenever they fly, they're dealing with TSA agents who know that you know that they know that you aren't a terrorist... and yet you're asked to toss your toothpaste anyway. Into a trashcan. Filled with the potential binary explosives tossed by others.
Any major step taken that one would think would be seen as a major victory by the Socially Conservative (e.g., the veto of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research) is framed as not a victory for the SoCons but as something that should thrill the FisCons (who are, instead, thinking "it took you five years to veto a bill and *THIS* was what inspired you to take it out of the inkwell???).
And, yes. I suppose we could argue about how the Fiscally Conservative need to have different, and better, priorities...
But they don't. And we're now discussing, seriously, the possibility of a Permanent Democratic Majority.
And why? Because, when the Republicans had a Permanent Republican Majority, they treated a significant portion of their base poorly.
Hosea 8:7.
Now. How can this be mitigated, if not reversed?
Well, you need to shore up with the SoCons. "We'll hold the line!" Shore up with the Hawks as well. "We'll hold the line!" works well here too.
Which brings us to the FisCons. There must be an effort made to reach out to the FisCons once again. Seriously, a reaching out. Not a "do you seriously think the Democrats hate you less than we do?" phrased question, but a legitimate apology for having treated one's benefactors poorly. A serious discussion of what happened and what was wrong. Acknowledgement that there were a handful of issues with Social Conservatives who happened, in their personal lives, to be using politics as personal therapy rather than as a way to make those of us who were willing to work for it better off.
Heck, something as simple as "Acknowledgement that such things as Frist's bill against gaming *DID* look like he was in the pocket of Abramoff rather than how he was trying to protect The Children" would be a good start.
Without a serious effort in this vein, gridlock (or the wilderness) will seem a preferable outcome to the third leg of the Republican stool.
Now keep in mind that I am one of those Libertarian nutballs who does not have a horse in this race and, as such, all of the above ought to be taken with as much salt (or wine) as you think appropriate.
But I've been thinking about how we turned from "Permanent Republican Majority" to "MARX WAS RIGHT!" and the above is what I came up with.
I probably played "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits, "Human Nature" by Michael Jackson, and "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver.
Whenever I see those songs on a jukebox, they end up getting played.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Not bad for one waffle. I don't care what anybody else says, you're not a crazy nutball.
Whether your details are right or not, you make a good case that it's the fiscal conservatives who have the most reason to feel abandoned.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
Not exactly the point I was going for.
If anything, I was pointing out that pretty much each group has reason to feel lukewarm even as they think that the other legs of the stool should be happier about their lot.
Strangely enough, I'm kinda reminded of Clinton's last days when he pardoned Marc Rich.
I had hardcore (HARDCORE!) Democratic friends who just... well, gave up when they saw that. They stopped defending the guy. Folks who fought tooth and nail against Republicans during the impeachment trials and whitewater and "Ron Brown Was Assassinated!" and absolutely everything... well, when Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, they just looked at the last 8 years and saw what was really accomplished.
An Assault Weapons Ban that was going to sunset.
Two Supreme Court Seats.
And that's it.
This is true for the hardcore NOW Pro-Choicers who supported Clinton to the "We Need To Be More Like Switzerland" Socialist Dems.
I'm wondering what Bush's "Marc Rich pardon" will be, actually.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
I guess I misread your emphasis. Either way, there isn't much to argue with. It just seemed to me that if "the line was held" in the other instances, it certainly wasn't held for FisCons. But in reality, the support for all three legs was lukewarm, which did result in lukewarm support.
I don't think you meant to wonder about pardons, literally, but I do hope that Bush pardons Ramos and Campeon, and Libby completely. Seems to me that there's a third Border Patrol agent who also deserves a pardon, too.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
I think you covered the bases well. I would also add that Arrogance has a role to play. The stunning and visceral arogance of dismaissal of we 'subjects' (from both parties) is palpable from DC. The difference between the D's and R's is that their gang tend towards marxism (which is acceptable to libs) and our gang has tended towards socialism (which most definately is not acceptable to conservatives or libertarians).
While GWB initiated the New Tone out of an honest desire to bring a level of civility back to DC, it was used as cover by the squishes (who need to be stroked by the DriveBy's as one of the 'Good Guys') to bash the core of their own party (maverick is the term of endearment). Many R's view this as a betrayal of those who sent them there. The face of the party has become that of Specter, Mccain, Snowe, Warner, Blunt, Cole and Graham. These are the types of politicians that appeal to Moderates and Swing Voters but are repellant to conservatives. They elicit no loyalty from the party base, nor do they inspire activism which is necessary for victory. In reality, theie actions suppress the activist spirit.
Until we again get leadership that actually belives in, articulates and acts upon in the principles of Conservatism (all three legs), the R's will have a rough go of it.
Two words: compassionate conservatism
Two more words: George Bush
It wasn't compassionate conservatism that lost us ground and it wasn't W the man. GWB has been excellent, IMHO even better than Reagan. GWB put two conservatives on the SCOTUS--Ronald Wilson Reagan didn't even do that. For SoCons like me it's all about judges.
Iraq lost us ground. While I understand the reasons and support our troops and President, too few of us do, even within the party. That is the reason, not compassionate conservatism.
"Be intolerant. Because some things are just stupid"
- Ryan Dobson
What part of NCLB, not vetoing CFR, immigration "reform", not vetoing even ONE spending bill in his first term, providing absolutely no leadership to the party, Medicare prescription drugs, and NewTone™ don't you get.
Bush will be remembered for four things:
1. The outcome of Iraq, over which he has yielded all control a long time ago.
2. Not standing up to the Democrats when they demonized him, the Republican Party and our military.
3. Unchecked spending.
4. The destruction of the Republican majorities through no leadership.
And, the problems we are having related to Iraq, can be layed in large measure to Compassionate Conservatism - NewTone™ and all.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
mbecker
You left out a few things on that list El Jefe Bush will be remembered in History for.
Katrina and "Brownie"
The hunt for the missing WMD's
The failed hunt for Osama
Sadly I voted for the man twice, I would not vote for him now and if anyone other than "Magic Hat" Kerry had been running against him, I probably would have only voted for him once.
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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
You and mbecker908 have also left out that Pres. Bush nominated John Roberts to Chief Justice and Sam Alito to Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. It's probably more fun for some people to bash our President, and that's just the way it is.
The purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better.
Dr. Theodore Dalrymple
I normally give him credit for two things:
1. Roberts and Alito. (And thank God he got the message on HM)
2. The War. It was/is the right thing to do. His conduct of it, especially his refusal to make the case and fight the Democrats is inexcusable.
Bottom line, if Iraq turns out well, he'll likely be remembered in the top quarter of Presidents. If it doesn't, he'll be right in there with Jimmy Carter.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
My family has benefited greatly from the Bush tax cuts. We are firmly middle class, btw, and not wealthy, which the media claim were the only ones whom the tax cuts helped.
"Be intolerant. Because some things are just stupid"
- Ryan Dobson
It just would have been nice if, instead of roll over to the pandering Congress who has to buy their districts, he had grown a pair and said, "Here's the line. You'll have to push your way over it."
We all know McCain initially opposed the tax cuts due to "unfairness", but his covering his trail was actually correct-it's kind of hard to go for tax cuts 24-7 if there are no spending cuts as well.
In politics, you have your word and your friends; go back on either and you're dead. (Rule #11 of the public policy process)
pilgram
The key phrase here, "Remembered by History".
President Bush will not be remembered for the good he did with the two Supreme Court appointments, probably tainted to some extent by Harriet Meyers miss-steps, no it will be the other things.
Unless you have some special supper duper power to effect History, the failures of a Presidency are what is remembered, not the successes. I don't know how you spin the list above as anything but abject failures in one form or the other.
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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
Sadly, history won't be kind to GWB. Mostly because of the liberal hacks who write the history books. Schoolkids will someday learn about the two Bush presidencies that featured wars in Iraq and poor economies--and that they bookended an impeached president.
But our kids and grandkids will take their freedom and their rights for granted--due in part to an unpopular but right war and two constructionists on the Supreme Court. I will remember GWB fondly, but historians won't.
"Be intolerant. Because some things are just stupid"
- Ryan Dobson
to GWB simply because he was, at best, a very mediocre President.
Like his dad, he had real issues with "the vision thing". He provided absolutely no leadership or direction to the Republican Party, which is one of the major reasons we,ve got the problems in the Congress that we've got today.
