Redstate

I was a fan of hers for quite some time. But then she started playing up to her crowd, and the tone of her site changed a bit, so I stopped reading.

This is good to see, and is the kind of thinking that made me a fan to begin with. She's fired up with a constructive purpose.

Some of her new fans will hate her, but this is the right thing. Thank you, Michelle Malkin.

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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

Your whole strategy assumes the rest of the party is made up of fools.

Why should they ever, ever support a conservative, if behind their backs conservatives are calling them RiNOs and not backing them in return?

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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

Neil,

This is more about leadership. In many cases, moderate leaders in the Republican party used scare tactics to try to convince conservative voters that their more conservative primary candidate couldn't possibly win the general election.

That is what happened in both CA and PA. Sure, McClintock would have had to compromise with a Democrat legislature, but (a) at least he'd have started the negotiations from a much more conservative stance than Schwarzenegger. (b) I think that McClintock would have been successful in swaying them towards his arguments. Sure, the final bills wouldn't be near conservative... but it would be a heck of a lot more conservative than what they have now with Schwarzenegger.

ALSO: Unlike Arnold, McClintock would have NEVER EVER EVER have signed SB777, which bans any activity that "reflects adversely upon" ..."sexual orientation".

I'm absolutely not a gay-hater. In past jobs, I have had employees who were gay and who liked me because they say that I was impartial. But SB777 is so vague in its wording that a high school civics teacher would breaking the law just merely by having a class where they discuss the historical arguments and science both for and against the question about whether being a homosexual is either natural or learned behavior. To liberals in CA, since this question is settled in their minds (and anyone disagreeing with them is obviously a homophobe), then such action by a school teacher would definately "reflects adversely upon" those who are gay.

(Does this not remind you of the U.S.S.R.? What are we coming to? And a Republican governor signed this into law? Amazing!)

BTW - In case you think I'm exageratting, consider that, to liberals in CA, such a class discussion would like having a class discussion about whether blacks are a step closer to chimps in evolution. (DISCLAIMER: I reject THAT idea because science shows that the differences in race are tiny, skin color differences are merely due to melanoma, and we are all descended from a common human ancester.. something that evolutionists, geneticics, and creationists agree upon. But most of the leading evolutionists of about 100 years ago believed this... based on bad science, btw.)

(I rest my case about Schwarzenegger/McClintock.)

But I digress...

If we just had more leadership and pooled our resources and strategically targetted JUST A FEW particular RINOs... then, everything else remaining the same... we'd probably get that one or two critical extra votes that we might need once we retake the majority.

Had we done a better job at this years ago, our tax cuts under Bush would have been 50% larger. (We were one single Republican-Senator-Vote away from making that happen!)

Sure, there are some states where a somewhat moderate Republican might be the best we can do... MA, VT, etc. ...but Pennsylvania is NOT one of them. We could have done better in Penn.

Witness how the leadership-first, pound-the-table-and-call-yourselves-the-Real-Party strategy has gotten the Daily Kos people precisely zippo from this new Congress.

There's no shortcut. Suck it up, and work from the ground up for the party, or you get nothing. Ever.

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McClintock is a great guy, but he has a lost two races for state-wide office. The situation here in California is that social conservatives can't get elected statewide. That has always been true, even in Reagan's time. Unfortunately, some people refuse to recognise this and they have been handing the state over to the Democrats for a generation. (Lungren/Simon/Jones/Fong/Mountjoy...all losers)

Arnold would have won regardless of what conservatives did because he attracted many independents and Democrats who normally never consider Repubs. I'm disappointed with Arnold, we can do better, but he is the only thing standing between Californians and massive tax increases right now. It's better to have a quarter loaf than none at all.

And I am REALLY fed up with those conservatives who only care about ideological purity (and their control of the party) and who don't give a damn about winning elections.

We wouldn't win even if we nominated a moderate on abortion. No, if we pushed the compromise rape/incest/life of the mother abortion positon, we'd still get our hats handed to us statewide.

California right now votes abortion on demand, and it's unreasonable to ask that the party give up one of its major planks, sorry.

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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

Adopt a candidate with a moderate position on abortion and then run a campaign focusing on fiscal conservative and immigration themes. You can get some conservative ideas out here but not the whole bag. Alternatively, take the position that Pete Wilson and Deukmejian had and that Guiliani has today.

It's 41 years since Reagan was first elected governor of California, and for 29 of them we had Republican governors. California IS winnable for Republicans.

What is unreasonable is for the California Republican party to abandon California to the Democrats.

The state has abandoned American values is all.

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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

is really due to a percieved hardline on immigration rather than on abortion? Like I wonder if we could do better if we ran a pro-life hispanic who was moderate on immigration.

Schwarzenegger ran on no licenses for illegals, and securing the border.

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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

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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

I wouldn't be suprised if a popular actor like him could have run a moderately pro-life stance and still won.

Garry South showed Democratic operatives statewide that if you constantly hammer "a woman's right to chose", You win big. (Wikipedia link because our complete moron of a Secretary of State even has a broken webpage now, after breaking voting all across the state with last minute rules changes, causing many to have to use paper ballots again)

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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

It does seem like maybe if we were sucessful at getting hispanics in the party based on the fact that they are I think naturally socially conservative we would have better sucess. The problem with California, though is you've got to many big ctities. In a state like Nebraska you have enough open air for people to be able to think straight. :-)

If we ditched LA County and the Bay area, we'd be the new Arizona. 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

based on the fact that they [Hispanics] are I think naturally socially conservative we would have better sucess.

