Senator Alexander Goes to the Floor to Take on RedState and Misses the Point
By Erick Posted in 2008 — Comments (47) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In response to my postings here at RedState (see here and here), Senator Lamar Alexander just took to the floor of the Senate to inform his colleagues that many Senators said it was the best retreat they had had in a long time.
I bet those who said it were also Appropriators, because I assure you there were a number of Republican Senators who thought Senator Alexander's plan of action presented at the retreat is willfully naive in the get along to go along spirit of Bob Michels.
Also, Senator Alexander said, in response to my post, that it is not the job of the Republicans to tear down the Democrats.
First, it is rather gratifying to see a United States Senator forced to go to the floor of the Senate to defend insanity against a lowly blogger.
Second, Senator Alexander, it is the job of the Republican Party to defeat the Democratic Party. You defeat them with better ideas. You defeat them in committee. You defeat them in parliamentary machinations. You defeat them on the floor. You defeat them at the ballot box.
In short, sir, you win. You do not sit at Harry Reid's lap waiting for him to throw you a bone, which is exactly what you are advocating. Sure, with your approach you'll pee on the floor on occasion to score a point, but you and your party, sir, will always be the ones on the wrong end of the leash.
Buck up or squish out, Senator. We at RedState aim to win.
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Senator Alexander Goes to the Floor to Take on RedState and Misses the Point 47 Comments (0 topical, 47 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
It's clear that the party needs to have its own war with itself, to get rid of the Alexander's and McConnell's from leadership positions and elevate those who truly believe in the cause.
Mitch McConnell also uses his powers for good; if you define "good" as "utterly controlling Harry Reid," which I personally do. So you're going to get resistance on that.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Harry Reid is Harry Reid's biggest problem. Mitch McConnell is a big government Republican, which I personally dislike. His entire reelection campaign is based upon profiling the pork that he as brought home.
...he runs the Senate. Which is quite the trick, considering that we only have 49 Republican Senators.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
If you go back and review Senator Alexander's bills that he has brought to the floor you see why I refer to him as Senator Feel Good. Passive type bills that are suppose to make you want to go out and hug a tree hugger or kiss a frog. Just downright pathic.
Lamar's bills are all geared to making everyone "just feel so good"!!! I haven't seen anything BOLD from him since he sat down in the well and he's my own senator.
Will a real man in TN run against Senator Feel Good? We need Ed Bryant or Janice Bowling to step up and take charge. I'm still waiting on Corker to grow up. Dang shame that Ed lost to Corker.
Thompson?
I'd like to see Fred back in the senate. Although, he would be a good Gov.
for President in 2008
Very intelligent, would make a good senator. For good or bad, Alexander will not have a real primary opponent & likely will not have a real general election opponent. Perhaps Ed Bryant will have another chance sometime down the road - maybe get back into congress if Marsha B moves somewhere else?
I supported Ed in the primary & Corker during the general. Corker's been strong on the illegal alien stuff - not "perfect" but better than Jr. would have been.
Like on the illegal alien AMNESTY bill, we need to keep the pressure on Alexander. Bipartisanship is great when the it's good for the country - it's not when it's what the democrats want to do. Surely Alexander believes that there is a significant difference between republican values & democrat values? Surely he believes our values are right?
I have difficulty reconciling this with your intention to vote for Fred! even though he is out of the race.
The remaining choices may be imperfect choices for someone who is a conservative first, and a Republican second.
However,
If you and RedState should want to leverage the clout that you have earned, you should not squander it by taking your football and going home.
...confusing intentions for a primary rather than winning the general? Far be it for me to speak for or divine the intentions of Mr. Erickson but I've yet to hear him say he's sitting this one out or not working for a win!
Founder and contributor to The Minority Report and Editor for The Hinzsight Report
than a US Senator?
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Founder and contributor to The Minority Report and Editor for The Hinzsight Report
Not the one named Alexander, anyway. Who the hell put this guy in charge of anything, anyway? After all, if he is in that position, someone backed him for it... Who? Who the hell thought he was the guy for the job?
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"It will not be McCain."
-Taniwha
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Finrod's First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.
Who would have expected such a clever twist. How did you .. how'd you do that? You brought this topic, see, about someone else. See? And you, like, you made it into a chance to say something negative about John McCain! See? That's so funny! And clever? So clever. HAHA!! McCain, get it? It's McCain!
What do you think? Was it McCain? Maybe it was Fred Thompson? No, it was probably McCain. In which case, OMG ROFL LMAO!!
McCain! McCain! McCain is bad! Senators! It's McCain! McCain Bad! I have this song, it's called McCain bad.
Only one note though ...
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
ps. ... ... It was McCain!! Get it? McCain!!!!