To exapand on two points, I don't give him much credit for the tax cuts, because he allowed them to be sunsetted. With respect to judges, he gets credit for R&A - begrudgingly because of Hm - but that is offset greatly because he would not fight for his lower court judicial nominees, see Estrada, etal. That was simply shameful.
Overall, I'll be very glad to see GWB ride off into the sunset. I won't be happy with his replacement, however.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
It was because Bush was unwilling to fight for his lower court nominees that we got the "Gang of 14" deal. I distinctly remember the Bush Administration saying that it's filibustered lower court nominess were a "Senatorial issue" and that they would not get involved.
I will even say that, unlike most people here, I think the "Gang of 14" deal was a good thing for Republicans. Not only was it doubtful that there were the votes to beat the filibuster, the deal did get very good nominees such as Janice Rogers Brown confirmed. Indeed, I also remember the daily Kos crowd sreaming "betrayal" and doom and goom that the conservatives were going to take over the Judiciary as a result of the deal. The problem was that Bill Frist proved absolutely gutless and would not push for the confirmation of other nominees after the deal was made.
But despite Frist's gutlessness, and despite the fact that I think that the "Gang of 14" deal was in the best interest of conservatives at the time, I still ultimately blame Bush for not being willing to fight for his nominees.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
named Hussein form Iraq. I just hope McCain can make sure the current Hussein threat never gains power.
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
And one of them wouldn't have been nominated if the conservatives in this country hadn't jump with outrage at the Harriet Miers nomination.
It tells me that if the base had complained about, say, horrid fiscal decisions with one voice... maybe stuff might have been different.
Then again... if my aunt had basketballs, she could play basketball.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
You left out a few things on that list El Jefe Bush will be remembered in History for.
And now we'll be able to add "Vetoed the new GI Bill". I really hope McCain thinks it over carefully before supporting the veto.
It wasn't compassionate conservatism that lost us ground and it wasn't W the man. GWB has been excellent, IMHO even better than Reagan. GWB put two conservatives on the SCOTUS--Ronald Wilson Reagan didn't even do that. For SoCons like me it's all about judges.
That wasn't what "compassionate conservatism" meant.
You think it meant "Conservatives who support Christian values." That was a different concept--"faith-based conservatism."
What "compassionate conservatism" really meant was "Conservatives who are comfortable with Big Government social engineering."
"Compassionate conservatism" is a euphemism for "Big Government Conservatism"--the kind of progressivism that we used to get from Teddy Roosevelt, not Ronald Reagan.
"Compassionate conservatism" was the antithesis of libertarianism.
It was a rejection of Reagan Goldwater, it was/is a "conservative" sect that came out of some Evangelic churches. It was FDR meets GOD.
Go see the Department of Education, and the eyesore fake old style school house entrances they have. That probably cost a cool million or our money.
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Molon Labe!
Hold on...I was around when Compassionate Conservatism started being pushed by the Kemps, Doles, Bushes, Bakers etc. It's cheif spokesman at the time was none other than Adrianna Huffington when she was play acting at being a Republican on CNN's Crossfire. It wasn't and never has been a major part of the evangelical Republican wing!
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
I don't think it's fair to say that "compassionate conservatism" was started by the Religious Right or evangelical Christians, but they have bought into it more than anyone else. Far more.
Case in point is Mike Huckabee. I do not doubt his commitment to the pro-life cause and the Second Amendment but aside from that, when you look at his campaign rhetoric and his record as governor of Arkansas, he was and is -- and Fred Thompson said -- a liberal. Yet, he is still the "hero" of many (though definitely not all) conservative Christians.
There was even a recent book by a former Bush (43) Administration official who is a noteworthy in the Christian conservative movement who argued that conservatives should embrace big government as the solution to societal ills. Moreover, he was making the explicit argument that that was what "compassionate conservatism" is and should be. Sorry but that's neither conservative nor compassionate in my book.
Unfortunately, I do not remember the author or his book and I am not at home or where I can look it up. But I believe the National Review wrote a rather scathing (and, IMHO< accurate) review of the book when it was released a few years ago.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
I'm familiar with the book, and like you, I don't remember the title or author...for what it's worth, as a rock ribbed SoCon, I think it's garbage. I also acknowledge that there are some evangelicals....particularly in the leadership we have in the evangelical community that have bought into the idea of expanding government to accomplish SoCon ends...but it's part of a larger movement to use expanded government to accomplish Conservative ends in general. There are factions from all legs of the stool in that movement and they are all wrong.
Compassionate Conservatism is not a movement that is exclusively a SoCon movement...it never has been...the K street project was a part of it and it represented the Gaming industry and many other big government initiatives that lights fires in SoCon Pants....at least mine!
As for Huckabee...I'm sorry to say, I supported him in the primaries as the lesser of 8 or 7 evils in my eye!
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
but be careful not to confuse moderate Republicans with Compassionate Conservatives. Bush made the term famous, he ran on the term and theory. Bush was the put forth by Evangelists. Heck, their is now a growing green movement among many Evangelicals.
I am not talking about Evangelicas or fundamentalists in general, I am talking about a significant part of our base that thinks government should do their will, not just get out of the way.
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Molon Labe!
I wouldn't say Moderates are all "Compassionate Conservatives but I would classify all Compassionate Conservatives as Moderates...
It sounds silly but there is a difference!
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
Bush put two conservatives on the Court AFTER the revolt from the base...I've NEVER been so mad as I was when W put up Miers.
It was GWB's Compassionate conservatism that gave us the prescription drug bill, no child left behind and the rest of the rot that's ruined the brand.
I's not all W's fault, I agree with you there....but he's not blameless and he's no Reagan. Reagan didn't have 7 years of Republican Congresses and accomplished more for Conservatives than W
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
for some kind of secret action but I guess I have no real reason to believe it was anything other than what they said it was. W has often had a tendency to just choose someone in his circle to fill a position, much as he chose Cheney for VP after Cheney had been helping him vet other prospects.
"We're in a situation where Fiscal Conservatives agree with Ralph Nader's statement that there isn't a "dime's worth of difference" between the two parties."
Stolen from George C. Wallace - around 1968, as I recall.
So you'll just talk about this here and get it out of your system, heh.
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
Probably the next time people start arguing with Fiscally Conservative people on the fence and someone points out that Democrats would be worse.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
I think you captured well the current situation. As a socon I am disappointed in the last eight years but not horrified. As a moderate hawk I am ambivalent. I wish it could have gone better and I think we had some missteps but I don't want to shrink the military and become the world's biggest superwimp.
However as a Fiscon/libertarian I detest the last eight years and the fact that the party has entirely screwed up what I used to consider a foundational commitment to smaller government. - Not just at the Federal level but at the state as well.
Unfortunately the definition of the "middle" or "moderate" continues to drift left. It's one of the reasons why words are indeed important. Because of this a candidate whose positions on the right seemed "conservative" twenty years ago, seem "extreme" today. This is the nature of modern societies to drift left.
The war is unpopular. Social issues work better in certain states and certain regions. We should lead nationwide with new proposals on fiscal, small government, privacy issues and bring the other issues along. -- Much like the Democrats are trying to lead with the war and bring their social and fiscal policies in behind it.
Devestating.
Every time I thought about laughing, I instead got depressed.
Brilliant.
Thank you for pointing it out.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Oh well
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
That was so devastatingly accurate. It's amazing how the reformers went to Washington and lost.
Now also found at The Minority Report
If someone asks what happened to the Conservative Coalition, GWB spent the last 8 years sawing one leg off the stool.
Bush also replaced Reagan's "Peace Through Strength" with "War with Weakness."
A major war launched with insufficient force and a total underestimation of the enemy's capability.
And he embraced Wilsonian nation-building at the point of a gun--after having run against that concept in 2000.
Bush's foreign and military policy was closer to Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson than to Ronald Reagan.
The only leg of the stool that's fully intact is social conservatism. And for SoCons, Bush has been an absolute delight.
The only leg of the stool that's fully intact is social conservatism. And for SoCons, Bush has been an absolute delight.
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
I agree 100% about Fiscons. I support all three legs of the stool, but this is where I feel most betrayed. And they STILL haven't gotten the message!
I think your view of the GWOT may be a little narrow, the TSA is NOT the front line. :)
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But creation of new government bureaucracy is one of the things that folks were asked to stomach.
We need a Department of Homeland Security. And we need to make all of the employees unionized! And a TSA! And this! And that!
Oh, by the way, if you're opposed to this? You're not really helping us fight The War On Terror (which is, mind, the only thing that really matters).
So the Fiscons Step up and support it grudgingly.