Sure there are some socially conservative Hispanics, but proportionately they don't fit that outdated stereotype of God fearing simple Catholic peasants. Especially in terms of the social decay among the subset of Mexicans we get with the largely unskilled immigration from there (legal chain migration and illegals). Try looking up some statistics on the rates of unwed motherhood, abortion (yes, enough teen and tween pregnancies can give you a high rate of both) before you make assumptions.

Democrats thrive on voters who consume more in government services than they pay in taxes. Those voters are just voting their self interest when they elect candidates who provide more free abortions and welfare for single mothers.

out to them based on social issues, sure there may be a significant portion that aren't socially conservative, but I got a feeling there's more SoCons among illegals than EconCons. For one thing they are Catholic, and I don't think Catholics tend to be fiscal conservatives.

Yes the Pope is undoubtedly a so con, but I'm not aware of any data indicating that Catholics tend to be any more socially conservative than other groups. My recollection is that Catholics abort, sodomize and divorce about as much as everybody else, and that Democrats do just fine in heavily Catholic states.

Yes you're right we should try to appeal to any voters willing to consider the wisdom of our policies - whether they're black, Hispanic, gay, atheist, whatever. But we have to be realistic about the fact that among some demographic groups we're going to persuade very few.

I'm not aware one way or another of any data suggesting that pushing social conservative issues is likely to attract more Hispanics, rather than push more of them into the Democrats' arms. However given the empirical data about Hispanics' tendency toward very socially unconservative views on single motherhood and abortion, I highly doubt we should assume calling for legal changes to discourage such behavior would attract more Hispanic voters than it alienates.

A lot of Hispanics don't vote. Republicans promising to to stop them or their daughters/sisters from getting abortions or collecting welfare is a sure fire way to get them to the polls voting Democratic.

First, I agree that, in a normal election year, McClintock wouldn’t have a chance in CA. But during the time that he ran, Californians had just gotten a large dose of the effects of liberalism and I think they were fed up with the results and were more open to conservative alternatives. Additionally, even though McClintock is technically a social conservative, he doesn't wear it on his shirt sleeve like Brownback or Huckabee. And his main claim to fame is his fiscal bonifides. This would have also been a great contributing factor to McClintock's success in CA. The Left would NOT have had much colorful ammo to use against him for his social conservative stances... but the Christian right would have been out in full force helping him and voting for him in high percentages. The economic conservatives would have as well. This was the Reagan formula. Distinctly and unashamedly social conservative... but NOT NOT NOT NOT "in your face... gays and abortionists are going to hell"... type rhetoric... with a strong fiscal conservative record. (somehow, we've lost this approach)

Still, admittedly, in today's environment, neither McClintock nor Reagan could win CA since the whole state has shifted liberal. But in that particular election year, McClintock could have won the primaries and the general election... if we had only gotten behind him.

At is stands, I'd see little difference between what Arnold is doing and what a well organized and disciplined Liberal Democrat would do.

Given that the state party endorsed Schwarzenegger, that conservatives flocked to him anyway was impressive.

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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

We can't neglect the down ballot and since the Rockefeller wing has declared war on us we should go after RINOs with a vengenc in 2010. I will leave the presidential ballot blank if it's McCain.

To compromise with evil is to corrupt good!

Go Mike Go!!!

... and I think the comments about local government apply here.

We should all endeavor to support Republican candidates running for all levels of office throughout the US.

But we also need to recognize the limitations in trying to project a certain type of candidate into a local market.

Take Pennsylvania. Both Santorum and Specter have been chosen by the State party tho represent Republicans. Specter has be selected a number of times. and won the general election a number of times. On a national level, we have to respect the choices of the Pennsylvania voters. in the case of Santorum, he was also selected by the state party, but he had lost touch with the general electorate. We have to accept that, too.

If you want an example of a case where the national party over reached in a local election, look at the democrats and Joe Lieberman. The national antiwar Kossite meddled too much in the primary, and Lieberman left the party, and still won. What an embarrassment for the Democrats.

In regards to California and Tom vs. Arnold, the state system is set up so that McClintock would have had to work with the Democrats (they have control of the House and Senate here, as well as the AG, Lt. Governor, and mayorships of the two largest cities). Anyone familiar with the frequent budget shutdowns knows that you can't get the checks signed and mailed without some sort of compromise. And, in all fairness, Arnold got the votes.

Thus was the behavior of the Whigs just before they went into oblivion giving birth to the Republican Party.

To compromise with evil is to corrupt good!

Go Mike Go!!!

Back McCain. Its our only true hope...that includes huck supporters

Not today Mwright91. I drank the koolaid for Dole in 1996 the last time the RINO establishment gave us the middle finger...I won't go down that road again.

I will volunteer and vote down ballot. I will work like a fiend to defeat any RINO withing reach but the RNC and John McCain can kiss my rosy red a**.

To compromise with evil is to corrupt good!

Go Mike Go!!!