Are these names familiar to you at all?
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
John Kerry
John Edwards
Bob Dole
George McGovern
Hubert Humphrey
Warren Harding
Benjamin Harrison
What do you think they have in common?
You'll note the only two I omitted are JFK (wasn't in office long enough to tank) and Barry Goldwater.
Have you ever considered doing something with your life to relax other than just reading and posting to Redstate? You sound like you could really use a hobby.
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Finrod's First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.
Maybe he wasn't in office long enough to tank, but sure he gave it a really good try in the short time he was there.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Right. That's who you meant. Believable.
You're stooping to the old "you need to get a life" argument now?
Well, I guess it's an improvement over MCCAAAAIIN!!!!11!1111!!1111!
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
However, the Surgeon General has warned that ingesting too much Kool-Aid is not healthy and can cause a lack of critical thinking.
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Finrod's First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.
You could have been as funny in reply as I was calling you out for your off-point smackdown. You went a different route. Now it's turning into a threadjack. Drive-bys aren't exactly fodder for good debate, are they?
Former Fredhead, Current McCainiac
absentee
Because they don't want to be part of this mess. These politicians are career politicians for one reason and One reason only, they can't get a Real job in the private sector because they have no work experience! They're making a living off their own created version of welfare.
Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security. --Edmund Burke
Blog: TMYN
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
you fight them on the landing grounds. You NEVER surrender. (h/t WSC)
Seriously; the kind of confrontation necessary to be the implacable foe of your adversary, with the Democrat Congress enemy is not too strong, is just beyond the ken for most of the sort of people who run for and get elected to office in this media driven World. They just like too much to be liked. The only reason someone like Gingrich could do it is that he was nobody from nowhere, a back bencher who under the radar organized his obstreperous cell and used it to organize around the leadership - of both parties. No matter what, the leadership of both parties will have more in common with each other than with their own caucus and constituencies. They get and keep their power by getting along and going along with each other.
In Vino Veritas
"No matter what, the leadership of both parties will have more in common with each other than with their own caucus and constituencies. They get and keep their power by getting along and going along with each other."
The light bulb just came on, that help me make sense out of a self destructive position for the party by the "leadership".
And while am at it, thank you too Erick, your posts are good and obviously starting to have an effect. Keep at it!
______________________________
"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
sold his soul to be part of the political aristocracy from the time he got out of school. He is a worthless pile of respirating flesh.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Pure and simple, he could be a democrat and you would not notice the difference in either style or substance...wait, stike that, he does not have substance.
Don't you guys remember the flannel shirt presidential run?
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
With all due respect, I'm wary of saying that the purpose of the Republican party is to beat the Democrats. This is the sort of attitude that justified the Medicare expansion (it'll help us win the elderly), No Child Left Behind (it'll help us win soccer moms), and outrageous pork (it'll protect our members in swing districts). I'd suggest that the purpose of the Republican party is to pursue good legislation, and if it takes a Democrat cosponsor, or a Democrat getting credit, so be it as long as conservatism is advanced.
I don't mean to suggest that you think abandoning principle for electoral gain is a win worth having, but I a "just win" mentality is the reason big government conservatives have had such success, and we should be wary of it.
"The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions."
and I would add that even Reagan did not take a 'win or nothing' strategy. He set the bar high, got what he could but did not *iss all over his opponents in the process which left the door open to coming back again at a later date to get more of what he wanted.
Not very conservative, but a nice guy. As Governor in TN he had some bi-partisan success. I believe that the dream of bipartisanly working together on things good for the country is a pollyannanistic attitude that does not take into consideration the gutter-fighting that takes place in Washington. Alexander is merciful - those on the other side, the democrats, are not merciful in a political sense.
It is my hope that, if nothing else, Alexander becomes a "good cop" to McConnel's & other's "bad cops."
As a independent I goes through both liberal blogs and conservative blogs. From my point of view nothing is an absolute and there are times when a republican idea works in a particular situation and then there are times where a democrat solution works in a particular situation. I always thought the role of political parities was to make the country as a whole better and greater then before versus trying to destroy a particular party.
And so I ask here as someone unsure who to vote in the presidential election, are all ideas from republicans correct and are all ideas from democrats bad, does all solutions demand one point of view or can multiple points of view come up with a better solutions then ones own ideas in isolation.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
I thought you were like the seventieth most powerful Republican in the country according to some poll. Lowly blogger, you give yourself no credit. Where was Lamar Alexander on that list?