And now they are throwing their toothpaste into a 55-gallon drum full of potential binary explosives that the TSA guys aren't treating as potential binary explosives but merely like a 55-gallon drum full of toiletries.
It's not that the TSA is the front line... it's that folks were told that they had to support such compromise measures lest they hand the democrats a domestic victory... which would be providing aid/comfort to The Enemy.
If, in the future, you wonder why people don't respond well to the argument that The War On Terror Is The Only Thing That Matters, think about that 55-gallon drum full of toothpaste at your local airport.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
As far as I can tell everything it is supposed to do used to be handled by the FBI prior to the church commission. The rest is just waste.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
They stimulated the economy by increasing duct tape and Visqueen sales...
the National Guard picks up the rest of the slack on much of the rest. Funny, because the National Guard didn't need DHS to do their job for 225 years. And they still don't.
That said, FBI is still a crime solving culture as opposed to an intel analysis culture.
Another thing that really bothers me is the Director of National Intelligence. The Director of Central Intelligence (CIA Chief) used to be the primary intel advisor to the president. As 9/11 and WMDs showed us, it wasn't perfect. But, the DNI still doesn't have any teeth, but we've layered another level of bureaucracy on top of the intel community. And as far as I can tell, his only function is to be a fall guy.
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Reality.
It takes something very huge to give a party a majority status over the long haul:
1. Civil War
2. Great Depression and World War II.
We've had nothing like that. The 1970s stagflation and foreign-policy debacles, and Reagans's subsequent success levelled the playing field, but did not give Republicans the "natural" dominance that the Democrats enjoyed from the 30s to the 70s.
Right now, the numbers look good for Democrats, as good as they looked, say, in the early 90s, but there is not crisis great enough, nor any remedy grand enough, to give them some sort of permanent status.
As to social conservative and fiscal conservatives' satisfaction.
1. Why social conservative reacted as they did in Iowa. It was less George Bush than the fact that ALL the seeming frontrunners--Giuliani, Romney, and McCain--seemed to be hostile, indifferent, or unreliable as to protecting the unborn and traditional marriage. ALL of them seemed in that respect decisively worse prospects than Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.
2. Fiscal conservatives disappointment I think is understandable, but fails to appreciate three facts.
First, Bush did NOT "betray" us--he promised a very modest tax cut, and voila, but he also promised a new entitlement program, and voila. Similar things could be said on immigration, et al.
I remember watching the 2000 Republican convention and nearly threw up listening to his wife, and he, enumerating all the goodies that "he" would deliver (with no regard to federalism, separation of powers, etc.). But I knew that in some small respect his administration would mark an improvement--i.e., tax cuts, but that otherwise, it was a choice between one new fat entitlment, and five new fat entitlements (with tax increases).
Two, political reality. Just as we social conservatives had to learn in the 80s that no, you sure as heck ain't gonna get a constitutional amendment banning abortion (anytime soon), some fiscal conservatives have to give up the dream of abolishing the Department of Education, Medicare, etc. We went down that route in 1995-96, and got burned badly.
The good news is that thanks to Reagan, the Democrats can't go too far either--as they learned in 1993-94. Of course one great threat from this election is that Obama and his friends will try, and partially succeed.
Third, and a related point--Bush did go to the mat for fiscal conservatism in his social-security plan, and got burned. In retrospect, I think, a waste of political capital.
For good or for bad, it seems to me politically we remain at the statis of the 90s--no great new society's, and no great overhaul of taxation, spending, is likely.
Similarly for social conservatives, some progress seems possible--very significant if you think that every less abortion is a life saved, and traditional marriage can be preserved in the vast majority of the states--UNLESS the federal government and courts fall into the unchecked hands of opponents of the rights of the unborn and traditional family.
"People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors." -Edmund Burke
Is that it would have been theoretically possible to veto a spending bill here or there in the first term of office.
It would have been theoretically possible for Delay to say something other than "there's no fat in the budget to cut".
It would have been theoretically possible for Frist to not pass through a bill making internet poker illegal in the weeks following the Abramoff scandal.
There were a *LOT* of unforced errors.
That's the "reality".
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
That one hurt y'all a lot.
A principled debate on right to die issues is one thing. Congress rushing to pass a bill overturning a judicial decision and intruding into the private affairs of a family is something else.
I would still have us do it again though.
I doubt I could explain why to you.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I think you've got a good approach to things here, but I disagree with you in a couple of respects.
First, I think it needs to be remembered that the categories of SoCon, FisCon, etc. are mostly constructs. Few real people fit neatly into any of those categories, but most conservatives fit into all of them simultaneously (if with different emphases), and most moderates (libertarians included here) sympathize with the usual conservative positions in some of these categories, while sympathizing with the usual liberal positions on others.
Second, I disagree with your assessment of where holding the line would be sufficient.
From the social conservative perspective, holding the line is all that's being asked on most issues. But on abortion, holding the line would be completely inadequate. Merely saying that we're no further away from overturning Roe than we have been means that the death toll is still rising by around a million a year. Pro-lifers need forward progress, and no amount of reframing will change that.
Likewise from the hawkish perspective, holding the line is insufficient. Merely not losing in Iraq does no good; we need to win. And until victory is assured, there's not much for anybody to be happy about on this front.
On the other hand, holding the line might have been sufficient from the fiscal conservative perspective. Cutting spending, reducing regulations, cutting taxes permanently would have been nice, of course. But as long as these weren't getting any worse, and the economy was still chugging along, then one could have coped. But things, as you point out, were and are getting worse, so that things look just as bad from the fiscal conservative perspective as from the others.
Now let's take this back to the individual level:
If you're an all-round conservative, then you're unhappy in every way. And if you're particularly interested in one area of policy, then you'll be particularly unhappy in that way. There's no way that the Democrats would be better, but you're prone to loud complaints and a deepening pessimism.
On the other hand, if you're a moderate—someone with sympathies both to conservatism and to liberalism in different aspects of policy—then you'll be particularly unhappy with whatever areas you take the conservative side on. In fact, you might be liable to give up on these altogether. However, you are probably hopeful in the areas that you take the liberal side on, since the political party that takes that side has been mostly out of power since 1994, and might be coming back.
And it's these voters—moderates, sympathetic to conservative position on some matters, but not necessarily fiscal matters—that the GOP seems to have been losing over the past few years.
Yet somehow Republicans have gotten it into their head that the way to win these moderates back is by being more like liberals. This leads to more dissatisfaction from conservatives, and it gives even more kinds of moderates reason not to vote Republican, which leads Republican politicians to creep even further to the left to try to win them back, which will fail and start the cycle over again.
I think that you've hit on exactly the right question: how we got from the triumphalism of a few years ago to the doom and gloom of today. And I think that it's the cause of that triumphalism—the idea that a permanent Republican majority could be built by making more concessions to liberal policy, particularly in fiscal matters, while merely holding the line in others—that, having failed, is the direct cause of today's gloominess.
Judges gave us Roe V Wade
Judges will take it away.
We have done well on judges and would have kept on doing well. It took the libs 40 years to get the court system they wanted. We aren't going to get ours in less.
The FMA and HLA would have just wiped out the party in fighting for them that is the bottom line.
The people that went nuts over Huckabee didn't have the vision to realize they were voting themselves into irrelevance. They gave the opposition a personalization of their enemy. What's more everyone who voted for the Huckster said "I don't care about what you want at all and I will shove a load of crap into your face to prove it". So yes the Nat Sec Cons, the Fisc Cons, the Good Government Cons, the Immigration Cons just through up their collective hands and said sometimes a carrot is nothing but an orange colored shaft.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
The line probably has been moved forward in a sense. In 1973, there were two Justices against Roe. In the period between the appointments of Thomas and Ginsberg (who replaced White), there were four votes against. Today there are two certain votes against, and two possible votes against.
It's unlikely that both Roberts and Alito would be votes in favor of Roe, so the line has probably been moved forward relative to 1973. But even if they are both votes against, then the line is unchanged from where it was in 1993.
But none of this matters until there's a fifth vote. If things are stalled at four votes or fewer, then pro-lifers will have given decades of support to the Republican party for absolutely nothing in return. And if it doesn't look like a fifth vote is in the offing, then the pro-life movement will probably be forced to completely alter their political strategy, and probably not to the benefit of the Republican party.
