Mr. Shadegg's Letter
By Erick Posted in Republicans — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
November 8, 2006
Dear Republican Colleague,
The American people sent us an important message yesterday. They told us that we need to recommit ourselves to our core principles as Republicans, the principles of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. We are the party of limited government, individual responsibility, and national security. They did not repudiate our principles, but they have rejected some of our recent practices.
The historic Contract with America made this pledge:
"We propose not just to change the [House of Representatives] policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives."
We must rededicate ourselves to that task. We also said we would end:
"government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public money," and begin "a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American Family."
We were right then and we are right now.
Read on . . .
We may be fewer in number, but we can be more united and therefore, more effective in the next two years as we lay the foundation for the re-ascension of the Republican Party in the House. We must all work together to rebuild the trust America placed in our party in 1994 through 2004.
The vicious onslaught of attacks against us, individually and collectively, showed us that our opponents will stop at nothing to gain power. We will not stoop to their level, but we must prepare for 2008. We must craft an agenda for the next Congress that emphasizes those things we all agree on - our core principles - and we must build a record of Democrats support for extreme positions out of touch with America.
We have just gone through a grueling campaign season, but we must take the lessons we learned and convert them into an action plan for the next two years.
If you allow me to serve you as Minority Whip, I will work tirelessly, shoulder to shoulder with our other Conference leaders, to unite us all around an agenda based on our shared principles.
Thank you and please feel free to call me any time to discuss the challenges we face.
Sincerely,
John Shadegg
He has always been a strong conservative voice, it is a shame he was not elected for majority leader when Delay resigned.
In the Senate we need some new blood as well. Jon Kyl is your man for that. He is smart, well respected from both sides, and is fiscally and socially conservative. He was just reelected by a margain similar to what Bush got in AZ in 04', which is more than a bunch of our red-stated fallen Senate comrades can say.
Shaddeg for House Majority Leader
Kyl for Senate Majority Leader
Excuse me,
Shaddeg for House MINORITY Leader
Kyl for House MINORITY Leader
I guess I will have to get used to mistakes like that, unfortunatly.
would make a great minority leader (too bad it wasn't majority leader before the election). We need either to bring back the conservative - small government party.
Mike Pence for Minority Leader
John Shadegg for Minority Whip
Then, in 2008 we may very well have:
Mike Pence for Speaker of the House
John Shadegg for Majority Leader
Jeb Hensarling for Majority Whip
:-)
And, oh yeah...Mitt Romney, President of the United States. :-)
But all of this talk about "we forgot our core principals" just rings way too hollow. It is like that super morning-after hangover where one pledges to never drink again - here it is the day after we get our butts handed to us and suddenly everyone is a born-again Reagan Republican. Too little to late guys - you did this to yourselves (and us) and now we all need to swallow the bitter medicine. Forgive me, but I dont buy the fact that they have seen the light so easilly - for me it will take a few years in the wilderness to weed out the RINOs and allow the real principalled conservative to rise up again. 1994 didn't happen as a result of a single election cycle, neither will our next opportunity to set this right.
why is it that the party in charge loses their way... Corruption is the major cause... Dishonesty is the second. The Republicans have had more than their share (of both)...and appropriately so. Now, do we elect Democrats or continue to elect Republicans...that is the only logical choice. Sometimes I wonder...(not really, Republicans are much better than Democats).
Mike Pence and John Shadegg sound good but actions and results count. Talk and letters are cheap. Lets see some leadership and results first. If not - time to move on to someone else.
---
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm" -- James Madison
Unfortunately, we won't be seeing results from the Republican House leadership for a long, long time. Now that the Democrats control the congress, the Republicans are irrelevant. Congressional Republicans probably won't even create their own budgets, because no one would look at them anyway, other than the Democrats who would use them for attack ads.
The minority party in the House is almost irrelevant, since it is strict majority rule. Their only function will be to provide the 1/3 necessary to uphold Bush's vetoes.
The President has decided to become a leftist at his 1 P.M. press conference yesterday, and did you all see his reaction when some reporter asked him about the possibility of passing the President's amnesty plan for illegal immigrants? Does everyone here know and understand that the amnesty plans for illegal immigrants from both President Bush and of the U.S. Senate along with a whole bunch of other "amnesty for illegal immigrant" plans will pass in the next Congress if not during the lame duck session of this Congress? Do all of you even know of all of the consequences and damage that will happen with the entire U.S. and with the conservative movement after a overpopulation boom of illegals happens here? "A country without laws is not a country."-This is what will happen soon! The U.S. will be no more, and the continuing influx of illegals will also end up creating many more voters who both support and vote for pro-socialistic politicians at every political level during every election! Conservatives will end up being permanently outnumbered, and then everyone can truly say good-bye to conservatism! Also, the Fairness Doctrine will eventually pass in the socialistic Congress, and this will put a permanent "gag order" and permanent bans on all non-socialistic political thought and writings-good-bye to all conservative web sites and blogs including Red State and Free Republic, good-bye to all non-socialistic talk radio, good-bye conservative books, and good-bye conservative magazines/newsletters. Please prove me wrong on all of these things because I really want conservatism to make a decent comeback everywhere!
I'm starting to wonder if the majority party always loses vision. Why did it take this defeat for the republicans to remember people want limited government?
Even in my own state (Missouri) I saw Jim Talent during the debate talking about how he was so proud of his Ethanol bill.. because ethanol was so cheap, the government forcing gas stations to carry it was saving us money.
Of course... its complete non-sense because ethanol is heavily subsidized through farm, corn, and alternative fuel subsidies. Not only that, but it was STILL only cheaper on a $/gallon basis and NOT $/Energy. Ethanol contains roughly HALF the amount of energy of gasoline.
Regardless of the merits of ethanol, though, the fact is he was bragging about government interference. While I loved Jim Talent, it seemed to epitomize to me how much the republican party had lost its vision.
At every point on the debates, I saw republicans not bragging about how they reduced government, but about how they "brought home the pork". If you want to get me excited, don't tell me how you made the government help me -- that's an oxymoron. Tell me how you reduced the government's foot print in my life.
- left-wing, right-wing, in-tandem, shadowy conspiracy ring leader
ethanol has got to be one of the biggest scams perpetrated on us. It CONSUMES a lot of energy and natural resources to produce - fuel for the farm equipment, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides then several gallons of good clean water per gallon of ethanol in the processing. Better (economically and environmentally) to drill in the gulf or the frozen tundra wasteland (aka ANWAR).
Just don't understand these environmentalists and how they can continue their propaganda.. Well, I guess we all have out problems... They just take advantage of them...
I was and still am largely conservative when it comes to the issues of big government, government spending and personal privacy. While in the late 90s I might have considered myself a Republican, ever since 2002 or so, that ended. I just don't see the Republican party representing those issues as they used to and frankly, it seemed that they were against expanded government powers only when that federal government happend to be headed by the opposite party. Sometimes I think that our government works best when each party has one branch - as long as they're willing to talk to each other of course.
Yo, n00b, let me tell you what the score is here;
You may want to talk trash, you may want to jeer,
You got your thang wet and you feel like a man
You're jumping, you're pumping, you're down with the plan;
And so you come around to blow gas in our faces
Because we got schooled in the Congress' races.
You're thinking, we're shrinking, we're meat for the grill,
And you can keep schooling us - and maybe you will;
But that's not what will be the message of this ditty,
Your rhymes are flowing, which makes it a pity
Because double-posting your sneers is pretty pretty sloppy;
Cuz they both go away - so I hope you saved a copy.
Boyyy.
John would be TERRIFIC!