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor
the only way to make a greater united states?
is to destroy ideas that you do not agree with unconditionally without any idea that it might actually have merit, according to Daily kos you are all ignorant idiots who are a cancer to the country , I question that as much as when you guys say that all ideas from the left are the ship of fools, I always thought that as a cowardly independent ( which is what daily kos would say as much as red state would say,) that if we work together we can bring out the best in all of us to make a greater United States, but perhaps I am nieve and as Daily kos would assualt me for not following all of their ideas unconditionalLY that you will do the same to me.
here dismiss and idea just because it comes from a D; we're really not the myrmidons of the VWRC the Left makes us out to be. Because of where I live and what I do for a living, I'm more of like Democrat on many economic and labor issues than most Democrats, at least at the state level, and certainly have my disagreements with some here, but we can usually be civil about it and actually exchange ideas.
The issue is not really Democrat ideas, though most here disagree fundamentally with many of the things the Ds want to do. The issue is Democrat tactics. Democrats do not care about ideas qua ideas, they care about an idea only if that idea provides a political position for them. If you come towards them, they back away. If you offer to settle, the price goes up. They DO NOT WANT TO SOLVE PROBLEMS. They want a constituency associated with a problem and they want to keep that constituency in play. Were they ever to solve that constituency's problem, they'd lose that constituency. The Iraq War is a graphic example. Only the looniest of the Lefties in Congress really want to back out of Iraq, they're not stupid and they know all Hell would break loose and oil prices would go to stunning levels crippling the economy. They put it in play though on fool's errand initiatives that they know would never succeed, and which they don't want to succeed, but want to use for political advantage. On issue after issue, they take the most extreme position desired by some constituent group knowing full well that position hasn't a hope in Hell of ever getting a majority vote, but they can say they carried the flag for that group, blame it on the Rs, and keep the group in play.
You cannot do business with people like that!
In Vino Veritas
I was a sleep when 9/11 was occuring I lived in Long lsland at that time as a 22 year old although I spent most of my life at that point in New York city, brooklyn to be exact, I remember that day like it was yesterday, my brother wakes me up I turn on the tv I watch one of the twin towers burn in smoke and I have this sickening feel of excitement like I am watching some fictional movie intstead of the real thing, and then one of the towers fall and them I remmber that my father works two blocks away from when the towers fall, and then I remember my mother calling up in a panic as she was working as a school secretary in the new york school system in the time, and I remember putting a breath face on and telling her it will be okay, that dad will be fine, but inside panicking not knowing if i would see my father again, and then my Grandma came home from the senior citizen close by my house and I asked is this how pearl harbor felt and she said yes. Eventually my dad with dirt and ash all over him and god knows what else came home thankfully alive although he was one of those running from the dark smoke from the collaspe of the twin towers and I wiped the ashes from my fathers face grateful that he was still alive.
I supported the rightful invasion of afghanistan, I supported the invasion of iraq, I believed like anyone else who was rational at the time that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, I support that we are in there now, knowing if we leave early then it is likely that the next generation would have the fight the war that we did not finish.
But I also can not help that Osama Bin Laden is smiling right now even though that cowardly dog is hiding in a cave, after all his goal was to divide not only the world against the united states but to divide the United states against it self, and he has succeded in that regard, rarely has partianship been so deep, rarely has the United states politically been so divided as we are now, rarely how both sides have questioned not only the ideas of the other side but the question the motives of each other in the first place.
We may have great disagrements in how better to forward our great country of ours against those who wish the greatest harm toward it, unfortunatly it appears that we see our disagrements against each other as a greater threat against our livelihoods then our true enemies from Putin to Iran to Bin Laden who seek our eternal down fall, and that to me as an independent is a true tragedy. Only when as a democrat and as a republican that we can listen to each other and try to see the best in each other versus questioning our motivations to each other will we truly be safe against those who seek our downfall
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Everybody's all a-flutter about the free money coming with the stimulus package right now. We had this lovely little bipartisan group-grope yesterday and all that rot. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts there will not be a stimulus package. The Ds will start adding more and more groups of poor oppressed people (who likely vote D) who won't be able to participate in whatever version of the scheme the Rs will accept. If the Rs are stupid enough to accept the new group, they'll add another, and another until it finally becomes so obscene that even the feckless so-called R leadership in the Senate, or Heavens, perhaps even GWB, won't accept it. That would be a Democrat dream; they get over on the Senate "leadership" with some obscene giveaway and GWB vetos it. Democrat electoral Heaven!
In Vino Veritas
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
By contrast, we're reminded of just how "misunderestimated" GWB's political acumen really is. GWB consistently manages to get his way with a majority-Democrat Congress, even without any help from some of these hapless Republicans who have forgotten how the legislature works.
How much booze and how many bimbos did the RNC supply?
We can suppose that the Democrats didn't need the auxiliary entertainment on their retreat, since theirs was probably supplied in house.
I love it. Why play the game if you don't want to win?