The GOP's record on Sup Court picks since Nixon has been a disaster. Even if we skip Nixon and Ford, and go to Reagan, the record is still terrible. Reagan was 1 for 3, and while there may be some excuse for Kennedy, there is none for O'Connor. Reagan made a stupid, and leftist-style promise to put a woman on the bench, thus limiting his choices with his first pick. The result, of course, was O'Connor, and she was not a good justice, and she's proven since retirement to be an arrogant judicial supremacist.
Bush the Elder was 1 for 2. What else can be said about Souter? He's a horrible justice, and the rumors that Edith Jones was the second choice only makes it that much harder to take.
Based on the evidence so far, W is 2 for 2, but as you say that leaves us with only four. That leaves us with only four when we should have 5 or 6. Roe should have already been overturned. Insane Establishment Clause rulings should have already been ceased. Property rights should have been respected. And we should be in a confident state about the pending Second Amendment case and any near-future attempt to have the Sup Court impose gay marriage/civil unions on the entire nation.
Instead, we are left in the position of hoping for multiple things; (1) that Anthony Kennedy cares more about the actual Consitution than the praise of the NYTimes and European elites, (2) that Antonin Scalia remains healthy and desirous of staying on the Court, and (3) that McCain some how pulls it out in November, and doesn't stab us in the back if he gets to replace Stevens and Ginsburg, and possible Kennedy and Scalia as well.
Considering what should have been, we are not in a good position.
Technically, there were 7 votes against Roe in 1992. Roe was overruled sub silentio with Planned Parenthood v Casey. Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a "do-over" by changing the basis of the ruling, throwing out part of one of Roe's provisions, and unilaterally thinking up a new ad hoc standard of review never before and never since used in other areas of law. It left a lot of people on both sides too dissatisfued to acknowledge it. This is why I say she is more to blame more than any other justice that it was upheld.
It is no longer about overruling Roe but overruling Casey (and perhaps Doe v. Bolton). We saw this time and time again in senate hearings, judicial confirmations, and discussions with legal experts and judges and justices themselves. It will be paeticularly difficult to overturn since most of the opinion was dedicated to the need to follow precedent and actually serves, even in other areas of law, as the precedent for when to overrule precedent.
Even so, five votes to overrule Casey won't matter without four votes to grant cert. The latter would probably be a far tougher obstacle. I don't believe we have more than two to do either, and we'll probably be down to one in ten years no matter who the next President is.
We (in all categories of conservatives) have lost the sense of patience that a political movement needs. The liberal movement worked tirelessly for a very long time to get both the courts and enough popular support to keep court decisions from being overturned.
We have to take the same approach. We have to reverse the courts (much of which we have done...the courts are increasingly conservative) and get to work on changing people's minds with respect to the conservative philosophy. It won't be easy, but it is necessary work.
Now also found at The Minority Report
"And it's these voters—moderates, sympathetic to conservative position on some matters, but not necessarily fiscal matters—that the GOP seems to have been losing over the past few years."
Socially Conservative-minded moderates are leaving the party because the GOP isn't good enough?
Hawkish moderates are leaving the party because the GOP isn't good enough?
This boggles me.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Instead of speaking of socially conservative-minded moderates, let's talk about pro-life moderates, since there's better polling about who's pro-life than about who might be considered a social conservative.
Around 40% of the country is pro-life, and in recent years, the Democrats have been getting a quarter of these votes, or 10% of the electorate, without even trying. There are two possible reasons for this unlikely 10%: 1.) they don't really care that much about the abortion issue, relative to other issues on which they sympathize with the Democrats, or 2.) they're cynical about the GOP's sincerity in promising to do something about abortion, and hence vote for the Democrats with whom they sympathize on other grounds.
And such cynicism is understandable, because the GOP has been in control of the White House for all but 12 years since 1968, since around the time abortion rose to the surface as a national issue, and because these Republican presidents (not all of whom were pro-life, but all of whom relied on the votes of those opposed to abortion: consider McGovern's unofficial campaign slogan in 1972) appointed ten of the twelve Justices who joined the Supreme Court over this period, to no effect whatsoever.
Until these facts change, I think that it's inevitable that the numbers of Democratic voters in the second category will increase at the expense of the Republicans, since no one will be disabused of his cynicism under the present state of things, but many will come to notice how long it has been since anything happened on this front, and some segment of these will have preexisting sympathies with the Democrats on other fronts.
And the Democrats seem to have been making a concerted effort to get these sorts of voters over the last couple of years: in the recent election in Mississippi, Casey in Pennsylvania, Shuler in North Carolina, and other pro-life Democrats. It's impossible to say whether the voters actually trust these Democrats to follow through on their stated pro-life stance, but it's probable that they'd be no less cynical of the Republican. And if so, then there's no harm in supporting the Democrat, since you agree with his party in other ways.
And if there's enough of these voters that the Democrats will make such an effort to go after them in certain districts, then they must exist in other districts in smaller numbers, but possibly still large enough to make a difference.
And hawkish moderates, too. The Democrats are careful to say that, though they're going to withdraw from Iraq, they're going to do it relatively slowly, and that they're going to put a lot of those troops to work in Afghanistan to pursue the "real" war. They might not mean this, but by doing this they're trying to go after moderate voters who care about the war, and in a hawkish way, but are cynical about Republican strategy and/or competence. From the polls, it's clear that there are a lot of those people who, having voted for Bush in 2000 on the grounds for their support for his strategy and execution in Iraq, are now likely to vote for the Democrat this year.
In neither case, I think, is it really a matter of moderates thinking that the Republicans aren't good enough on the matters on which they sympathize with them; it's a matter of them thinking that the Republicans just aren't any good, aren't significantly better than the Democrats, and hence deciding their vote on other matters, on which they might tend to agree with the Democrats. And the Democrats, seeing this opportunity, are trying to seem less bad on the matters that alienated these voters from their coalition to begin with.
The only way for the Republicans to win such voters back, and to keep similar ones from leaving in the future, is for the party to win their trust on the matters on which they have a preexisting sympathy with the conservative position, just as I take you as arguing (quite rightly) that the GOP needs to reach out to and earn the trust of moderates/libertarians with sympathies to fiscal conservatism.
It strikes me that the country is spectacularly ambivalent.
Polls, as I understand them, say that the majority of the country is opposed to abortions that occur after the first trimester ends. This is quite regularly touted as reason to describe the country as "pro-life". However, these same polls find that the majority of the country thinks that the first trimester should have legal abortion. This exact same poll is then cited by pro-choicers as reason why the country is pro choice.
As for the rest of it... yeah. Good point.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
What you say is true, and it is one reason why Roe should be overturned, so that this layered public opinion on abortion can be worked out via the democratic process.
The other, bigger reason, is of course that Roe is a decision w/o a shred of Consitutional merit.
Highly recommended. I started out this administration as an unabashed Hawk and fiscal conservative, but found out along the way I might be a libertarian. I was as guilty as anyone about the primacy of the GWOT, but no more... at least not since the GOP bailed on social security reform.
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As I've written probably too many times, the GWOT is not the most important issue at hand. Fiscal responsibility is, and under that heading I place non-comprehensive immigration reform, tax rate reduction (or for gawsh sakes hold the line), spending reduction, Social Security reform, and the need for more Roberts/Alito style justices. (Yes, there is an argument to be made why every one of those items is important to fiscal responsibility).
If we don't get our fiscal house in order, we won't be able to fight the GWOT.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
Great post birdmojo, I hope you continue to make diaries. I think we have similar political views, and have enjoyed your posts. I'm a fiscal conservative too, and my libertarian leanings made me never care much about social issues. I just want both sides to leave me alone
Fiscal conservatives have been spurred this decade, and the rebuttals we receive are laughable. I hear "the Democrats want to socialize this whole country" as Republicans line up for farm subsidies bills and enormous Medicare packages. I'm told Democrats want to interfere with business while we bail out investment firms with taxpayer dollars. Democrats are supposed to spend this country into bankruptcy, but that's essentially what we've been doing under Republican control.
Besides the FisCons that have been burned, I think you also really have to look at corruption as a key role in this too. The Republican party was supposed to stand for principles, values, etc. Every other day we were hearing about a scandal or seeing a mugshot from a party leader. Yes politicians are crooks, but I was most disappointed at the fact that the party was more interested in sweeping it under the rug instead of exterminating the infestation.
Anyways, thanks for speaking up for the FisCons. Doesn't seem like there are many of us left in the party.
are actively voicing their frustrations! I just scanned another 200 or so posts and I found only 1 to be moderately negative! I wonder what Sen. Cole's office phones will be like come Monday morning!!
Superb post!!! Stuff like this is why I prefer RedState to all others.
I would be a nutball Libertarian too. First, great blog, recommended.
I think we had a little more than just holding the line on the SoCon issues as mentioned above w/r/t judges, but we won't see the fruit of that for many years. And if we don't work to elect John McCain to the presidency, we will lose ground again were we really have a shot to replace a lot of the Carter-era judges. As far as other forward progress on issues, we forget things like The Mexico City Policy (which is both Fis and So con, and why I don't particularly care for the actual labels) or on partial birth abortion.
President Bush will always be a mixed bag, there are areas that he's great in and other that he's not so great (there really isn't much in between with him), such as:
Fiscal policy: tax cuts - good, just about everywhere else - horrible.
Judges: Mostly good, but with a Harriet Miers thrown in there. Probably the best area in his presidency.
Foreign policy: Good, bad & the ugly from both sides (can't please anyone by splitting the baby like he's done).
Social policy: Again, mostly good and I think better than you portray as just holding the line.
___________________________________
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If the perfect FisCon were to arrive, he would just as likely lose as not, with the other factions throwing the brickbats at HIM!
look like our majority of 2006. The mercurial and brilliant Gingrich gave way to the more plodding Hastert (after several sexerruptions), the solid Dick Armey to the game-oriented Delay, etc. And of course, the GOP did succeed in electing a president in 2000, who became the defacto party leader, and making the majority vulnerable to the almost invevitable sixth year slump.
Time erodes all majorities. They get tired, complacent, fond of DC's high life and just plain incompetent and corrupt. The GOP majority experienced all of this. The Democrats are doing so now.
Poor Nancy. She thinks that only the yang gets whacked.
"Heck, something as simple as "Acknowledgement that such things as Frist's bill against gaming *DID* look like he was in the pocket of Abramoff rather than how he was trying to protect The Children" would be a good start."
I fought this from day one, with little or no support, other than that Mike Dondero guy (where did he go?). I don't need support, that is one small notch on my stick I guess. But I kept telling people that the absurd, atrocious, insulting, Frist online gambling bill was a watershed for our party. That was the day when we REALLY hurt ourselves, and for what?
Today nobody talks about the evils of online gambling, the new enemy is Grand Theft Auto 4. There will always be token issues to stir up those who care little for liberty, or only care about the liberty they personally choose to partake in.
BTW, Frist did not push through that ban, in an underhanded way (attaching it to a ports security bill on the last day of Congress) because he was worried about Abramoff or the children. He did it out of personal ambition to be president, he polled that it would help him with Socons in Iowa, so he tried to force it in on every bill. And know where is Frist? He didn't even get on the stage with the likes of Paul and Tancredo lol.
As to your overall point. I think this so called faction war among libertarian cons, social cons, and fiscons is an illusion. We all seem to be looking for reasons to be downtrodden. We do not need a long list of points, we do not need committees are smart men, we can solve this thing in two points.
1) Follow the Constitution: This will placate the fiscons and libertarians if we just follow the thing.
2) Socons need to stop asking for candidates that are eligible for sainthood. They need to LISTEN to the candidates. Both Rudy and McCain said over and over that they would appoint strict constructionist judges in the mold of Alito and Roberts. If people are so obstinate that they don't believe those men, then to hell with them.
___________________________________________________________
Molon Labe!
But I kept telling people that the absurd, atrocious, insulting, Frist online gambling bill was a watershed for our party. That was the day when we REALLY hurt ourselves, and for what?
Meanwhile, half of the states in this country now have state-run legalized gambling (lotteries). What a crock.
The day the feds shut down betonsports.com was the day I stopped doubting whether I was a libertarian.
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_the entire thing was about none other than taxation and personal ambition. They really did not care one whit about liberty or the Constition. This country gambles billions illegally, and almost everyone is involved in some way, whether through a Super Bowl pool or NCAA basketball brackets. At least the serious online gamblers paid taxes on their winnings. Anyway, it was just more nanny state attacks on freedom, nothing to see here folks, please move along.
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Molon Labe!
The sad part is that there is a strong case that legalizing online gambling (and regulating it to an extent), would be great for the economy. The IRS could track winnings easier while the casinos would bring in new jobs for this country as well as money from overseas. The amount of tax dollars casinos would pay in could be used for infrastructure or simply lowering other taxes.
Instead we choose to send billions of dollars a year off to small Caribbean islands.
I always found humor in our gaming laws.
"You can't gamble in this country. That is unless you're at one of our lottery stations, horse racing tracks, state-sponsored casinos, or on an Indian reservation."
Being a big time poker fan, the gaming laws have really pushed me to a more libertarian stance on issues. Both sides are now telling me how I should live my life and spend my money.
Banning online gambling is what lost the majority in 2006?
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
We're saying that in the days immediately following a major scandal in which a lobbyist for, among other things, casinos worked with Social Conservatives (I'll be generous and say that it was unbeknownst to them) to "ban" new casino generation (among other things).
What was scandalous about this (among other things) is that the Social Cons inadvertently supported the creation of a monopoly.
You know that whole "wise as serpents, innocent as doves" thing?
Well, this was the opposite of that.
Anyway, in the weeks following this scandal coming to light, Republican leadership thought it would be a smart move to ban online gambling. For "The Children".
And, to many, it looked like it was one last favor being given to Abramoff.
That was the problem.
It was a lot more complicated than merely "banning online gambling".
Moreover, there is a significant segment of the population that says "if I want to drop $20 on a poker game, that's none of the government's business." Laws like that one tick such people off.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
_I dont' smoke but I defend smoker's rights. It amazes me how many here laugh at the idea the gambling ban hurt us. I know for a fact it did hurt us. The entire Frist big government Congress got us crushed. Now we are dealing with the Bush Big government Executive Branch, and we shall see how that goes.
__________________________________________________________
Molon Labe!
Very good point. It hurt us because there was always a percent of voters who no matter if they agreed or disagreed with various policies of the party, always respected the fact that the party wanted to stay out of our lives. That the Democrats want to regulate how we live our lives, while Republicans said "it's your money, do as you please".
When Republicans started to join that Democrat thinking, it lessened one of the key differences between parties.
I accidentally posted before I was finished...the timing was bad for several reasons...but I doubt it played any roll in the 2006 elections in the vast majority of voters minds!
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
There's a significant portion of the Republican Base that makes a certain joke reference to the Democrats by saying in a nasally, whiny voice "FOR THE CHIIIIIIIIIIIIILDREEEEEEN".
There's a significant portion of the Republican Base that says "He's your Uncle, not your Mother" about the Government.
These people watched the Republicans turn into a bunch of Nannies.
Don't underestimate that.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
If you read anything I'v posted you'd know nearly every thing I've posted agress down the line with your reply!
I'm speaking specifically about the internet gambling legislation having an impact on 2006 elections.
I'm willing to be proven wrong if someone can show me polling to the contrary...But I'd be shocked if it was on the minds of a majority of voters minds on O6 as they voted!
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
...as Glenn Beck would say.
First off, this is not a 'whoa is me' post, b/c I'm fine.
No one is saying that the internet gambling ban was THE most important factor in the 2006 elections. But, it was a factor nonetheless...
That said, here's how it works. Mojo hit the nail on the head, but I'll elaborate my own position. Prior to the ban, I was incrementally realizing that I was a libertarian. But, it was a gradual progression. And I thought the socons (in congress) were well-meaning, if a little misguided.
I pay my taxes. In bad times (not that there are many), I give at least 5% of income to charity/church. Sometimes I give as much as 10%. My only debt is a mortgage (actually at that time I guess I was finishing up paying off my truck, too). I invest at least 10% of my income in retirement savings. I've never used an illegal drug. I didn't have a kid at the time (not that it really should matter). I fund a Social Security system- that I never expect to see one dollar from- without my consist. Etc, etc.
BUT, I like to gamble. On sports. I'm pretty decent at it, too. But there's no casinos near me.
The congress acts, and in one fell swoop money I had in betonsports.com is seized, locked down, or whatever. I hadn't even been putting money into the system, since I was playing with about $300 I'd deposited back in 2001 or 2002. If I get anything back (the lawyers and accountants are still collecting funds, paying off debts, etc), it'll be pennies on the dollar.
Like I said earlier, that day I quit doubting if I was a libertarian. To boot, for the first time socon legislators stepped on my toes. I've cast a leery I ever since.
I oppose state lotteries for fiscal reasons, not social reasons. But, states (including mine) have them anyway. But, I can't bet on sports legally. Odd, because it's a far safer proposition for me, as I at least break even.
That's how it works. It wasn't a deciding factor for how I voted in 2006 (since I ended up voting straight ticket GOP). But, I don't doubt it played a factor in at least a few people's eyes.
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If there were any libertarians on my ballot in 2006, I would've considered voting for them. But there wasn't, so I didn't have a choice.
And I had to swallow my hurl to pull the lever for Crist.
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about online gambling because I think it's the right thing to do. How can you say it's illegal to gamble say in Texas, and allow people in Texas to vote online which arguably not gambling in Texas and is located in Texas at the same time...it's a difficult issue in that it could be argued from a federalist, and a Federal Regulatory point of view simultaneously ab was screaming out to be defined. You don't like the way it came down and I respect that because I can see your argument.
I still stand on my argument however that that issue might have been an issue for you in determining the outcome of the 2006 elections...but I doubt it even entered into 98% of voters minds when they voted.
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
"How can you say it's illegal to gamble say in Texas, and allow people in Texas to vote online which arguably not gambling in Texas and is located in Texas at the same time..."
I honestly don't know what you're trying to say. I'm guilty of incoherency (both online and in person) often, so that's honestly not a knock. I'm not sure where "vote online" fits in here. So I think I'll try to address at least part of what you're saying...
Either way, I'm not a Texas resident, but don't they have the lotto, too? I don't think any state that feels the need to institute a lottery has any moral argument for criminalizing gambling. But if they do... it's up to them. Not the federal government. And as far as interstate commerce clauses goes (which might be what you're basing your opinion on), that has been used to overreach by the federal government at least since the FDR administration. See the US gov't vs Schecter Poultry case (though that really is an apples to oranges comparison, I'll readily admit).
Our point was that this event showed many of us that the GOP left the "government out of our lives" reservation (for us) around that time. You have at least three or four people here that remember this event vividly. Maybe we're just political junkies like the rest of the people who read Redstate, so everything gets magnified. However, I've heard complaints about this from quite a few non-junkies as well.
Alas, like you said, we will have to agree to disagree.
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LOL...I was struggling with how to say it when I wrote it and I'm sure I further created confussion by writing vote when I meant to write bet.
My point is about the Federal Government regulating internet Gambling. While I generally oppose Federal regulation of anything, the internet gambling issue was demanding a federal answer since (I'm using Texas as an example but it could be any state), While it might be illegal to gamble in San Antonio Texas but not in Las Vegas, and since you could place a bet via the internet in Vegas it could be argued you didn't break the law in Texas since the bet was placed in Vegas. On the other hand, Texas could say you were physically in Texas therefore you did break the law.
It leaves some confusion because of the interstate, and international for that matter, nature of internet gambling that the Feds needed to regulate it somehow. I would also argue as a Federalist that this is one instance where the interstate commerce clause was rightly applied!
I hope that clarifies my position.
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
"I invest at least 10% of my income in retirement savings."
From personal experience, I'd advise bumping that up to 15%. (^,^)
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
I said "at least."
Support libertarian Republicans here and here.
www.rlc.org
www.fairtax.org
I know for a fact the Democrats courted gamblers and the gambling sites were used to fund groups such as Act Blue. Many here think abortion (which will not be banned any time soon) and Gay Marriage are the only issues.
libertarian conservatives know what happens when the camel gets his nose in the tent. It is the "little things" that show who really does care about personal freedom and small government and who does not.
___________________________________________________________
Molon Labe!
It is the "little things" that show who really does care about personal freedom and small government and who does not.
These "little things" are the bellwethers. If you can't get the little things right, if you can't be consistent with your professed philosophy of governance on matters that are fairly simple when it comes to liberty, then your entire motivation must become suspect, you can't be trusted.
It wasn't that long ago we were seeing people post about, hey, don't worry about the earmarks, they're only 1%, blah blah. An incredibly short-sighted viewpoint. Because the same congress people who evidently agreed with that sentiment are now poised to foist the Farm Bill on us. Look, if you can't manage $10BB wisely, then how can we possibly expect you to manage $300BB wisely?
This is so basic. Do what you say you will do. If you're for limited government then stop expanding its powers and decreasing liberty as a consequence. If you're for reduced government spending then stop spending so damn much!
If you are actually for more spending, and you are for more government authority, but, oh, just not as much as the (D)'s, then fess up to your Socialist-lite philosophy.
The recent decline of the Republican party is NOT a result of any alienation within the base of the Republican party. 2006 turnout among partisan Republicans was not down.
Independents are flocking to Democrats in droves. They are doing so based on a results based assessment of the direction of the country. This is why right track/wrong track is so important to the governing party.
Losing wars and overseeing a retreating economy is bad politics!
The country elected an under qualified man with good intentions in 2000 and it led to the mismanagement of the federal government and the war effort. Rather than practicing oversight of the President's mismanagement Republicans in Congress looked the other way and in so doing did their party and the country a disservice.
The purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better.
Dr. Theodore Dalrymple
My point is that IMO votes for Democrats right now are votes against Republican GOVERNANCE, not Republican VALUES. The pendulum will swing back when Republicans prove they are capable of governing or a Democratic president similarly mismanages the government.
The purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better.
Dr. Theodore Dalrymple
Casual independent voters that are deciding these elections do so on the basis of EXECUTIVE leadership. The Republican party brand is determined predominantly by the Bush presidency.
You can make the argument that the D Congress is mismanaging the country if you want to, but as evidenced by the recent special elections that argument is not resonating.
You can disparage my comments if you want to but that is the political reality.
The problem with today's GOP is that they have let the Ds and the MSM frame all of the debate. They are strictly playing defense to the attacks made upon them. If the GOP wants to win again they need to play offense. They need to have bomb-throwers like the '94 Newt Gingrich to communicate clearly an all out attack on the Ds and their mismanagement in governing.
The purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better.
Dr. Theodore Dalrymple
its not about framing. its about results. Of course you need both to be successful, but results in foundational.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/accepting_the_premises.html
Subscription requiredStop Accepting Liberal Premises!
It's the cover commentary of the latest Limbaugh Letter just off the presses today: "Stop Accepting Liberal Premises." But that's what we do. Look, you couldn't get the ANWR vote defeated to drill in ANWR without some Republican votes. Because Republicans are in districts where there are a lot of people who think oil is destroying the planet and that we're using too much of it. This is the result of a 20- to 25-year campaign, and it has infected the minds of the American people. Let me give you a little story as an example here from the San Francisco Chronicle today.
They went out and they took a poll of people. "Californians support the idea of charging 'green' vehicle fees that would make drivers of gas guzzlers pay higher taxes and offer discounts for those driving less-polluting vehicles, according to a survey by a transportation researcher at San Jose State University. The state [of California] now charges drivers registration and licensing fees and gasoline taxes at rates that do not take into account vehicles' pollution levels. But the survey, conducted by Asha Weinstein Agrawal, a research associate with the university's Mineta Transportation Institute [named after Leon Mineta], found that Californians would support a variety of taxes and fees to raise money for transportation improvements as well as combat global warming, including: Raising vehicle registration fees, which now average $31, to an average of $62," doubling them, "and having higher-polluting vehicles pay higher rates and cleaner cars lower rates. ..." They also believe in "Levying a mileage-based tax that would replace the 18-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax. The per-mile amount would vary depending on how much a vehicle polluted the air. 'The public is very supportive of these green taxes and fees,'" said the researcher at San Jose State.
This is how it's worked. They have created all this guilt, and you've got people in San Francisco who think this has to be done, or has to be done, and when you have linguine-spined politicians who simply care about being reelected and doing what polls well. "But, Rush! But, Rush! That's what democracy is: the people, the will of the peoples." No, we are a representative republic. We are not a full-fledged democracy. We're not mob rule. We're not simply majority rule. We are a representative republic, and the idea used to be we would elect leaders -- leaders who might believe in their hearts that all of this is a giant hoax and a scam and would have the guts to stand up and say so and fight it. We have precious few of those people around. They might think it, but they don't have the guts to stand up and say it. So we go along and we get this notion that all these things have to... This is San Francisco. This is California in general. Don't forget the news out of LA yesterday, which was going to bump up similar registration fees and the gasoline tax to nine cents a gallon and so forth, in addition to whatever price hikes are down the road just from the market forces.
It's not a minority of people that are getting things done. It's not even a small minority of people that are getting things done. Washington Post today: "Washington Inaction on Polar Bears Criticized -- Democrats Blame Interior for Delay in Addressing Climate Change." Now we got food prices skyrocketing out there; we got energy prices skyrocketing out there. We got any number of problems that people are facing, and "Senate Democrats yesterday" spent a lot of time beating up George Bush for "failure to meet a legal deadline for determining whether global warming is pushing polar bears toward extinction and lashed their scheduled star witness -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne -- for declining to appear in his own defense." James Inhofe is one of these that will stand up, the Senator from Oklahoma, and tell people that the whole thing is a hoax and it's a rip-off and it is nothing more than an attempt to expand government by virtue of raising taxes and limiting people's liberty. James Inhofe said that the environmentalist wackos "are trying to use the act [the polar bear business] 'to achieve global warming policy that special interest groups cannot otherwise achieve through the legislative process.'"
So you've got little kids watching Algore's movie, they go home, and say (doing little kid impression), "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! The polar bears! The polar bears, they're dying! I saw a picture in the Gore movie! Polar bears, two polar bears on piece of ice, and it's buried six feet. They're gonna drown, Mommy! They're gonna drown." Parents don't want their kids frightened like that, so they join the cause, and this is not small minority. That's why this is something that's going to have to be fought, day in and day out. But I think there's progress on this. Algore announces on 60 Minutes a $300 million initiative to really get people to believe what's going on. What, the movie didn't work, Al? I guess the movie didn't have the impact everybody thought it was going to have. So there is hope here, and there a lot of scientists who are doing their best, but they get squelched and they get impugned in the Drive-By Media when they speak up. But, I'm telling you, this is the thing about democracies and representative republics: People generally get what they want. The environmentalist... This is the thing. Liberals get hold of something, and they don't stop. No matter how much of it they get, it's never enough. They want to keep going. This is traceable to 1980 to 1982, '83. This is when the modern global warming movement began, and it's been steady, and they just keep plodding away, and here we are now 28 years later, 25 years later, and it's taken hold. So we're accepting the premise and trying to refute it a little bit. We shoulda stomped on it way back when.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
By the way, Steve, it's not the American people are dumb, it's not that. It's where Senator McCain was wrong yesterday. The American people aren't dumb. What is happening here is, and has been for much longer than this radio show has been around, a constant daily bombardment from the government and from the media of pure, unadulterated liberalism. A lot of people sit around and over 20 years of a bombardment, watching television every day, you're going to soak some of it up. You're going to start to believe it. And then if your friends believe it, nobody wants to argue with their friends, and then you couple it with the fact that a lot of people want their lives to have meaning and all these liberal causes, supporting them, can make people think their lives are going to mean something. Liberals are very smart about this, and they're patient. Because they're content to dominate news cycles, set the agenda, and as long as it takes, they're still controlling everything because there's not a political party around that's refuting the agenda or the premise.
I wish there were somebody besides Ronald Reagan that I could return to and cite as an example of how you fight and beat these people. And since it's such a great example, why our party has no desire of replicating it has been something that confounds me. I understand it, but still it confounds me. I don't agree with it, don't misunderstand, but it confounds me. Lee Atwater was one, too. Lee Atwater refused to accept the agenda and the premise -- just went out there, it was a political war, and he was out to destroy 'em politically, and he did, and they hated him, they despised him. We got too many people on our side that want to be liked by these people, appeasers and so forth. But if nobody's going to reject the premise on any issue that liberals put forth, then all we're going to be doing, it's like Mr. Buckley said way back early in his career, he had this phrase: "Standing athwart history and saying, 'stop.'" Meaning, we put the brakes on it for a while but we never get control of the agenda ourselves and start advancing it. That's what everybody wants, and for that, you need leadership. And it just isn't there.
Now, we have to do what we have to do, and right now stopping them is what we have to do. Stopping global warming, stopping the premise of manmade global warming, establishing that as a hoax. But then what do we do after we stop it, if we succeed in stopping it, what do we do? Well, then we generally, okay, we declare victory and we move on to the next liberal premise and try to stop it. They don't give up. They'll try an end around, illegal immigration, amnesty, a great example. We stop that cold, the whole thing, meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform, stopped it, and so Congress wised up and they start doing little incremental things like the S-CHIP program, sneak a little immigration amnesty in there, other little pieces of legislation. They just keep going, folks, they're Energizer bunnies, and right now we're in a mode where we just have to stop them, stand athwart history and shout, "Stop." It would be so wonderful to be in control of the agenda and bombard the American people every day with our beliefs. Look, I'm not trying to depress you. As you know, I'm optimistic. If we don't give up the fight we're going to eventually prevail, and it's going to go on long after we're gone but your kids and grandkids are going to be around as either beneficiaries or as victims of whatever happens today as we battle these issues ourselves, so it's always going to be an ongoing thing.
Rush (and pilgrim) is Right!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
they lie and they know most are not smart enough to challenge them. Our economy is not bad, or in recession, it is simply hyper developed and will likely grow in only the small single digits.
There are absurdly attractive investments around the world in poorer countries that are growing quickly. If people would get off their arses and look for opportunities, then they would be fine.
___________________________________________________________
Molon Labe!
I'm certainly no economist. My wife balances my checkbook. But the original point is still valid. In politics perception is more important than reality.
Abstract measurements of the conomy like GDP growth or unemployment are meaningless to most people. Who really cares if the economy eaked out a meagre .05% growth?
Most people have seen their house, their single largest asset, go down significantly in value. A very large percentage of the population is mortgaged to the hilt and they were living beyond their means by cashing in home equity. They can't do that anymore so they feel a lot poorer. Many of them have seen their 401k go stagnant or shrink and that is there second biggest asset. Gasoline is at $3.60 a gallon and rising. Other home energy costs have gone way up. Groceries are going through the roof. And wages are not even pretending to keep pace.
The part of the economy that most people care about which is their own personal financial situation sucks!
The only thing good that can be said about it is that so far not too many jobs have disappeared. The jobs that have been lost have mostly been in construction which is the worst segment of our economy (except perhaps banking) and these were mainly filled by illegal aliens and they are probably hurting but mostly don't vote.
lets see, unemployment is low by historical standards. Core inflation is under check. The Dow has made a remarkable recovery since 9/11. Our currency is low so our exports are on fire.
Again, those who say the economy is in shambles are simply repeating MSNBC talking points. They talk about the Clinton economy, an economy based on a high tech bubble. You mention housing prices, the pricest have fallen the fastest in areas where they went up in a speculative bubble. Where I live housing prices are not down more than 5 percent.
It is funny that people look at bubbles such as the .coms and house flipping, and somehow ascribe that the bubble prior to bursting was the norm, where all other prices are to be judged. It is just like when people talk about $20 oil, as if that low was what we should judge all other prices against.
IMO, anytime someone thinks the government should "protect their jobs", those people are putting themselves in a subservient position. Our economy, the modern world economy, practices creative destruction. Businesses that are no longer effective and competitive will be destroyed and replaced by more creative, efficient, and competitive companies.
The only thing we need in this country is lower taxes and less government. The American people will continue to thrive as long as they are learned, eager, adaptable, and proud.
___________________________________________________________
Molon Labe!
Most people have seen their house, their single largest asset, go down significantly in value. A very large percentage of the population is mortgaged to the hilt and they were living beyond their means by cashing in home equity.
Many of them have seen their 401k go stagnant or shrink and that is there second biggest asset.
The first two things you note, are somewhat of the government's making. The current income tax system has a lot to do with why houses and 401k accounts are how people determine their relative "poorness" or "richness."
Instead of having a retail sales tax or flat income tax which help increase the chances that money will be saved/invested efficiently, we have that bloated mess that the Dems AND GOP have foisted upon us.
Yet another failure of the GOP to do the job we elected them to do.
Support libertarian Republicans here and here.
www.rlc.org
www.fairtax.org
Oh, what the heck.
"Most people have seen their house, their single largest asset, go down significantly in value."
Not universally true, but it may be the case in your town. If you aren't trying to sell your home, it's to your advantage for it to "lose" paper value. It may take a couple of years (it does here), but lower "values" mean lower property taxes.
And if you are selling your home and you plan to replace it, the replacement home will cost you less than before.
And the current reduction in the rate of building new homes automatically means that the value of existing homes will eventually start back up, sooner rather than later.
"Many of them have seen their 401k go stagnant or shrink"
Stagnant might be the average result, all right, in the last 12 months. Do you think investments, even well-diversified ones, always go up? I know--people do believe that. But that's definitely a problem with perception and education, not with reality.
"Gasoline is at $3.60 a gallon and rising."
The logical response to that is to start extracting oil from our own country. There are billions of barrels just waiting to be taken. And we wouldn't lose money on the exchange rate when buying our own oil. Add in nuclear power. Of all that you mentioned, gasoline price is the most important, because it touches everything we buy.
But all of that is not a bad economy. Most people by far still say they're in good shape (except gas is too expensive). But it is a changing economy. Republicans need to tap their conservative base and promote conservative solutions to serious dislocations.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
The argument "what happened was inevitable" is one of those arguments that is either trivially true or chock full of denial.
There are things that could have been done that would have mitigated one heck of a lot of damage.
They were not done.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
Funding and candidate recruitment is another altogether different and both have fallen dramatically since 2005
CFR, Amnesty, Spending, Corruption,
Earmarks, Socialized Medicine:
”Your Silence Is Your Consent!”
The GOP lost their chance at a permanent majority when mass immigration was accidentally (or deceptively) resumed after Ted Kennedy's awful 1965 reform act, and they then did nothing about it when they could have.
Now, the last thing that a Democrat Congress will do is to shut off a policy guaranteed to give them huge net gains in voters over the long-run.
Of course, had things not gone so horribly on a whole host of other issues over the last few years, then the majority that was created in 1994 (and regained in 2002 in the Senate) may have lasted for many years to come. In fact it is likely that it would have done so. But immigration-driven demographic trends were always going to be bad for the GOP in several currently red states, while such trends made several currently blue states even more blue.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
more later tomorrow
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Don't forget a lot of people were (and still are) upset over illegal immigration. I wouldn't be surprised if it topped the list of concerns for Texas Republicans.
I don't think conservatives or Republicans in general fit nicely into different categories. Each category is too broad and includes too many unrelated issues.
I still think the biggest loss for Republicans is a greater voter turnout and enthusiasm, particularly by people who don't normally vote. The demographic of this new group has always favored Democrats. Their greater numbers and motivation are diluting Republican support, a support that is not very enthusiastic or motivated for many of the reasons cited.
High levels of legal immigration over a long time (such is the state we are now in) was always going to be bad for the GOP. It has helped make California irretrievaly blue. It has helped turn solid-red Southwestern states into battleground states, and it will someday do the same to Texas.
That is why I am amazed at how many Republicans think we should actually increase our already high levels of legal immigration! And they call for this usually based on labor/economic grounds, but they never stop to consider if these needs (as they see them) could be met by reallocating the current mix of visas instead of just mindlessly increasing the total number.
If you can't sell them on the American dream and the benefits of conservatism.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
It is not blaming legal immigrants to point out the undeniable truth that most of them prefer the Democratic party and its policies. It is natural that the typical legal immigrant (non-white, coming in via extended family chain migration, coming from a state w/ nothing close to American conservatism) will favor the Democrats. This is not a knock on immigrants, but rather is a simple recognition of human nature.
It is hard to imagine any large group of foreign people we could import who would be more naturally drawn to conservatism than they are to the Democrats.
You are in denial if you think that the conservative pitch of low-taxes, fewer govt programs, and traditional moral values will appeal more than the demagoguery of the Left on racial and economic issues. Even with the current GOP's abandonment of opposition to racial preferences, latinos and Asians favor the Democrats.
High levels of immigration, even if it's all legal, reinforce all of the dynamics and factors that lead immigrant communities favor the Democrats in the first place. The idea that a conservative Republican party can win them over, or even consistently come close to breaking even (something it has yet to do once since the fraudulent 1965 reform act came into force) while we continue to have high annual levels of immigration is pure fantasy. Of course, WSJournal-style conservatives can always make themselves feel better by falsely attributing this to the 'xenophobia/nativism/anti-immigrant/anti-Hispanic' tone of evil Tancredo types, but the fact is that even a shameless panderer like Bush could only get at most 40% of the latino vote.
That individuals motivated and enterprising enough to travel to a foreign country to get an education, earn a living and enjoy the blessings of liberty -- and are also law-abiding enough to go through the often onerous process to do so legally -- are a more natural Democratic constituency?
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
The data do not lie. Take a look at any poll or survey. There are Democrats who work hard, love the country, and follow the law.
Or more specifically, why are they a "natural" (admittedly, my word) constituency for the Democrats?
Yes, there are Democrats who work hard, love the country, and follow the law but why do they choose the Democratic Party over the Republican Party?
And please don't say that it's immigration for some of the most strident opponents of illegal immigration I know are themselves legal immigrants.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
No, immigration is actually not an important issue to them from what I've seen. I don't think they differ that much from most other Democrats, so it's hard to say.
I don't think there is a single simple answer. Some people, especially in the media, like to try to infer answers from the demographics and polls, but that doesn't work and isn't often correct.
Similarly, there is no single simple answer to why Republican support has declined so deep and wide across the country.
Reasons are going to be different for everyone, and I suspect a lot of people often just end up doing what everyone else seems to be doing. I'd be surprised if even half the voting population actually voted on real issues their candidate would actually be able to do anything about ("change," "yes we can," "for the children," etc).
But I argue that if the "problem" that Republicans have with legal immigrants is the same "problem" that Republicans have with general population, then the "problem" is not with legal immigration. Solve the "problem" with the general population and you solve the "problem" with legal immigrants.
Moreover, I also think that economically legal immigration is good for the United States. As I have argued elsewhere, the real economic problem with immigration is the minimum wage.
*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!
The Democratic local leadership's failure in Katrina and their ability to blame it on Bush is what led to the downfall of the GOP. Political capital was drained and he became a lame duck. The public lost all confidence in Bush and the GOP after that.
As for the GOP's own failures, it started with the ousting of Newt. Delay and Hastert wanted to buy the majority, not earn it.
than most Rs are willing to admit. Of course, it is living proof that in politics a lie is better than the truth if you can get people to believe it, but the constant D meme since then has been competence, corruption, self-interestedness, etc. and IT HAS WORKED.
In Vino Veritas
... and it bled out into everything else. It was the beginning of the end.
Worse was that he did nothing to stymie the hemorrhaging.
"First you win the argument, then you win the vote." - MARGARET THATCHER.
So let's start winning the argument.
The press secretary at the time sucked beyond all measure. They did a terrible job of handling the Katrina story.
Most of the fault was due to the local leadership, but they did little to set the record straight.
People are always primed to believe Republicans are heartless. This fed into that.
The problem is while people are more than willing to believe that Democrats are liars they never seem able to believe they are lying to them.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
There is no denying that Bush damaged the brand, to use the expression that seems so popular these days, but I put more of it at the feet of Tom Delay. He was the one who ran the house the way he did - who wouldn't police his own members (or himself) and let scandal after scandal happen. He kicked GOP members off the oversight boards because they refused to cover up for other GOP members. He froze out moderates by only brining stuff to the floor if it had the support of 'the majority of the majority' - so much for democracy! I despise the man - to me he was a GOP Jim Wright. I hate that Newt - the ideas man - was forced out and replaced with this creep. For all Newt's flaws, he would nave never let the GOP become the stale, corruption party and that's what Tom Delay did.
John S. McCain III
Eric Cantor for VEEP
...in a two party democracy.
Median voter theory would suggest that both parties are always attempting to optimize their electoral chances by moving toward the median voter.
temporary majorities are of course achieveable, but the pendulum will inevitiably swift back to the other party.
I'm not sure the electorate is that keen on permanent majorities in general. I suspect this shows a healthy (if sometimes subconscious) scepticism on the part of the American public.
What happened between the "permanent Republican majority" dream and now was the 2006 election. We pretty much lost the independents, and the biggest issues were corruption and Iraq. And Iraq was negative largely due to the silly groupthink shown at the time. "Let's stay the course with what's not working!"
Yes, we lost some votes because of needless violations against libertarianism. But what we really lost was the perception of Republicans as reliable. That's hard to get back while in the minority.
in 2006 because we were mad about spending more money than we wanted on the wrong things.
It's even worse now in terms of anger, but at least we have John McCain to support this time. I'll let you decide if that was snarky or not, because I can't.
--
Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
of the base not coming out in 2006, save one: the Senate race in Montana we lost because of an 8% Libertarian vote. That probably included some Republicans. Anything else?
I wish Republicans had been turned out for being wasteful with money. But we're far from winning this national argument.
I always have believed that "staying the course" meant to persevere until we win, not that we'd continue to use the same strategy and tactics until we win. I also have always felt that Bush should have made that clear in the first place.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
heading but doesn't mean to not navigate around obvious dangers (i.e. rocks, icebergs, liberals etc.!).
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